History ThatOneBoss / StealthBasedGame

*** Let's not forget that he could shoot you while you weren't even playing the game[[note]]If you try to use the trick to let him die of old age, but load your game too soon, you instead get a cutscene where he gets the drop on you and knocks you out[[/note]]. And he's even worse on boss survival (hard mode): He knocks you out with a single shot (to be fair, you also kill him with a single headshot), his position on the map is randomized and since you obviously want to beat the highscore if you even bother fighting him, you have to be fast about it. Oh, and as soon as you have a straight aim at him you have like 0.5 seconds to fire before he notices you and runs away.
*** Here's another [[GuideDangIt handy tip]] for finding him, if 90% of the trouble you've been having is running around Sokrovenno South for hours just trying to find the bastard -- did you know that The End fight actually consists of ''three'' different areas? That's right, those cliffs he's shooting from between long stretches of seemingly vanishing completely are actually accessible by you, the player, and all this trouble you've been having is your own damn fault for not realizing he can ''run through the loading screens into different areas '''unlike every single other boss in video game history'''''. Completely frustrating, especially if the person you ask to kill (tranq) him for you only chooses to divulge this useful tidbit well after you've handed over the controller...
*** This fight is so notorious that [[spoiler:the battle with Quiet in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'']] is almost certainly a homage to it, complete with an EasyLevelTrick to skip the difficult battle -- call in a Supply Drop on her head and take out nearly half of her stamina.
*** The trope is subjective however, as several also refer The End's fight as a [[Awesome/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater very-well done fight]]. Of course, they might be singing a different tune if [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Kojima's rumored plans]] for a one-to-two ''week'' boss fight hadn't been nixed by Konami. Allegedly.

** The Fear is also difficult if you're trying to tranq him. Aside from his method of fighting (hiding in trees and jumping around to attack you with a poisoned crossbow), he will also hunt animals to recover his stamina, which is what tranquing depletes. He does this reliably when he gets low, so you have to find him and quickly finish the job before he can finish eating. Fail, and you get to fight him from what is essentially full health all over again. You can't even deny him a food source because that screen has the single most wild animals in it of anywhere in the game. (However, if you happen to have some spoiled food in your inventory, you ''can'' poison him. There are also poisonous frogs and mushrooms in that same area. And if you find the Infrared Goggles...)

'''NOTE:''' FinalBoss and WakeUpCallBoss cannot be ThatOneBoss without being overly hard by ''their'' standards. Please do not add them as examples. BonusBoss is completely banned. They are supposed to be overpowerful and have no real standards.

** Two Face as the BonusBoss in Arkham City. The player uses Catwoman (who has a '''lot less health than Batman''') and needs to hide from an infinite spawn of mooks while trying to use a silent takedown on Dent. Only, takedowns damage him for 1/5 of his health, and all the mooks will rush to get you once you go loud on him, so the best way to get through it is to use simple strikes after stealthily eliminating all but the last goon near him on the bridge without him noticing so that you can take him down before his aforementioned "infinite mooks" can kill you after eliminating the goon near him on the bridge.

*** Here's another [[GuideDangIt handy tip]] for finding him, if 90% of the trouble you've been having is running around Sokrovenno South for hours just trying to find the bastard - did you know that The End fight actually consists of ''three'' different areas? That's right, those cliffs he's shooting from between long stretches of seemingly vanishing completely are actually accessible by you, the player, and all this trouble you've been having is your own damn fault for not realizing he can ''run through the loading screens into different areas '''unlike every single other boss in video game history'''''. Completely frustrating, especially if the person you ask to kill (tranq) him for you only chooses to divulge this useful tidbit well after you've handed over the controller...
*** This fight is so notorious that [[spoiler:the battle with Quiet in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'']] is almost certainly a homage to it, complete with an EasyLevelTrick to skip the difficult battle - call in a Supply Drop on her head and take out nearly half of her stamina.

** The Hind-D fight. You [[GuideDangIt may not know you can destroy the gun-cams with stingers]] or [[ForgotAboutHisPowers stop them from firing on you for a short time with Chaff Grenades]] and end up losing rations running up the damn stairs - making what should simply be an annoying boss almost impossible, not to mention it's really hard to get good 360 cover while still having a good area to aim the missiles.
** Psycho Mantis, who is fairly easy - once you've [[PuzzleBoss figured out the fourth-wall-obliterating puzzle]] you need to solve just so you can hit him at all, of course. He can still be a pain though with him throwing all of that goddamn furniture everywhere.

* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'' has the titular Knight in his vehicle fight. The first stage of the fight involves picking off Cobra drones, which are hard enough to subdue on their own, and even more so when the Arkham Knight orders them to turn around and scan behind them (often when you're right there, waiting for your shot). Then you have to deal with the big man himself in his Cloudburst. Unlike the other Cobras, which only need to be hit once, the Cloudburst needs to be hit four times, and since the Cloudburst has perfect 360 vision it is impossible to sneak up on him--your only option is to fire off a shot then run like hell and hope his extremely accurate targeting system doesn't kill you in one hit. [[LuckBasedMission Oh, and sometimes the tanks will spawn facing in your direction.]]

* From ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'', Barrett, the first boss of the original version of the game. He has a minigun on his hand that will shred you in seconds, has a tendency to toss around grenades like they're going out of style, takes a ''lot'' of damage before he goes down, does not go down from nonlethal weapons, moves surprisingly fast despite his casual swagger, and you can't use your [[NonLethalKO knockout]] or [[OneHitKill instant kill]] moves on him. And if you get too close to him? He'll use a version of that attack ''on you''. And you absolutely [[UnexpectedGameplayChange have to kill him]]. You can't get out of the room until you do. To make matters worse, up till now you've probably been following a stealthy strategy to rack up points and avoid getting shot to death, so you might not even ''have'' any combat-oriented augs or lethal weapons to fight him with[[note]]the game does provide throwable items and weapons in side rooms but that's little comfort for anyone who hasn't spent any time in the game actually getting proficient with them[[/note]]. This all counts for the original. In the remake it's somewhat more viable for people who haven't focused on a combat playstyle.

* Mr Freeze from ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' can be incredibly hard to defeat on higher difficulties, as his health and damage increase substantially between them, and consequently you need to use more and more strategies to whittle down his health. Many of Freeze's countermeasures prevent Batman from using important gadgets and skills, which makes the fight progressively harder as Freeze's health goes down. Furthermore, on harder difficulties, Freeze can kill you in seconds if he locks on to you, and he's absolutely relentless, and will constantly deploy seeker drones to trace your heat signature when he loses sight of you. The NewGamePlus mode takes up to the max as it will force you to use all twelve options to take down Freeze and if you haven't mastered certain ones...
** Two Face as the BonusBoss in Arkham City. The player uses Catwoman (who has a lot less health than Batman) and needs to hide from an infinite spawn of mooks while trying to use a silent takedown on Dent. Only, takedowns damage him for 1/5 of his health, and all the mooks will rush to get you.

* Mr Freeze from ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' can be incredibly hard to defeat on higher difficulties, as his health and damage increase substantially between them, and consequently you need to use more and more strategies to whittle down his health. Many of Freeze's coutermeasures prevent Batman from using important gadgets and skills, which makes the fight progressively harder as Freeze's health goes down. Furthermore, on harder difficulties, Freeze can kill you in seconds if he locks on to you, and he's absolutely relentless, and will constantly deploy seeker drones to trace your heat signature when he loses sight of you. The NewGamePlus mode takes up to the max as it will force you to use all twelve options to take down Freeze and if you haven't mastered certain ones...

* Mr Freeze from ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' can be incredibly hard to defeat on higher difficulties, as his health and damage increase substantially between them, and consequently you need to use more and more strategies to whittle down his health. Many of Freeze's coutermeasures prevent Batman from using important gadgets and skills, which makes the fight progressively harder as Freeze's health goes down. Furthermore, on harder difficulties, Freeze can kill you in seconds if he locks on to you, and he's absolutely relentless, and will constantly deploy seeker drones to trace your heat signature when he loses sight of you. The NewGamePlus mode takes up to the max as it will force you to use all twelve options to take down Freeze and if you haven't mastered certain ones...
** Two Face as the BonusBoss in Arkham City. The player uses Catwoman (who has a lot less health than Batman) and needs to hide from an infinite spawn of mooks while trying to use a silent takedown on Dent. Only, takedowns damage him for 1/5 of his health, and all the mooks will rush to get you.
* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'' has the titular Knight in his vehicle fight. The first stage of the fight involves picking off Cobra drones, which are hard enough to subdue on their own, and even more so when the Arkham Knight orders them to turn around and scan behind them (often when you're right there, waiting for your shot). Then you have to deal with the big man himself in his Cloudburst. Unlike the other Cobras, which only need to be hit once, the Cloudburst needs to be hit four times, and since the Cloudburst has perfect 360 vision it is impossible to sneak up on him--your only option is to fire off a shot then run like hell and hope his extremely accurate targeting system doesn't kill you in one hit. [[LuckBasedMission Oh, and sometimes the tanks will spawn facing in your direction.]]
** The titular Knight isn't much easier when he's driving the Excavator. The fight starts with you running the Batmobile through an obstacle course with the Knight in pursuit. If you hit a single obstacle, the Excavator will crush you. Which is made worse by how the car starts the fight ''facing the Excavator'', forcing you to pull a quick 180 or die before the chase even begins. After that section, the Excavator stalks you through a maze of tunnels. The objective is to lead it through three specific tunnels, in order to force it to hit explosives at the end of those tunnels. Again, though, these tunnels are filled with obstacles, and hitting a single one is death. You'd better have gotten ''really good'' at driving the Batmobile. The only saving grace is that [[AntiFrustrationFeatures there are checkpoints after each successful tunnel]].
* ''Say Hello To My Little Friend'' from ''VideoGame/HitmanCodename47'' is the hardest mission in the game, and the only target in the series to be inexplicably durable. First off, it's actually impossible to stealth through, as at some point, you ''will'' make yourself known. Then there's the objective to blow up the drug stash, which is protected by guards who ''will'' shoot on sight. Then you have to do a shootout against a coked-up Tony-Montana wannabe with a full-auto machine gun, who only goes down after filling him with his weight in lead. Then you have to make a mad dash to the plane while under fire. Oh, and this game doesn't have any way to save mid-mission, so you'll have to do everything all over again if you fail. Have fun.
** This level becomes ridiculously easy, however, if you found the sniper rifle in the previous level. You can see him and snipe him through a window, and save yourself all that trouble.
** This is an odd case. It takes less than ten shots with a pistol to kill Tony Montana. You just have to wait a while between shots. He has a period of MercyInvincibility after each successful hit. If he doesn't say anything when you shoot him, you haven't waited long enough. It makes the fight easy but boring. The rest is crazily hard, though. It's best to kill Montana first after you've knifed everyone in the house in the right order, then go to the drug stash.
* This is very similar for every game in the ''VideoGame/{{Hitman}}'' franchise. These days, it is considered that ''VideoGame/Hitman2SilentAssassin'' is virtually impossible to complete with the titular Silent Assassin rating, and the entire series is considered difficult. Somewhat averting this trope, however, in that most of the targets outside of ''VideoGame/HitmanAbsolution'' have about as much health and firepower as the regular mooks.

** The End is enough of ThatOneBoss that Konami put in two different ways to defeat him without fighting. If you don't kill him at the dam or wait for him to die of old age during the boss fight, you're in for one of the toughest sniper duels in video game history. Prepare to spend a good hour fighting him. Finding where he's hiding without being spotted yourself is damn hard, as he's got fantastic camouflage. Picking a single spot and waiting in first-person mode to ambush him results in him knocking you out from behind. Letting him see the glint off your scope gets you a tranquilizer round in the eyeball. And don't expect him to sit still either; he's stalking you even while you're looking for him. And if you want to get the stamina-kill, you have to do this all with your tranq-pistol, which means getting in close.

*** That being said, the second time Snake faces Sniper Wolf is preposterously easy, as she can be taken down with Nikita rockets or Stingers while Snake is safely out of range.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'': The End is enough of ThatOneBoss that Konami put in two different ways to defeat him without fighting. If you don't kill him at the dam or wait for him to die of old age during the boss fight, you're in for one of the toughest sniper duels in video game history. Prepare to spend a good hour fighting him. Finding where he's hiding without being spotted yourself is damn hard, as he's got fantastic camouflage. Picking a single spot and waiting in first-person mode to ambush him results in him knocking you out from behind. Letting him see the glint off your scope gets you a tranquilizer round in the eyeball. And don't expect him to sit still either; he's stalking you even while you're looking for him. And if you want to get the stamina-kill, you have to do this all with your tranq-pistol, which means getting in close.
** Let's not forget that he could shoot you while you weren't even playing the game[[note]]If you try to use the trick to let him die of old age, but load your game too soon, you instead get a cutscene where he gets the drop on you and knocks you out[[/note]]. And he's even worse on boss survival (hard mode): He knocks you out with a single shot (to be fair, you also kill him with a single headshot), his position on the map is randomized and since you obviously want to beat the highscore if you even bother fighting him, you have to be fast about it. Oh, and as soon as you have a straight aim at him you have like 0.5 seconds to fire before he notices you and runs away.

* It's the Hind-D fight in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid''. You [[GuideDangIt may not know you can destroy the gun-cams with stingers]] or [[ForgotAboutHisPowers stop them from firing on you for a short time with Chaff Grenades]] and end up losing rations running up the damn stairs - making what should simply be an annoying boss almost impossible, not to mention it's really hard to get good 360 cover while still having a good area to aim the missiles.

** Metal Gear REX itself is a pain in the ass, especially if you try to fight it from a distance. It's anti-tank rockets will ''home in on you'' unless you use Chaff Grenades, which will also knock out your radar for a short time. Getting too close to it will result in either getting a laser to the face or being stomped on. What really hits this home however is that you fight it ''twice'': in the first fight against REX your target is the Radome on its left side, and the second time you face it you need to aim at [[spoiler:Liquid]].

*** Metal Gear REX itself is a pain in the ass, especially if you try to fight it from a distance. It's anti-tank rockets will ''home in on you'' unless you use Chaff Grenades, which will also knock out your radar for a short time. Getting too close to it will result in either getting a laser to the face or being stomped on. What really hits this home however is that you fight it ''twice'': in the first fight against REX your target is the Radome on its left side, and the second time you face it you need to aim at [[spoiler:Liquid]].

* It's the Hind-D fight in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid''. You [[GuideDangIt may not know you can destroy the gun-cams with stingers]] and end up losing rations running up the damn stairs - making what should simply be an annoying boss almost impossible, not to mention it's really hard to get good 360 cover while still having a good area to aim the missiles.

* In ''VideoGame/SyphonFilter: The Omega Strain'', Iwao Ryusaki, the security chief of Murakawa Tower, is likely the hardest boss in the game, especially if you haven't unlocked the frag grenades or air pistol by this point, and even then can be very frustrating. Not only is he heavily armored and [[ContractualBossImmunity immune to]] [[KnockoutGas Dormagen gas]] and the taser, but he totes a minigun that will [[ChunkySalsaRule make chunky salsa of you]] if you linger in his line of sight for more than a fraction of a second.

*** This fight is so notorious that [[spoiler:the battle with Quiet in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'']] is almost certainly a homage to it, complete with an EasyLevelTrick to skip the difficult battle - calling in a Supply Drop on her head takes out nearly half of her stamina.
*** The trope is subjective however, as several also refer The End's fight as a [[Awesome/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater very-well done fight]].

** The Fear is also difficult if you're trying to tranq him. Aside from his method of fighting (hiding in trees and jumping around to attack you with a poisoned crossbow), he will also hunt animals to recover his stamina, which is what tranquing depletes. He does this reliably when he gets low, so you have to find him and quickly finish the job before he can finish eating. Fail, and you get to fight him from what is essentially full health all over again. You can't even deny him a food source because that screen has the single most wild animals in it of anywhere in the game. (However, if you happen to have some spoiled food in your inventory, you ''can'' poison him, and if you find the Infrared Goggles...)

'''NOTE:''' FinalBoss and WakeUpCallBoss cannot be ThatOneBoss without being overly hard by ''their'' standards. Please do not nonchalantly add them as examples. BonusBoss is completely banned. They are supposed to be overpowerful and have no real standards.

* This is very similar for every game in the Hitman franchise. These days, it is considered that Hitman 2: Silent Assassin is virtually impossible to complete with the titular Silent Assassin rating, and the entire series is considered difficult. Somewhat averting this trope, however, in that most of the targets outside of Hitman: Absolution have about as much health and firepower as the regular mooks.

This page is for venting on bosses that gave large numbers of people grief. They do not need advice on how to beat them. They already know how to find GameFAQs.

** The titular Knight isn't much easier when he's driving the Excavator. The fight starts with you running the Batmobile through an obstacle course with the Knight in pursuit. If you hit a single obstacle, the Excavator will crush you. Which is made worse by how the car starts the fight ''facing the Excavator'', forcing you to pull a quick 180 or die before the chase even begins. After that section, the Excavator stalks you through a maze of tunnels. The objective is to lead it through three specific tunnels, in order to force it to hit explosives at the end of those tunnels. Again, though, these tunnels are filled with obstacles, and hitting a single one is death. You'd better have gotten ''really good'' at driving the Batmobile. The only saving grace is that [[AntiFrustrationFeatures there are checkpoints after each successful tunnel].

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3'': The End is enough of a ThatOneBoss that Konami put in two different ways to defeat him without fighting. If you don't kill him at the dam or wait for him to die of old age during the boss fight, you're in for one of the toughest sniper duels in gaming. Prepare to spend a good hour fighting him. Finding where he's hiding without being spotted yourself is damn hard, as he's got fantastic camouflage. Picking a single spot and waiting in first-person mode to ambush him results in him knocking you out from behind. Letting him see the glint off your scope gets you a tranquilizer round in the eyeball. And don't expect him to sit still either; he's stalking you even while you're looking for him. And if you want to get the stamina-kill, you have to do this all with your tranq-pistol.
** Let's not forget that he could shoot you while you weren't even playing the game[[note]]If you try to use the trick to let him die of old age, but load your game too soon, you take damage[[/note]]. And he's even worse on boss survival (hard mode): He knocks you out with a single shot (to be fair, you also kill him with a single headshot), his position on the map is randomized and since you obviously want to beat the highscore if you even bother fighting him, you have to be fast about it. Oh, and as soon as you have a straight aim at him you have like 0.5 seconds to fire before he notices you and runs away.

*** This fight is so notorious that [[spoiler: the battle with Quiet in ''MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'']] is almost certainly a homage to it, complete with an EasyLevelTrick to skip the difficult battle - calling in a Supply Drop on her head takes out nearly half of her stamina.

* It's the Hind-D fight in ''VideoGame/{{Metal Gear Solid}}''. You [[GuideDangIt may not know you can destroy the gun-cams with stingers]] and end up losing rations running up the damn stairs - making what should be an annoying boss almost impossible, not to mention it's really hard to get good 360 cover while still having a good area to aim the missiles.

* ''MetalGearSolid4'': Liquid Ocelot. Not because he's difficult, that's to be expected. It's because the game foists a ''whole new control scheme'' on the player. The only similar boss is the Rex vs Ray fight, which is hardly enough time to acclimatize to the timing and mechanics, especially since a 100-ton death machine controls a little differently than a CQC battle. Most of the frustration with Ocelot stems from the dodgy new dodge move, which is calibrated for an over-the-shoulder view....so naturally the first part of the Ocelot fight locks you into an overhead view and causes you to duck'n'weave straight into Ocelot's fist half the time. On the higher difficulties, this one boss can cause a no-deaths playthrough to start racking up the body count.
* From [[VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution Deus Ex: Human Revolution]], Barrett, the first boss of the original version of the game. He has a minigun on his hand that will shred you in seconds, has a tendency to toss around grenades like they're going out of style, takes a ''lot'' of damage before he goes down, does not go down from nonlethal weapons, moves surprisingly fast despite his casual swagger, and you can't use your [[NonLethalKO knockout]] or [[OneHitKill instant kill]] moves on him. And if you get to close to him? He'll use a version of that attack ''on you''. And you absolutely [[UnexpectedGameplayChange have to kill him]]. You can't get out of the room until you do. To make matters worse, up till now you've probably been following a stealthy strategy to rack up points and avoid getting shot to death, so you might not even ''have'' any combat-oriented augs or lethal weapons to fight him with[[note]]the game does provide throwable items and weapons in side rooms but that's little comfort for anyone who hasn't spent any time in the game actually getting proficient with them[[/note]]. This all counts for the original. In the remake it's somewhat more viable for people who haven't focused on a combat playstyle.

* Mr Freeze from ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' can be incredibly hard to defeat on higher difficulties, as his health and damage increase substantially between them, and consequently you need to use more and more strategies to whittle down his health. Many of Freeze's coutermeasures prevent Batman from using important gadgets and skills, which makes the fight progressively harder as Freeze's health goes down. Furthermore, on harder difficulties, Freeze can kill you in seconds if he locks on to you, and he's absolutely relentless, and will constantly deploy seeker drones to trace your heat signature when he loses site of you. The NewGamePlus mode takes up to the max as it will force you to use all twelve options to take down Freeze and if you haven't mastered certain ones...

*** This fight is so notorious that [[spoiler: the battle with Quiet in ''MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'']] is almost certainly a homage to it.

** Psycho Mantis, who is fairly easy - once you've [[PuzzleBoss figured out the fourth-wall-raping puzzle]] you need to solve just so you can hit him at all, of course. He can still be a pain though with him throwing all of that goddamn furniture everywhere.