10 Recent Video Game First Boss Battles That Totally Broke You

Much like Dark Souls, Returnal doesn't dare ease you in with a piss-easy opening boss fight, but actually goes further and basically gives you the most challenging of the game's five bosses first.

Though you can reach the gangly Phrike early on in the game, it will likely take many, many more hours and literally countless runs through the first biome before you're actually equipped to take it down.

Developers Housemarque even reported a month after the game's release that Phrike was responsible for more player deaths than any other enemy, serving as a testmant to both how under-prepared most players are when they first meet the boss, and how the difficulty wall may have prevented many from progressing altogether.

It can take literally tens of hours of experimentation to defeat Phrike, who despite being a superficially simple three-wave boss can deal massive amounts of damage to players who haven't mastered Returnal's locomotion mechanics (namely, dashing and sprinting like hell).

It's not tough to hurt Phrike, but it sure is a Herculean feat to actually put the creature down for the count, enough that many players are still trying to get the job done.

The irony is that the latter bosses generally present less of a challenge because you'll be so much more experienced and favourably kitted-out by the time you reach them.