I imagine there will be around 20 bosses in total, and that all of them will be grotesque enough that I'll be fighting my urge to flee at the first sight of them while the game refuses to acknowledge my cowardice by keeping me locked inside the boss room.

And it will be glorious.

I hope there'll be a big focus on unusual/monstrous bosses and less on humanoid Artorias/Sinner-style bosses. I know a lot of people love them, but those sorts of bosses have always been the least interesting to me.

It's tough to say. DS2 had way more bosses than DaS, but none of them were as good. I'd expect them to do less than DS2 and try to make them better. Maybe there'll be a bunch of lame easy ones, but I'd expect 13-14 memorably good ones.

19 - 20 is what I will assume. Doesn't really matter how many though, depends how memorable and well constructed the battles are. That seems to be the big difference between the appreciation people have for the bosses in Dark Souls and the indifference they have towards those in Dark Souls 2

Bloodborne isn't about the bosses it has, it's about the bosses it doesn't have.

I hope there are less traditional bosses and more tougher sub-bosses that roam around the world so it makes moments when you step through fog gates more memorable/significant.

One, you just fight him seventeen times.

Seriously though, i hope its around 15-16, and spread out so perfectly as in DS1 so that it feels nicely paced.

I made a troll vote of 0-5

But now I regret it.

8 main bosses who are dead hard. Maybe lesser ones between, can't wait for it though.

About the same amount as Dark Souls 1, so 26, with a fair number of them being optional. Hopefully they won't suffer the over-abundance of samey bosses Dark Souls 2 had.

@eternalvigil: I suppose I didn't mention it but not counting DLC of course.

It looks set to continue the one boss per major area idea out of Demon's Souls to me, so my answer is enough of them. And then the labyrinth which just has to feature a bunch of unique bosses scrapped from the ordinary game.

Speaking of difficulty, bosses being hard; The network test alpha boss made people give up and stop playing, I saw so many call it the hardest they'd ever fought (the hell?). I was never able to figure out how to stagger it and shoot its weak point for a quick easy takedown, I was only ever able to defeat it in honourable battle even when not overflowing with healing items, so I found it an easy kill after the six hours we had total in those test sessions though my adrenaline would always get pumping hard, great encounter that will only get better once gone gold and framerates have been stabilized.

If those three sessions are to be judged, you'll have a merry old time with Bloodborne if you're able to figure things out and adapt, see patterns, and also cut your bad habit of using target-locked camera. If you cannot do jack without locking onto targets, if you're into brute-force tactics rather than becoming a master of what you've got, you're going to have a very hard frustrating time. It's an evolution of the Souls games.

I'd bet around 15-20.

I`m going to guess about 20. They have said that the randomly generated area actually has multiple bosses, and which one you get is random, so that could bump the number up higher than it may initially seem.

I can't believe 23 wasn't a selection. I don't even know what to say to you!

I feel like given how little they've shown of this game, they're going for quality over quantity. But I could be completely wrong. Either way, I'll spend an inordinate amount of time playing it.

@claybrez: I don't remember them showing a ton of the first game, either. Actually to add to that, a lot of the promotional materials focused on the first two or three zones of Dark Souls.

@oldirtybearon: There's one amazing trailer that shows like 12 bosses from Dark Souls, nothing like that from Bloodborne.

@fredchuckdave: Fair point. I haven't been paying much attention to the marketing for a lot of games lately. As a bit of an experiment, do you remember when said trailer came about in terms of how close it was to release?

I mean, Bloodborne comes out in March. If my suspicions are correct, the trailer you're talking about came around much closer to release than we are now.

Since Dark Souls had 26/27 with DLC included and 22/23 without it I'm going to guess 22-25.

Just as long as they don't feel like they have to outdo DSII because that would be a very bad idea. It also depends on how many bosses that randomly generated dungeon will have.

@oldirtybearon: This is the one, site says June 3, 2011 (so 4 months earlier):

Still an amazing trailer.

@mosespippy: you people are all nuts. Half the bosses in DS1 weren't that great. Centipede demon, everything in Tomb of the Giants, Moonlight Butterfly, Seath, Bed of Chaos, the Four Kings - every incarnation of the Asylum demon - these weren't super fun bosses to fight, especially Centipede Demon because of that arena. Sif looked cool but was also shitty to fight because of the crappy lock-on when dealing with large enemies and using thrusting weapons.

I vastly preferred the bosses in Dark Souls 2. Either way I hope Bloodborne has fewer but more meaningful boss fights, sort of how Demons did it.

My hope would be "fewer bosses than Dark Souls 2".

I want 10-20 really good bosses, and not 30 okay ones

I think around 20 bosses in a Souls game is the sweet spot.

It seems difficult to come up with fresh tactics to take on a new boss when you have too many. A lot of people have this problem with Dark Souls 2.

As long as each boss encounter is new, mysterious, interesting, and scary then it has the right amount.

11-12. Big levels, perhaps some puzzle/maze elements, and unique bosses to top off select areas. Around 15 if they decide to pull the ol' "here's a boss, oh wait it's just a late-game enemy that we're initially presenting as a boss."

No, I like your first idea coupled with the Nemesis system.

Probably 2.

16 and they are all puzzle bosses.

around 20.

1. It's you.

@dudeglove: Jabba the Hutt.

this 'DS2 has too many bosses' thing is taking on a life of its own.

it never occured to me maybe because i got caught up in the co-op gameplay, and the amount of bosses just gave me a bigger spread of fights i could help with, which is, ye know, great. it's safe to say i prefer DS2 because of the time I had in co-op, maybe that's just how it worked out, but from my perspective it's hard not to see it as what they wanted to achieve.

I dont care as long as that giant spider is NOT one of them. Only then wl i consider a ps4 just for this game. Only looking at that thing is draining me of my souls.

Then, It will probably be closer to 20 then.

@hh: Yeah, that wasn't the intention of the thread, I want more random Bloodborne speculation! A boss that's a giant top hat? An upside down level? Five Kings? Prismatic Smelter?

@fredchuckdave said:

31+ Gargoyles? Surely a gargoyle horde of some kind. Do I count them each individually?

Anyway, I don't get the complaints about too many boss fights in DkS2. "Quality over Quantity" I get, "DkS1 was better" or "Demon's was more creative" I can follow. But too many? Were there too many mobs? If those bosses were standing there without a fog gate people would be like "awesome new supermobs!" instead of "too many bosses!"

I vote 31+ because the first 400 to overcome are the dollars I have to pay for a PS4 I wouldn't have to buy if not for Bloodborne.

@fredchuckdave: giant tophat as a remodelled Chaos Eater horror-bucket from Lost Izalith, yes!

be funny if this ends up a visually stunning but content light launch title-esque game. I know it probably won't be, but they've shown so little of it. Maybe they just want most of it to remain a surprise.

..What if you are the ONLY boss in the game?

Just think about it.

Just think about it.

Probably around 12 to 16. If they are good, I wouldn't mind a few more.

2.

1 - into boss

2 - boss that murders me for the rest of all time.

Hopefully, not very many. I want intense, memorable bosses.

I bid one boss, Bob.