When most think about the Dark Souls franchise, boss fights come to mind almost immediately. This is due to the franchise using boss fights as proving grounds for player skill and patience. Most bosses in this franchise are soul-crushing in difficulty and require immense practice to beat.
Not every boss is this tough, though. Some bosses in the Dark Souls franchise are notorious pushovers that barely pose a threat to the player. Instead of focusing on the toughest encounters, here are the ten easiest boss fights in the franchise. This list will only cover Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, and Dark Souls 3 bosses. Bloodborne and Demon's Souls have been omitted from this list.
Updated on May 31, 2022 by Ritwik Mitra: Dark Souls is one of the most legendary trilogies of action-adventure titles that anyone can get their hands on. The games might seem daunting, but players who decide to conform to the gameplay design of the title will have a great time as even the strongest bosses around eventually fall to their relentless onslaught. However, not all the bosses in Dark Souls are hard by any stretch of the imagination, with the least challenging foes in the series being mentioned below.
15 Gwyn, Lord Of Cinder (Dark Souls)
The final boss of Dark Souls has some incredible music that really hammers in the sadness of the necessary action players need to perform. However, for a boss that's meant to be an imposing one, it's sad that Gwyn's fight can be trivialized extensively.
Most of his attacks can be easily dodged or parried and don't really hit for a ton of damage either. Given that players have gone through many grueling encounters to get to the final boss of this game, this fight can seem rather anti-climactic at times.
14 Asylum Demon (Dark Souls)
The first boss of most games tries not to be so challenging that they turn off players from the overall experience. However, the Asylum Demon still feels like a cakewalk once players have a proper weapon to attack this boss with.
Most of these moves are easy to avoid and players can easily hit this boss for damage as long as they stick to its backside. It's a trivial encounter, but players won't mind since this fight opens the doors to the sheer epicness afforded by the rest of the game.
13 Iron Golem (Dark Souls)
After climbing atop Sen's Fortress, players have to defeat a giant boss in the form of the Iron Golem to reach Anor Londo. This fight seems somewhat imposing, especially due to the size of said boss.
However, beating this foe is a piece of cake. It topples over after a few hits to its ankles, allowing players to wail on it with a flurry of attacks.
12 Demon Of Song (Dark Souls 2)
The Demon of Song is easily one of the creepiest bosses in Dark Souls 2. The fact that it's heavily armored can also prove to be a major hurdle, although players will soon realize that this difficulty is almost completely fabricated.
The boss' face is its most vulnerable part and is exposed during its extremely slow attacks. They're easy to dodge, and players can easily land some attacks on its face over and over again until the boss is defeated.
11 Iudex Gundyr (Dark Souls 3)
This is another case of the first boss being harder than he looks. Iudex Gundyr seems like an imposing boss, but his slow attacks and limited moveset quickly prove that he's anything but a sturdy challenge.
Even after growing the Pus of Man, Iudex Gundyr is laughably easy. His attacks don't really hit for a ton of damage and players can easily wail on him with attacks until he's down for the count.
10 High Lord Wolnir (Dark Souls 3)
Don't be fooled by High Lord Wolnir's size. For a massive skeleton surrounded by darkness, this boss is a complete pushover. Instead of slashing at the skeleton's body to damage it, players need to slash away at Wolnir's glowing bracelets to take him down.
For any character that has upgraded their weapons, this boss fight is a complete joke. Stand next to his wrist and wack away at the boss until it dies. The skeletons he summons are easy to counter, and Wolnir himself poses little threat if players don't stand in front of him. Only the darkness that surrounds him has any chance of killing the player once they've learned Wolnir's telegraphs.
9 Gaping Dragon (Dark Souls)
Considering how terrifying the Undead Burg sewers are in the original Dark Souls, many players chose to skip the fog gate in the Depths altogether in place of finding a bonfire. For as much fear as this area evokes, the boss fight is anything but scary.
The Gaping Dragon is one of the easiest bosses in the original Dark Souls. This massive dragon charges the player head-on and stuns itself once it runs into a wall, allowing for an easy counter-attack. Only two elements of this fight are dangerous: the dragon's acid attack towards the end of the fight and a mage that casts spells from above. As long as players kill the mage atop the arena before passing the fog gate, the fight practically plays itself.
8 The Last Giant (Dark Souls 2)
Early-game bosses in the Dark Souls franchise are rarely difficult. Their role is to ease players into the game's combat loop and learn various mechanics. Not so with Dark Souls 2's The Last Giant.
As the final boss in the Forest of Fallen Giants zone, one of the first zones in the game, The Last Giant stomps his feet at the ground with the clearest tells one can imagine. Players wack away at his ankles for a short while before the giant decides to rip his arm off and sweep the ground with it. This attack can never hit players, though, so long as they stand beside his ankles.
7 Dragonrider (Dark Souls 2)
Despite the name of this boss, there is no dragon of wyvern associated with the Dragonrider fight. This enemy is an oversized humanoid that attacks players with a massive halberd. Considering players fight this boss early at Heide's Tower of Flame, many would assume this is a boss that should teach players how to dodge and attack.
That would be the case if the Dragonrider didn't kill itself so easily. As long as players don't raise the plates in the arena beforehand, the Dragonrider will thrust itself off of the arena—instantly ending the fight. Besides this strategy, the Dragonrider is a boss that can easily be defeated by staying near his side and slashing at him during an opening.
6 Ancient Wyvern (Dark Souls 3)
Players don't fight the Ancient Wyvern during this boss fight. Instead, they are forced to go through a linear gauntlet with typical mobs until they reach the end of the arena, where they can plunge attack the wyvern for an instant kill.
There are no unique mechanics to this fight, no strategies to develop. Players just need to run through some buildings and plunge attack the boss to win. At least the environment is impressive.
5 Moonlight Butterfly (Dark Souls)
After defeating the multiple Stone Guardians and other denizens of Darkroot Garden, players are treated to one of the easiest fights in the franchise.
Moonlight Butterfly is a waiting game for most builds. Players either block or dodge the butterfly's shields before it floats towards the player for an opening. This opening lasts for a long time, usually giving melee builds enough time to kill the boss entirely before it can float away. Ranged builds can kill it before it even rests its horn on the platform the player is standing on.
4 Deacons Of The Deep (Dark Souls 3)
Instead of fighting Aldrich at the Cathedral of the Deep, players instead fight a congregate of Deacons that pose little threat. Besides an occasional light attack, these deacons are more than happy to stand around while the player kills dozens of them at a time.
As long as players can deal damage to multiple targets at once or focus on the glowing deacon, this fight will pose little challenge.
3 Covetous Demon (Dark Souls 2)
Getting to the Covetous Demon is harder than the fight itself. Once players cross the pools of poison and dozens of foes that plague Harvest Valley, they will have to face this massive slug of a boss.
It telegraphs its attacks seconds in advance, gives players ample time to heal, and can be stabbed in its back to death with little resistance. Builds that are glass cannons and get too greedy might die to the Covetous Demon, but anyone who has made it this far into Dark Souls 2 should be able to pick up on this enemy's attack patterns and avoid them entirely.
2 Pinwheel (Dark Souls)
Pinwheel might be the easiest boss in the Dark Souls franchise relative to where players fight him. After delving into the Catacombs and defeating the dozens of skeletons within, players get to fight a boss that dies in a few hits.
He doesn't make up for this low health with damaging attacks or mechanics, either. The deadliest thing Pinwheel can do is clone himself while firing low-damage spells at the player. Most players will never even seen Pinwheel's clones, though, because of how weak this boss is. If players were able to beat the tutorial Asylum Demon, they can kill Pinwheel with little issue.
1 Prowling Magus And Congregation (Dark Souls 2)
While Pinwheel is undeniably the easiest boss in the original Dark Souls, he still poses a greater challenge than the Prowling Magus and Congregation from Dark Souls 2.
Objectively speaking, the Congregation is slightly tougher due to their higher damage output. In practice, these enemies are a joke because the entirety of Dark Souls 2 is spent fighting groups of enemies. When players find this boss, they immediately know how to handle this small group of enemies. Pinwheel at least has unique attacks that make him worthy of being named a boss. These enemies are just a group of hollows that have a shared health pool.
Dark Souls is available now for PC, PS3, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.