How modding From Software bosses to fight each other sheds new light on their design.
The major antagonists of From Software games usually have a lot of shared history.
Some are blood relatives, some are lovers, some are enemies with grudges stretching back centuries.
A few are all these things simultaneously.
But they seldom meet, reconcile or thrash out their differences in-game.
A select group of modders have taken this concept further.
It’s a feat of bloody fan service which exposes the nuances of each boss’s design.
Garden of Eyes has been making From Software’s bosses murder each other since the days of Bloodborne.
It’s not a close match.
Garden of Eyes wasn’t expecting the fight to do numbers.
They’re terrifying bosses in completely different ways.
Malenia is an old school fencer with a lifesteal ability that punishes you twice over for mistiming a dodge.
Watching the pair hack chunks out of each other feels like long overdue payback.
“That was a fight everyone wanted to see in-game,” Garden of Eyes says.
“It was in the trailers, it was in the opening cinematic and all of that.
Much tinkering is necessary to produce a watchable video.
Take implementing boss health bars.
Another issue is boss phases.
“But Gehrman, his phase change is actually linked to the scripting and the programming of the level.
So if you move him to another level, he won’t transform into his second phase.
So we have to take that into consideration so that put the boss in another arena.”
Take Malenia and Radahn.
Radahn has become a mindless beast, while Malenia has kept herself in relative trim.
The balancing issue can be handled in other ways.
The last piece of the puzzle is making each fight agree with the game’s lore.
But even at their most chaotic, they shed new light on the intricacies of each boss design.
“They’re very similar,” Garden of Eyes goes on.
“You feel like Sister Freide is very heavily inspired by Lady Maria.
They both have this jumping and spinning attack where they smash to the ground.
It’s loosely pencilled in for release after theShadow of the ErdtreeDLC.
