8 Video Game Bosses Who Were Dead When You Arrived
Dead Space, Bloodborne and The Legend of Zelda all feature some fearsome resurrected bosses...
As a trigger-happy, sword-swinging, bloodthirsty action gamer, doesn't it half take the wind out of your sails when you get to a boss room and realise you've been beaten to the punch?
On the flip side, the fact that your foe then either comes back to life or is reanimated in some creepy way just to give you that fight you so crave - how flattering indeed!
Of course, it's not always as black and white as this. Be it your archenemy that you've beaten down time and time again, an ancient evil that lived and died long before your time, or even a dangerous manifestation of someone from your past, there's usually a good reason why these bosses choose this particular moment, the moment you stepped into the room, to make their grand modern-day debut.
And isn't it lucky that you're often the only one capable of defeating them?
Regardless of how you deal with them thereafter, these creatures all have one thing in common: before you got there to rough them up some more, they were certainly in NO fit state to fight.
8. Lady Maria - Bloodborne
True to the acclaimed format of FromSoftware's modern RPGs, the DLC for Bloodborne, The Old Hunters, raises a hell of a lot more questions than it answers. The expansion's setting, The Hunter's Nightmare, is a horrific mash-up of poorly reconstructed in-world locations, from the basic Cathedral Ward to the forgotten Fishing Hamlet.
And standing between these two locales is the Astral Clocktower, where an old hunter, Lady Maria, resides.
The cryptic lore suggests that Maria killed herself, and wound up in the nightmare after giving in to her craving for blood once more. The player finds her body in the clocktower, whereupon interacting with it causes her to spring to life and pull you in close.
"A corpse...should be left well alone," she whispers ominously - before wiping the floor with you in a hectic boss battle.
Because the usual rules don't seem to apply in this place, Lady Maria may actually be 'dead' when you meet her, but since she is bound to the nightmare, can only truly be killed by your hand.