Words Worth Knowing: Boss Fight
Words Worth Knowing was a vertical I wrote weekly explaining key pieces of gaming jargon to parents, guardians and teachers, as part of the larger overall GameHub outreach effort. The column ran for nearly two years and resulted in around 60 WWK articles. GameHubHQ.com closed in late 2017. This piece originally appeared on Nov 28, 2016.
What It Is: Boss Fight = A challenging fight against an unusually powerful enemy.
What It Means: Boss fights are the most challenging fight sequences in a game, testing the player's skills. These fights often have a secondary function of dividing the game up into chapters, with the boss battle signalling the end of an area or level and heralding a new section of the story. Though not always the case, boss battle enemies are often much physical larger than the player's own character. Completing a boss fight nearly always earns the player a useful in-game reward, but they long-winded to play, requiring precise timing and complex moves, and represent a bottle-neck to player progression. Struggling to complete a boss fight can cause a player to become very frustrated and irritable as they are forced to retry the segment over and over again.
Why You Care: A traditional component of game design, boss fights have fallen out of favour amongst some creators and critics, though it does vary considerably from genre to genre. Experienced gamers will often find they have played boss fights with the same "solution" in multiple games, eg tricking the enemy into running into a wall and becoming dazed. Boss fights often require the player to react quickly and accurately in order to win the day, with even one wrong move requiring them to start the long sequence all over again. Players need to concentrate deeply at these times and may become bad-tempered and snappish if disturbed. If stuck, it is usually beneficial to take a break and return to the challenge refreshed.
