The creepiest enemies in Dark Souls games, ranked

Most enemies from Dark Souls, Elden Ring, and Bloodborne would naturally fit in any medieval-themed horror story simply for how easily they'll tear you to pieces after you make one simple mistake during combat.

Still, some have such uniquely off-putting looks that they deserve to be observed in very well-guarded cells in the video game museum of grotesquerie. Let's look at the gnarliest-looking monstrosities in this series, and check out if they're perhaps even worse than they look, shall we?

10. Nightmare Apostle (Bloodborne)

Ok, I'll start off simple. Don't ask me for sources, but 40% of the human population is afraid of spiders, and 50% is terrified of them. Even those who aren't probably wouldn't like them ten times our size. Spiders don't need anything other than sheer scale to be some of the scariest things in existence, but Bloodborne does you one better.

The Nightmare Apostle's room is a horror masterpiece because as soon as you enter it, you see a bunch of huge spiders hanging from the ceiling, and you just know they're going to drop to ambush you, leaving only the "when" as a mystery.

I won't spoil it, but this is one hell of a memorable encounter that would elevate any full-on horror game or film.

9. Great Feline (Dark Souls)

The case for the Great Feline is the exact opposite of the one from the entry above. Mostly everyone loves cats — especially people who have ever been in contact with the internet — but this isn't a regular cat. This isn't even like a lion or a tiger, big cats that might — even when they don't want to — eviscerate you with ease.

Something about these huge roided-up cats just looks wrong — intentionally so. They're clearly sick and, sadly, capable of equally sick moves that will immediately obliterate any poor fool wasting time wondering if the game features any secret way of petting them.

8. Glow Worms (Elden Ring)

Did you know that Australia has actual glow-in-the-dark worms? I've been haunted by that knowledge for many years. Still, I've always enjoyed the solace of knowing Australia is so far away from where I live that it barely even counts as a real place.

Miyazaki isn't ok with us feeling safe, so he brought Glow Worms closer to everyone by putting these things in something more real than Australia to most: Elden Ring. What the hell even are these things? They don't really do anything other than just creepily stand there and use their bioluminescence to prevent players from forgetting they share reality with them — but they're really good at that.

7. Deep Accursed (Dark Souls 3)

Even though the Deep Accursed features various creepy elements in its design, the scariest thing about him is how his ambushes provide jumpscares worthy of the best horror movies out there. The Souls series is known for its ambushes, but there's being ambushed by everything else, and then there's being ambushed by this grisly, long-legged, shiny-eyed beast.

The Deep Accursed is great at scaring the player like a huge predator would scare a tiny rat. He rarely shows up in the game, but as soon as he's dropped from the ceiling to get you the first time, your era of nonchalantly entering new rooms on Dark Souls 3 without fearing for your life will be over.

6. Monstrosity Of Sin (Dark Souls 3)

I don't know if one of the artists was trying to come up with the most off-putting thing they could come up with for Dark Souls 3, then asked their colleagues to come up with a fitting name, or if FromSoft's name-giver came up with the most egregious name for a beast and then the artists did a wonderful life realizing that vision.

The Monstrosity Of Sin has a human-like body, but at the end of every single one of his limbs, there's a hand with way too many fingers. Even its head is a gigantic hand — also with too many fingers. That would've been enough to earn it a place on this list, but this head/hand is also covered in eyes or strange parasites that produce a type of goo you don't see anywhere else in the game.

This is one of the rarest enemies in the game, and that's probably because the developers were well aware that one encounter would probably be enough to ensure no player would forget about the Monstrosity Of Sin.

5. The Beggar (Bloodborne)

It should come as no surprise that Bloodborne populates most entries on this list, and that's because it features all horrors of all kinds. This guy doesn't feature a suspicious number of eyes, tentacles, or any goo-secreting organ, but he's a walking, talking, stalking, blood-spitting red flag.

The afflicted beggar presents himself as but a skinny guy covered in blood and in need of your help. The problem here is that when we first encounter this man, he's munching on a human corpse. Yarhnam is already a place where consuming blood is the norm, so can you really blame them for giving this man the benefit of the doubt? Who's to say what the consensus on cannibalism is in this god-forsaken, elder god-invaded realm? That's what the main character is likely thinking while they interact with this man, all the while the player controlling him is probably petrified by what he's witnessing.

Then, surprise, surprise, it turns out that any suspicions would be correct, and the Beggar reveals himself to be a figuratively and literally huge monster. Still, its original appearance more than would've sufficed to grant him a place on this list.

4. Chaos Eater (Dark Souls)

When you look at the Chaos Eater from afar, he looks goofy. When you get closer, his multitude of eyes combined with his pervy tentacles will make you realize he's one of the creepiest-looking entities in the game. When you let him get too close, you'll realize that every step towards this thing was an obviously dumb mistake.

I, like many other innocent players before me, originally imagined the Chaos Eater would get his nourishment by sucking things up through his tentacles. Nasty, but it's even worse than that, it turns out.

The Chaos Eater is closer to a human than I thought, as he also chews on his food just like we do. Unfortunately, however, I went on to learn that instead of jaws, his head serves as the home for a rotating teeth-covered hell pit that he loves feeding players to.

3. Grafted Scion (Elden Ring)

This cobbled-together monstrosity is the very first thing we face on Elden Ring — the classic FromSoft boss that exists solely to put players in their place — and that's reason enough for it to populate the nightmares of many players. Still, that's far from the worst thing about it.

The Grafted Scion is composed of the bodies of many deceased adults — already not great — but upon closer inspection (or simply by looking at the head), you'll see how it also features the limbs of many children. If you thought the worlds of games were dark but at least kind enough to protect children by not featuring them at all, then I apologize for dispelling that illusory wall in your mind.

2. Winter Lantern (Bloodborne)

The later segment of Bloodborne isn't as challenging as its early and middle sections — except for the part where we have to deal with this thing. The Winter Lantern is such a masterpiece of enemy design that even though it doesn't look threatening on a physical level — and it kind of isn't — one glance is all it takes to inform your brain that you're about to have a bad time. You'll get the idea that this thing is terrifying just from looking at screenshots, but nothing beats looking at it in motion, killing you simply by existing and looking ugly.

This is like if Naughty Dog had a slider for creepiness when making the infected from The Last Of Us and accidentally turned it up to 11.

1. Brain of Mensis (Bloodborne)

The Brain of Mensis is number one and it isn't even close. If the Winter Lantern terrorizes you, this should affect you in a way we don't even have words to describe yet. In essence, the Brain Of Mensis is a gigantic Winter Lantern, an entity powerful enough to ultimately kill anyone in its line of sight — and it's very good at looking.

On top of its tremendous power, the Brain of Mensis is also the gooiest and most eldritch monstrosity we've seen in FromSoft games, an amorphous mix of giant eyeballs and what looks like decaying brain matter.

The optional segment, when we finally come face to brain with this thing, features no combat or any sort of deadly trap, yet it remains one of the most eerily memorable moments in gaming.

The post The creepiest enemies in Dark Souls games, ranked appeared first on Destructoid.