Elden Ring Developers Reveal Which Boss Has Killed The Most Players

Elden Ring turned one-year-old last month. To celebrate, Bandai Namco teased DLC which may or may not revolve around one of the most important characters in Elden Ring lore, Miquella. Looks like Bandai Namco is still celebrating because it recently provided an infographic that broke down all the deaths players have suffered at the hands of bosses. Last year, we provided a list of who we thought were the game’s hardest bosses, but now we have data that confirms which boss was responsible for more player deaths than any other.

According to that infographic, Elden Ring’s players have attempted to defeat the game’s many bosses a whopping 5.9 billion times. Malenia, Blade of Miquella ate up an astonishing 329 million of those attempts, making her Elden Ring’s objectively deadliest boss. If we’re being honest, this revelation isn’t that surprising since Malenia is an endgame super boss, which makes her difficult by definition. Moreover, she has the enviable ability to heal herself with every strike even if blocked, which undoubtedly added to her body count.

Don’t just assume that all of Elden Ring‘s endgame bosses are its deadliest bosses, though. In fact, the split is quite even. After all, the second and third deadliest bosses in the game are Margit The Fell Omen (281 million attempts) and Limgrave Tree Sentinel (277 million attempts), and those are two of the earliest bosses most Elden Ring players will encounter. Of course, the fourth-place boss (Radagon of the Golden Order, 148 million attempts) is the final boss in the game, and the fifth-place boss (Starscourge Radahn, 139 million attempts) is a mid-game progress hurdle, so the difficulty distribution is fairly even across the game in terms of boss fights.

Of course, Margit and the Tree Sentinel’s presence probably shouldn’t be too surprising. Many have said that Margit is one of the toughest first (non-avoidable) bosses in Soulsborne history, and Tree Sentinel’s place just goes to show you how many players probably approached him right after the game tutorial only to realize their mistake right before getting bodied.

Of course, attempting to defeat a boss is one thing and actually dying to them is another, but the infographic also has that distinction covered. According to a handy pie chart, players have died over 9 billion times in Elden Ring (so far). 69% of all deaths were to enemies and NPCs, 15% to status effects, 14% to fall damage, and the remaining 2% came at the hands of other players. While this information doesn’t exactly tell us how many times Malenia killed players (since she can inflict the Scarlet Rot status effect), it still demonstrates players have died to bosses and enemies a heck of a lot of times. As for the fall damage…well, judge not lest ye be judged.

Bandai Namco’s document is full of other interesting tidbits, such as how Elden Ring players have summoned other gamers over 1 billion times (88% of which were for co-op). Moreover, Rock Sling and Blessing of the Erdtree are the most popular spell and incantation in Elden Ring, respectively. The former is a low-level spell that is useful for most of the game, while the latter is an essential part of many of Elden Ring‘s best Faith-based builds.

One can only imagine how this data will change once Elden Ring’s DLC releases. Will a new super boss dethrone Malenia, Blade of Miquella as the deadliest boss in the game? Time will tell, though FromSoftware’s history of saving the most difficult bosses for the DLC is a matter of public record.