The bosses define Elden Ring perhaps more than any other gameplay element. Almost all conversations, strategies, and interpretations in the community revolve around them. But how many bosses are there actually in the game? MeinMMO will tell you.
Thanks to the new open world, Elden Ring is the most extensive game from FromSoftware so far. Numerous bosses are hidden in the vast world.
If you count them all, you come to 167 bosses in the game. But not all of them are mandatory. We will tell you spoiler-free how many bosses you really need to kill.
So many bosses are there in Elden Ring
The fan wiki of the controversial website Fextralife lists all the bosses you fight in the game. If you count them up, you end up with 167 bosses. But this also includes bosses that repeat.
If you want to know which bosses they all are, and you aren’t afraid of spoilers, you can check it out in the Fextralife Wiki yourself.
What counts as a boss? In the listing from the wiki, as well as in the general understanding of the community, opponents are only counted as bosses if there is a health bar of the opponent visible at the bottom of the screen during the fight.
Bosses that consist of several opponents with individual health bars are also only counted as one boss. Also, bosses with multiple phases that have a new name with a new phase are considered only one boss fight.
Some opponents appear repeatedly as such a boss and are counted by Fextralife as a separate boss each time. Other opponents, however, reappear as mini-bosses without such a health bar and are therefore not counted.
NPCs that invade your world as phantoms and NPCs that you have angered are also not considered bosses in the Souls community.
So many bosses must you defeat at a minimum to complete the game
With this number of bosses, you have a lot to do if you want to see everything in Elden Ring. Minimalists can get by with significantly fewer, which shortens the playtime. Currently, only 12 bosses are mandatory to complete the game. This allows for impressive speedruns:
These bosses are mandatory: To reach the capital city in Elden Ring, you must defeat at least two large bosses in the legacy dungeons. With the exception of Radahn, each of these bosses also has a intermediate boss like Margit. Together with the boss that guards the entrance to the capital, that’s at least 4 bosses that must be killed.
From the capital city, you have less freedom regarding the bosses. You must defeat another 8 bosses before you can see the credits. After that, you can start New Game Plus.
In this spoiler box, you can read which bosses are mandatory if you want to take the easiest and fastest route. However, the first two bosses on the list are interchangeable with other fragment holders:
So you must defeat the fewest bosses in Elden Ring:
- Red Wolf Radagon
- Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon
- Radahn
- Dragon Tree Sentinel
- Godfrey the First Elden Lord
- Morgott
- Fire Giant
- Godskin Duo
- Maliketh, the Black Blade
- Gideon Ofnir, the All-Knowing
- Hoarah Loux, the Warrior
- Radagon of the Golden Order/Elden Beast
That’s it for the spoiler-free overview of all bosses in Elden Ring. Are you satisfied with the quantity and quality of the bosses? Which boss is your favorite? And which one made your life hell? Let us know in the comments – but please avoid unmarked spoilers!
An overview of all our guides, tips, and recommendations can be found in this compilation article:
Elden Ring: All our guides, beginner tips, and builds in the overview
