It's been over a year since Hollow Knight: Silksong consumed my waking hours, and even now, certain memories still sting. I've traversed every corner of Pharloom, mastered its intricate needleplay, and stood triumphant over godlike beings that make the Pale King look like a tutorial. The team at Team Cherry crafted an absolute masterpiece, a sequel so grand it somehow exceeded expectations that had fermented for half a decade. But there's a shadow lurking behind the shining fang-and-nail ballet, a truth I've come to accept after achieving full completion: not every boss fight is a work of art. Some are downright miserable.

After replaying the game recently to celebrate its second anniversary, I found myself dreading specific encounters just as much as I remembered. These aren't the fights that defeat you through clever design or punishing but fair attack patterns. No, these are the ones that irritate through repetition, waste potential, or feel actively malicious in their structure. For every Trobbio or Phantom, there's a disgraced chef waiting to spit poison in your face. So, I've ranked the ten worst boss battles in Silksong, counting down from mildly disappointing to soul-crushingly terrible. Spoilers ahead, naturally.

10. Crust King Khann – Brilliant Concept, Toothless Execution

My first encounter with Crust King Khann was a visual spectacle. Summoning gleaming coral stalactites that crashed down from the ceiling, he felt like a true monarch of the reef. Then the actual fight began, and the illusion shattered. By the time you reach Act 3, your crest abilities and mobility tools have made Hornet a whirlwind of silk and steel. Khann simply cannot keep up. His attacks are so telegraphed that dodging becomes muscle memory after ten seconds, and he possesses no second phase, no desperate escalation to match his regal bearing.

What frustrates me most is the wasted potential. The minion waves leading to his chamber are honestly more threatening. It feels as though Team Cherry originally designed a massive multi-phase ambush, then chopped it into pieces and forgot to inject any danger back into the king himself. Every replay, I sprint through the Coral Retreat thinking, "Maybe he'll surprise me this time." He never does. I genuinely hope future DLC grants him a true rematch, because the basic idea is phenomenal, and seeing a crustacean monarch reduced to an afterthought stings more than his spears ever could.

9. Palestag – Dreamlike in the Wrong Way

Those who played the original Hollow Knight remember the Dream Warriors: ethereal foes with simple, repeating patterns that never evolved into real complexity. Palestag, hidden deep within Verdania, is the spiritual successor to that formula, and it feels woefully out of place amidst the zone's otherwise frenzied flora and fauna. The entire fight consists of chasing the boss across an arena while dodging slow horizontal projectiles. There's no interplay, no need to use my tools creatively, just a tedious circle-strafe.

Verdania is a masterpiece of level design, packed with agile predators that leap and slash with terrifying precision. Discovering a hidden key and unlocking Sinner's Road only to find this waiting at the end felt like opening a treasure chest and finding lint. As an optional encounter, I appreciate its existence, but in 2026, after repeated playthroughs, I barely register it. It's a relic of a simpler era that Silksong otherwise left behind, and every time I return, I wish the room simply contained a challenging platforming gauntlet instead.

8. Disgraced Chef Lugoli – Maggot Mayhem

I stumbled into Lugoli's swampy kitchen far later than intended, overleveled and brimming with confidence. It didn't matter. The fight was still insufferable. She smashes her massive body around the arena like a knockoff Smough, but the real crime is her maggot mechanic. Poison spheres drift across the screen, and if they touch you, your ability to heal is disabled for a painful duration. It's a status effect that feels designed not to challenge, but to annoy.

The worst part? The entire encounter exists solely to drop a key piece for Pale Oil, an upgrade so crucial you'll endure this slop anyway. Her moveset is basic, her minions are a nuisance, and her arena's environmental hazards double down on the misery. In subsequent runs, I've learned to burst her down in thirty seconds with a fully upgraded needle, but the memory of that first, prolonged bout of maggot cleansing remains one of my most unpleasant video game experiences. Ludonarrative coherence be damned, she's consistent with her disgusting area, and I despise her for it.

7. Broodmother – A Party of Filth, Quickly Forgotten

Some bosses are so forgettable that their presence on a list feels almost generous. Broodmother is the archetypal trash mob that accidentally got a health bar. She hurls slow, predictable globs of muck, summons a handful of tiny flies, and repeatedly slams her hitbox into Hornet within a cramped cave. The entire battle is over in under a minute, and the reward is a quest item that immediately makes you forget the fight ever happened.

What stings is the lost potential. The muck mechanic, unique to these flies, could have created a dynamic where the floor itself becomes a hazard, forcing vertical play. Instead, it's just a brown texture that deals negligible damage. The context of discovering her hidden nest is more engaging than the combat itself, which feels like an intrusive speedbump on the way to collecting another checkmark. When I compile my perfect Silksong experience in my head, Broodmother is the first piece I mentally delete.

6. Gurr the Outcast – A Master Trapper Who Forgot His Traps

The ants of Hunter's March are honorable, deadly warriors. Every basic enemy in their domain is a duelist worthy of respect. So when I encountered Gurr the Outcast, a massive ant with a net and a glint of cunning in his eye, my expectations soared. I prepared for a hunter's gambit, a flurry of traps and zoning tactics that would test my spatial awareness. Instead, he dashes horizontally twice and swings a couple of gadgets that a toddler could dodge.

Act 3 is particularly guilty of this sin, tossing in bosses that feel like early-game tutorials. The buildup to Gurr is remarkable, his visual design is among the best in the caste, but his combat design is a void. Karmelita later proves that the team can deliver an incredible ant boss, which makes Gurr's barren moveset even more baffling. Whenever I pass through the Outcast's arena now, I offer a silent apology to his model for the fight he was never given.

5. Lost Garmond – A Tragic End, Mechanically and Otherwise

Garmond and Zaza's storyline is one of Silksong's most emotionally devastating arcs. When I finally faced Lost Garmond, consumed by void and stripped of his will, my heart was already shattered. Then the fight began, and I felt a different kind of pain. He recycles the same companion moveset from earlier, now augmented with generic void tendrils and area-of-effect bursts that feel tacked on rather than tragic.

I remind myself that Shakra, another NPC, offers a breathtakingly memorable duel, so the "it's just an NPC fight" excuse doesn't hold. Lost Garmond's tiny arena is suffocating, his void damage output is absurd, and the encounter relies on frustration rather than catharsis. It's harder than most on this list, but the difficulty stems from cheap damage, not clever patterns. Beating him didn't grant closure, it just made me feel hollow in the worst way. A disservice to one of the game's finest characters.

4. Groal the Great – Team Cherry's Diabolical Masterpiece

Bilewater is the single most hateful zone Team Cherry has ever conceived, and Groal the Great is its crowned executioner. This boss is a concentrated dose of everything frustrating about Silksong: waves of minions, environmental traps, giant hitboxes, maggots that disable healing, and a runback so vile it deserves its own entry. If I ignore the gauntlet leading to him, the fight itself is a long, grueling sequence where you're constantly swatting at adds while dodging lava bursts and the slug's rolling body.

I hesitate to call it objectively bad because the malice feels entirely intentional. Team Cherry knew what they were doing when they stuffed every despised mechanic into one encounter, and I can almost respect the audacity. Almost. I've beaten Groal exactly twice: once for completion, and once to help a friend who questioned my sanity. I will never fight him again of my own free will. He sits in my memory like a trophy of suffering, unforgettable and utterly detestable.

3. Voltvyrm – Punishment for the Curious

Exploring Voltnest, I felt that familiar thrill of uncovering a secret. Then I found Voltvyrm, and my expression crumbled. This partially stationary wyrm fires slow pillars of electricity and lazy orbs, a moveset that would be perfect for a tutorial area. As an optional challenge for deep explorers, it's insulting. The fight demands nothing but patience, not skill, and the reward is simply the knowledge that you wasted your time.

Silksong usually excels at rewarding curiosity with thrilling duels whose only prize is the experience itself. Voltvyrm feels like a punishment for greed, a deliberate message that not every secret leads to treasure. The thought of encountering this elongated disappointment in a future Pantheon mode fills me with genuine dread. It's not difficult, just tedious, and in a game as precise as this, tedium is the greatest sin.

2. Plasmified Zango – The World's Biggest Damage Sponge

Since my days battling Peace Walker, I've harbored a deep hatred for bosses whose only strength is their health bar. Plasmified Zango takes this to an absurd extreme. It has one attack, a slow, telegraphed swipe that you dodge by simply standing still or stepping an inch to the left. Then you spend several minutes wailing on its bloated body with a fully upgraded needle, chipping away at a depressingly massive HP pool.

There is no reward. No meaningful lore, no key item, just the hollow satisfaction of killing something that shouldn't have been a boss. The Wormways filled with lifeblood are a neat discovery, but the fight attached to them is an atrocity. I've mentally erased Zango from my perception of Silksong's boss roster because acknowledging its existence lowers the overall quality rating of the game in my mind. It's a damage sponge, a time-waster, and a blemish on an otherwise gleaming record.

1. Savage Beastfly – Pure, Concentrated Pain

I have died to Phantom and First Sinner more times than I can count. Each death taught me something. Savage Beastfly, on the other hand, taught me only rage. It's not the hardest boss in the game, but it is the one I have lost to the most due to sheer, overwhelming nonsense. Giant hitbox in a tiny arena? Check. Annoying minion summons that deal two masks of damage? Check. A movement pattern so predictable it becomes a rhythm, yet still manages to clip you because the screen is a mess of hazards? Check.

And then Team Cherry, in their infinite mischief, decided one encounter wasn't enough. You fight it again in an even worse arena, this time with falling platforms, lava pools, and even deadlier minions. The encounter doesn't test your mastery of Silksong's mechanics; it tests your willingness to endure a chaotic visual nightmare. Spending thirty attempts on Lost Lace is a joy, a dance of silk and soul. Ten attempts on Savage Beastfly is a genuine drain on your life force.

This boss is the worst because it represents a philosophy clash: a Hollow Knight fight shoehorned into Silksong's faster, more vertical combat system. It relies on brute force and screen clutter rather than elegance, making it the one stain I actively dread revisiting. Even now, in 2026, the thought of its buzzing wings makes me shudder. Some nightmares never fade.

Silksong remains a towering achievement, one of the most polished Metroidvanias ever crafted. But acknowledging its flaws is part of the love. These ten encounters are the chinks in its gilded armor, reminders that even the greatest masterpieces can stumble. And yet, I'll keep playing, keep suffering, and keep hoping that somewhere, in a hidden chamber of Pharloom, Crust King Khann finally gets the ferocious upgrade he deserves.

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