Video games are an especially effective mediu꧋m for building up anticipation of an epic final fight with the boss. In almost every great game, there's a palpable sense of building tension as you fight your way through enemies to the final confrontation with your arch nemesis. To create a truly great video game boss, several factors are needed. First, they need to powerful and physically imposing to pose a visible threat to the protagonist. This can be done with sheer brute force, or the ability to control a situation. Second, a true video game antagonist also has a memorable and animatꩲed personality. There's no denying that a great villain is just as important to crafting a good story as a good hero, if not more so.
Of course, sometimes we end up loving the bad guy, even to the point we 🦋don't want to kill them anymore. Sometimes their motives are inherently sympathetic, even if their methods are questionable. Other times even unambiguously evil villains manage to make you feel sad for causing their deaths because they were just so charismatic and entertaining. A little personality goes a long way with villains, and🉐 video game bosses are no different. Some bosses are even outright tragic figures or old friends of the protagonist, and it makes sense for them to meet their death at the hands of a reluctant hero.
Here are 15 video game bosses who we didn't want to kill. Please be aware there will be major spoilers for each of the games involved.
15 ♒Screaming Pirಌate Psychopaths Are Always Fun
Ask anyone who played Far Cry 3 what they remember most about the game, and the first thing to come out of their mꦉouth is almost guaranteed to be "Vaa🅘s." More specifically, how loud Vaas screamed, how crazy and psychopathic he was, and how he was used in all the promotional art for the game despite not actually being the main antagonist.
As a pirate leader, human trafficker, murderer, and drug smuggler, Vaas will never earn points for likability or being sympathetic. But he was a memorable character and stole ✃every scene he appeared in without fail. Even though he was murderous and clearly out of his gourd, the pirate lord was endlessly entertaining to watch, and any player who says they didn't🐻 feel a twinge of disappointment when he was killed off halfway through the game is lying.
14 🥂 Date, Marry, Kill? ꦜ
The Beauty and the Beast Unit from Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots are a group of four female super-soldiers named after the bosses from the first game. Despite their appearance as inhuman machines, they shed their beastly mechanical armor after Solid Snake defeats them, ꦑand in the process you learn the backstory of each Beauty.
As if their appearance as moꦗdels in skin-tight catsuits wasn't enough motivation to not kill them right away, it turns out all four are suffering from terrible combat post-traumatic stress disorder from their experiences on the battlefield. Who really wants to kill four emotionally disturbed women with PTSD, especially when they're helpless, broken, and crying before you? If anything you probably wanted to have Snake give them a hug.
13 Sympathetic Spider-Lady ❀
Chaos Witch Quelaag is one of the daughters of the Witch of Izalith, though she's primarily remembered by players as "the big lava-spewing spider lady." You have to fight her in Blighttown to get to the second Bell of Awakening and progress in the main storyline of Dark Souls. Thus, you have no choice but to f🍒ight her and kill her. It seems like it would be easy to kill a monstrous half-spider, right?
Unless you know the lore surrounding Quelaag and her sisters, who were turned into half-spiders by the Flame of Chaos incident. And should you find Quelaag's sister Quellan behind a hidden wall with the Old Witch's ring equipped, you'll find out that Quellan is dying after trying to heal the people of Blighttown by sucking the blig♍ht out of their bodies. Quelaag was taking care of her, and likely only trying to protect her from you.
12 We Had A Bad Time 💎
The deceptively cute indie role-playing game and massive cult hit Undertale features the option for both Pacifist and Genocide runs, and everything in between. In a world where humans and monsters used to co-exist before a war drove the monsters underground, the game emphasiz🧜es that it's the player's choice when it comes to killing or sparing enemies.
While every boss battle in the Genocide or evil run of the Undertale will make you feel like a total scumbag, the final fight of a Genocide run is Sans the Skeleton, a fight that will crush your soul with its difficulty and ability to make you realize the weight of your sins. If soullessly killing all the monsters in Undertale didn't hurt you, murdering an adorable laid-back pun-telling skeleton in one hit - after he falls asleep, no less - will.
11 ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ Nice Guys 🔯Really Do Finish Last
Considered to be one of the most tragic characters in the Resident Evil survival horror franchise, Steve Burnside is a prisoner of Rockfort Island who meets protagonist Claire Redfield during the course of the game. In Resident Evil: Code Veronica, the two eventually form a friendly partnership, but they are captured and S﷽teve is injected with the T-Veronica virus. Predictably enough for anyone familiar with Umbrella Corpo🍰ration's less-than-moral business practices, it mutates him into a huge grotesque monster.
Now up against your former friend, the still-recognizable Steve is impossible to fight, but he sacrifices himself to save Claire from Alexia's tentacles. Even though the player didn't kill him directly, there's no way to save Steve, which is pretty sad. While the "I love you...Clai...re" line that follows is one of the worst-acted cutscenes i🅰n gaming his🌠tory, it's undeniably sad that a genuinely good guy like Steve Burnside had to sacrifice himself to save Claire's life.
10 Philosophy 101 With A Dictator
Though it gives you the choice of four factions to side with, Fallout: New Vegas clearly bias🗹es you towards joining the New ♚California Republic (NCR) from the very start. The antagonists of the game are the NCR's archenemies, the autocratic Roman-style slave army known as Caesar's Legion. When you finally met their leader, the eponymous Caesar, he turns out to not be what you'd expect.
While players may find his methods distasteful, it's undeniable that Caesar is charismatic and highly intelligent, soundi🎉ng more like a scholar than a bloodthirsty warlord. The conversation you have with him is hands-down the best one in the game. If you never thought you'd hear Hegel and dialectics discussed in a video game, buckle up. While most supporters of the NCR or Mr. House will slay Cae🙈sar after talking with him (or even before), it's undeniable the supreme leader makes some good points.
9 ꦛ Monster Or Misunderstood? 🌠
Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2 was a villain you couldn't help but love. He was with you throughout the whole game, being arrogant and condescending from the radio every few minutes, mocking you (rightly) for being mercenary scum. It's easy to dismiss Jack as a heartless psychopath, but those who played Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel know better.
Jack is a highly complex and charismatic figure and a classic example of an antagonist who thinks they're the hero of their own story. He genuinely wants to save Pandora, and is quick to violence because he's been abandoned, abused, and betrayed by everyone he ever cared about, including some of the supposed "heroes" of Borderlands 2. Jack's last words are, "You're the bandits, and I'm the goddamned hero!𓆉" Even in death, his de🦄termination never falters. You gotta admire that in your opponents.
8 She Just Wanted To Save Humanity
One of the most hotly debated villains in video game history, Marlene is the leader of the Fireflies from The Last of Us. When Marlene encounters Joel and Ellie, she learns of Ellie's immunity to the cordyceps virus and that performing surgery on her might led to the development of a vaccine. Unfortunately, it will mean her death. Marlene sees Ellie's death as necessary to save humanity, while protagonist Joel (w🔯ho has already lost one daughter), refuses to let anything happen to his adopted daugh꧟ter.
The Last of Us fanbase is sharply divided over Marlene's motives, and whether she or Joel are the true antagonist of the game. But whether you think Marlene was an authoritarian commander willing to sacrif🤪ice a young girl's life, or as a sensible leader faced with hard choices who wanted to save humanity, one thing's for certain: Joel pulling the trigger was a heartbreaking moment.
7 You Were The Bad Guy A𝓰ll Al🦋ong, Sorry
Shadow of the Colossus is an adventure-fantasy game in which you have to kill 16 gigantic creatures to resurrect a girl named Mono. One of the strangest things about the bosse🀅s that you quickly realize is that most of them don't attack until you attack them first. The game also plays haunting and sad music when you kill one, and it doesn't feel like a victory but rather a burden to kill them all. With each colossi killed, your character Wander also appears more and more sickly, and his hair slowly goes white.
At the end of the game, you find out the colossi were innocent, and it was all a plot by the evil Dormin to release f💎r𒉰agments of himself stored in the colossi. Not only did you kill beautiful and innocent creatures acting in self-defense, you also were being used by an ancient evil.
6 We Still Call Him... Revolver ⛦
Ever since Metal Gear Solid, Revolver Ocelot has been a fan favorite. Many players couldn't wait to face him in battle again. Ocelot constantly slipped under our radar in all four main MGS games, always pop⭕ping up but disappearing again before he could be captured or killed, hiღs true motives growing ever more unclear.
After MGS 2 introduced the idea that he'd become possessed by Liquid Snake's transplanted arm, he took the persona of Liquid Ocelot and appeared as the final antagonist of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Fans finally got the cinematic, epic fight between Ocelot and Solid Snake they'd wanted for so long. But the end of the game reveals that Ocelot was not actually possessed, that he was plotting against the Patriots, and that he was tryinꩲg to realize Big Boss' vision, which makes his death more tragic෴ than anything else.