14 Worst Video Game Boss Battles Of The Decade (So Far)

9. The Skull Unit - Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Sadly for MGS fans looking to battle another cavalcade of colourful characters in The Phantom Pain, Kojima and his team dialled back the boss encounters considerably. Aside from tussling with Quiet in a really cool sniper duel that connotes The End's cross-swamp showdown in Snake Eater, it's the supernatural Skull Unit who'll become the biggest bane of your life. They can move far faster than you, are immensely powerful, spawn at the worst times on some of the most badly-designed missions, and seem to have been conceptualised just to purposefully annoy the player. If you time it right you can counter their otherwise devastating attacks and stab them right in the gut with their machetes, otherwise you're at the mercy of an entire unit of bosses who'll have your patience for breakfast. There are a couple of forced encounters with these guys that literally come out of nowhere, and as they can only be taken down with pure firepower, you'll end up restarting their missions with entirely different loadouts just to stand a chance.