More than seven years later, Lady Maria from the Old Hunters DLC still stands as the template for some of FromSoftware’s best boss battles. Even more recent games from the developer appear to have drawn from this Bloodborne boss design in order to deliver some intense encounters like Sister Friede in Dark Souls 3 and even Radagon in Elden Ring.
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Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower
The fight against Lady Maria starts off impressively, with one of the few moments where the player has to fight against another hunter that has many of the same abilities as the player. Between using the dual-wielding form of Bloodborne’s infamous Rakuyo, as well as swapping out occasionally for an Evelyne pistol, Maria mostly fights on the same level as the player. However, this dynamic quickly changes when enough damage is dealt and Lady Maria makes the strikingly cinematic transition into her second form by impaling herself with her own weapon.
From here, the fight starts to completely turn against the player, with Lady Maria gaining additional range thanks to her own blood now flinging off the Rakuyo with every attack. This continues even further into the third form, which not only adds waves of blood to her attacks, but also a delayed flame that can catch players during moments that had previously been openings to punish. It’s a natural evolution that uses the FromSoftware formula in one of the best ways found within Bloodborne.
All of this spectacle is made all the better by being one of few boss fights in Bloodborne that keeps the camera close to the player, since the target isn’t a giant monster that has to be kept in the frame. Fans of the most recent God of War might recognize this intimacy, keeping the view close to the player character’s shoulder, as one of the draws of modern games that can maintain immersion outside of realism. The result is a tough fight that feels more like a test of skill than the ways that larger bosses can devolve into puzzles, more interested in finding the answer to an encounter rather than a strategy.
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How FromSoftware Continues to Iterate on Lady Maria
Fans that have continued to follow FromSoftware titles since Bloodborne have been given many fights that touch on the same aspects of speed and skill that Lady Maria does. Most notable among them is Sister Friede from Ashes of Ariandel, the first DLC for Dark Souls 3, who takes major notes from the Lady Maria fight in a slower, more deliberate context. It’s a taste of Bloodborne’s content taken out of the context of the much faster-paced game with a more active dodging and parrying combat system.
The comparisons don’t stop at Sister Friede, however, as many of the fights against humanoid-sized enemies in other FromSoftware titles give ample opportunity to test a player’s moment-to-moment skill. Not only do most of the encounters from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice maintain similar camera angles, with the frame drawing in close for one-on-one fights, but many of the best bosses from Elden Ring follow this same design. One impressive showing of how Lady Maria has continued beyond Bloodborne is in Elden Ring’s final boss Radagon, who dashes across the arena at high speed, and launches into multiple phases with increasing range and closing opportunities to punish.
A lot of what makes Lady Maria such a stellar boss encounter comes from the basic formula for the best designs in many FromSoftware games. In fact, Lady Maria isn’t even the first time that the key aspects of her fight have been shown off by the developer, as she herself acts as an evolution in the fight against Artorias from the Dark Souls DLC. However, with the way that FromSoftware has made iterations on Lady Maria, hopefully, there will be a similarly impressive fight in any Bloodborne sequel that might be in the developer’s future.
Bloodborne is available now for PS4.
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