10 Secret Open-World Bosses Everyone Missed

Beating big baddies is usually one of the most fulfilling parts of playing video games, yet some of that fun and satisfaction can be diminished if it’s made abundantly clear where, when, and how those bosses can be found beforehand.

Many genres – including platformer, fighting, action-adventure, shooting, and RPG – reveal bosses’ locations through level selection screens and/or visual and audio cues within the game’s environments. For example, there’s Mortal Kombat’s ascending match ladders and Super Mario 64’s enemy portraits.

Even certain open-world games show where major foes are hiding via world maps, and they frequently make encountering them a necessary part of the playthrough. 

Therefore, it can be especially gratifying to discover and defeat secret open-world bosses who can only be vanquished through special circumstances and by going off the beaten path.

The 10 antagonists featured below are particularly notable for how well hidden they are, as well as for what it takes to confront and overpower them. Sure, some have become more well-known than others over the years, but all of them were quite mysterious when their respective games first released.

Yakuza series antagonist Shin Amon’s adversarial appearance in 2018’s Judgement gets the nod because it remained largely unknown for several years due to the requirements needed to access the corresponding side case, A Final Request.

You see, A Final Request appears on the bulletin board of the Yagami Detective Agency, and it shows up only after main character Takayuki Yagami reaches level 50 and finishes all other side cases. Therefore, it’s inherently easy to miss.

It begins with Yagami accepting an invitation to meet a client (who turns out to be Shin Amon) in Little Asia; upon Yagami’s arrival, Amon asks him to engage in a duel to validate Yagami's position as “the reigning master of this city.”

Amon subsequently teleports them to an electrified fighting arena and – frustratingly – proves to be quite tough because of his numerous life bars and ability to steal Yagami’s phone (thereby stopping him from using items from the corresponding menu).

Obviously, assigning recovery and extract items to the D-pad beforehand will help, as will alternating between Tiger and Crane styles depending on Amon’s color.

Of course, Amon promises to return for a rematch after the dust settles, foreshadowing his role in future Yakuza installments.