5 Signs Of A Badly Designed Gaming Boss Fight
2. Send In The Goons
Remember that iconic scene in The Phantom Menace where Darth Maul steps out of the lift, "Duel of the Fates" starts playing, he ignites his double-lightsaber and you immediately realise the heroes are in a world of trouble? That's how you establish a threat. However, too many game designers seem to look at that scene and think, "Hey, wouldn't Darth Maul be even more threatening if he had a swarm of generic henchmen to help him?" The answer is no, he would have looked like a prat and the climactic fight would have been reduced to Liam Neeson and Ewan MacGregor tediously fending off battle droids while getting in the occasional opportunistic strike at Maul.
Why do developers do this? Why establish the big bad guy as the ultimate threat, only to immediately depict it as utterly incapable of getting the job done without employing a goon squad to irritate the player to death?! The Icon of Sin in the recently relased Doom Eternal (seen above in his Doom 2016 incarnation) is the perfect example of this - a world destroying, storeys high monstrosity that would be an utter cake-walk if it wasn't for the parade of demons it sends the player's way.
Developers, this is pretty simple: if the only way to make your boss challenging is by swarming the player with additional enemies during the fight, something has gone badly wrong. Go back and try again. Your audience will be grateful you did.