10 Modern Video Game Tropes Everyone Is Rejecting
8. Bullet Sponge Bosses
It's a trope that's been around for as long as games have, and yet bullet sponge boss fights have yet to be left in the past.
Designed to be harder and more challenging than any of the grunts and basic enemies you’ve been fighting, bosses are supposed to be tough and will need more than a few hits to take them out. They wouldn’t be much of a challenge if all it took to beat them was one well-placed headshot.
Go too far in the other direction and give said boss too much health, however, results in a different problem. Now the fight has become a prolonged slog comprised of chipping away at a hyperbolic health bar.
While adding multiple stages to longer boss fights can add some variety to the mix (look no further than Dark Souls to see how that’s done), plenty of games take the path of least resistance by sticking an uninspired showdown in a forgettable arena, with Destiny 2’s immensely powerful bosses being some of the worst examples in recent years.
Just as irritating is when boss battles are more about fighting waves of enemies than the boss itself. We're looking at you, Halo Infinite.