Video games love to hide secrets. Even back in the days of Adventure on Atari, video games have hidden away easter eggs and hidden things to find. Most of the time these are very small things such as a little inside joke, a reference, an unlockable item, or maybe a whole level if you’re lucky. But sometimes, they go above and beyond and hide entire boss fights where most players won’t find them. This is the secret boss.
Secret bosses come in all varieties from a simple joke, to a loving reference, to an ultra-difficult super-boss. No matter what they try to be, secret bosses always feel so special and unique compared to the regular fights a game has to offer. So here are the best fights tucked deep within games.
10 The Psychiatrist
Developers have fun hiding away their secret content, sometimes putting esoteric conditions to unlock them such as with The Psychiatrist from Katana Zero. The Psychiatrist is a major character who guides the player and gives them missions throughout the game, able to be fought at the end utilizing strange psychic powers.
The Psychiatrist is a unique boss to access, with the player having to do several actions and choices throughout the game to upset them as much as possible, even going against what you should be doing in levels. If this is done, the player will be treated to the hardest fight in the game as reality itself crumbles down in a fight that you won’t be sure was actually real or not.
9 Perfectheart
Among secret bosses, there’s a small subcategory all its own, the super-boss. The super-boss is a hidden, optional challenge that is harder than any other fight in the game, one example of this being Perfectheart from Omori. Perfectheart is a strange clone of one of the antagonists, made to be utterly perfect and pure.
Perfectheart is only accessible on an alternate route during the last bits of the game, able to be fought by finding and talking to her. While accessing her isn’t that interesting, fighting her is as she proves to be a formidable challenge with a wealth of HP. She has devastating strikes that can knock party members down to a single health and hard-hitting attacks that strike all party members. Defeating her is a true test of skill and strategy.
8 Bernard
There are regular super-bosses and then there are hidden bosses that feel like an impossible challenge only for the best and most dedicated fans, that’s the sort of secret boss that Bernard from Furi is. Bernard is a hidden boss unlocked through the One More Fight DLC and beating the boss from that, being a strange mannequin that has the moves of every boss in the game and nine whole phases.
While unlocking Bernard isn’t as tough as other bosses on this list, beating them certainly is as they are a gauntlet of 9 unique phases and can take hundreds of attempts to just stand a chance against. Nothing communicates this better than the fact that they can only be fought on the much harder Furier difficulty, letting the player know what they’re getting into.
7 Slot Machine
Sometimes secrets aren’t made to be a funny joke, reference, or even a harder challenge, they’re just dang bizarre in every way such as the hidden zone and Slot Machine in the original Star Fox. Slot Machine is exactly what it says, a strange slot machine, and acts as the boss for the hidden level known as “Out of this Dimension”.
Accessing this boss is strange and esoteric as first you have to get to the level by shooting an asteroid in the asteroid belt which will make a bird that you have to let fly into you to warp. The boss itself is even stranger than its level however as rather than fight directly, it will have you spin to try to get three 7’s to make it explode. The boss can actually serve as an alternate final boss as after beating them, the game will show “The End” and even reset if you shoot at it!
6 Moon Presence
While secret bosses are usually meant to be a side attraction to the main game, other times they can be part of a completely different secret: The true ending. A hidden away path to get the best ending to a game can lead to challenging battles, such as with Moon Presence in Bloodborne. Moon Presence is an eldritch being and the true final boss of Bloodborne and is the presence controlling the other final boss, Gehrman.
Moon Presence can only be fought after the other final, Gehrman, the First Hunter, and consuming 3 “One-Third of Umbilical Cord” items hidden through the game. This boss unlocks by far the hardest ending, although some would say this eldritch being is easier to face than Gehrman, but going up against an eldritch god itself is quite the way to cap off the game for the ultimate ending.
5 Cow King
Sometimes secrets in games are inside jokes, whether for the developers or sometimes the community. The Cow King is a large cow wielding a polearm who rules over Moo Moo Farm, being the boss of this hidden area even though they’re the exact same as the other cow enemies.
The Cow King and the Secret Cow Level were a long-running joke in the Diablo community as a small group of cows in the starting town of Diablo 1 resulted in a massive hoax of a secret cow level accessed by clicking on a cow multiple times. Blizzard played into the joke, referencing it many times and including it as postgame content in the sequel with a special boss to go along with it!
4 Akuma
Sometimes secrets that are meant to be small little things can spiral and become massive parts of the games and story. This is especially the case with fighting games and nothing shows this better than Akuma’s original appearance in Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Akuma is a powerful fighter and the brother to Ryu’s master, being a cold man who only longs for power and is willing to kill to get it.
Akuma acts as a secret final boss in Street Fighter 2 Turbo, able to be faced instead of M. Bison by either using no continues or reaching the final boss in 25 minutes. Akuma, and later Gouken, was made due to a hoax that players could fight Ryu’s master known as “Sheng Long” and this forced the team to make Akuma to end the rumors and appease fans, who would go on to be one of the most important characters to the series’ story.
3 Culex
Secret bosses have only grown more popular with time as back in the early days of gaming creating that sort of optional content was much harder, which is why Culex is such an oddity and is so memorable. Culex is an out-of-place hidden boss in Super Mario RPG, being a final fantasy-esque character that serves as the toughest challenge in the game.
Culex is accessed through a locked door in Monstro Town by selling away the expensive fireworks to get a shiny stone. Culex is an obvious reference to Square Soft’s main series, Final Fantasy, with Culex being an over-the-top fantasy character with a long backstory, being only represented by 2D sprites rather than the isometric style, and the music used in their fight.
2 Spamton NEO
Just because a boss is a secret or optional doesn’t mean that they aren’t important to the story, sometimes they can prove to be the most memorable aspect of it like Spamton NEO in Deltarune. Spamton NEO is an optional boss in Chapter 2 of Deltarune, a sleazy salesman trying to find freedom through a strange robot puppet body.
Fighting him requires following a small optional quest line for Spamton that can be easy to miss if you’re focused on the main story, but Spamton NEO serves as one of the best bosses in the game with a whole unique mechanic! Spamton himself is a fan favorite and easily the star of the show with this fight, both with his comedic writing and how he tries into the main character’s storyline and the theme of freedom.
1 Minos Prime
Most of the time, secret bosses are fun but are eclipsed by the larger bosses in their game, but there are those rare times when a secret boss becomes the most beloved in a game. Minos Prime from Ultrakill is one such exception. Minos Prime is a boss locked away in Ultrakill, the soul of King Minos, ruler of Hell’s lust layer, imprisoned for trying to rebel against the angels.
Getting to Minos already serves as a test of the player’s skill as you have to get a perfect rank on every single level in Act 1, and even after that, you have to fight a whole other boss with Flesh Prison just to fight Minos. And Minos himself is quite a fight, with each attack of his being devastating and giving almost no time to react to them. Minos requires utter focus and twitch reflexes to defeat him. Beating him is the single greatest accomplishment in a game.
