10 Most Intimidating Dark Souls Enemies

There are many rites of passage for a gamer: Completing a race on Mario Kart's Rainbow Road without falling off; performing your first Fatality in Mortal Kombat; getting verbally abused by 10-year-old kid on Fortnite...

Add to that list, "getting your arse handed to you within minutes of first playing a Dark Souls game."

Many gamers give up on Souls and its sister titles, and understandably - it's not just skill required to beat one of these games; it's patience, perseverance and more than a little luck. The franchise is so notoriously difficult, it's spawned its own sub-genre: "Souls-like", games largely designed to test a gamer's will.

But it's more than the actual mechanics of the game that contribute to its difficulty. For such tough gameplay, it's rarely unfair. It requires more than just 'gitting gud', and a big part of the Dark Souls experience is how it makes you feel (scared and flustered, for the most part).

A tricky enemy might be hard enough, but add a grandiose soundtrack, gloriously oppressive environments and menacing enemy designs, and the game requires you to dig deeper into your mental fortitude than any other.

This bad kitty isn't actually part of the Dark Souls base game. It's the first boss you'll run into as part of the Artorias of the Abyss DLC - quite literally. Pass through the grey wall of fog leading into the DLC area, and you're thrust headlong into a battle with this manticore. No time to collect yourself or admire the new environment; nope, in true Dark Souls style, you're dropped right into the deep end.

It's this manticore's sheer aggression that throws the player off. Combine that with its appearance - a white lion, four winged, with a particularly nasty-looking scorpion tail - and it's many air-based attacks become quite the spectacle.

By the way, should you managed to best it, you might want to avoid the entrance to Oolacile Sanctuary from then on. Because, unlike the game's other bosses, the guardian returns once one of the DLC's other bosses has been slayed. Not as a boss version itself - no health bar will appear - but as a regular enemy with a sibling in tow.

Bad kitties!