One of the biggest hits from 2022 was undoubtedly Elden Ring, which managed to garner a broader appeal than many past FromSoftware titles. The game's vast open world, boss battles, and the freedom it afforded players attracted a huge amount of players to the title, from those who were fond of previous titles from the developer to brand-new fans. While the game's bosses get a lot of attention, there are many regular enemies in Elden Ring that also provide a strong challenge for both new and veteran players alike.
There are many bosses across Elden Ring that players must face in order to progress the story, as well as a long list of other optional foes. However, in-between these epic boss battles, players will come across a myriad of other very formidable enemies scattered across the Lands Between that can cause them trouble. These are Elden Ring's hardest in-game enemies that aren't bosses.
Lesser Runebears Are A Major Elden Ring Challenge
Although not quite as tricky as the boss version of the creature, Lesser Runebears still offer a steep challenge for Elden Ring players whenever they appear. They have a large amount of health and a devastating charge attack, and can easily maul players or even attack them from a distance with projectiles. An Elden Ring Runebear discovery may explain their difficulty, theorizing that the species may be linked to dragons in some way. Whatever the source of their power may be, most players agree the rewards from killing Lesser Runebears aren't worth the trouble.
Moongrum, Carian Knight Is Harder Than Elden Ring's Rennala
On their way to fight Rennala at The Academy of Raya Lucaria, players will encounter the enemy Moongrum, Carian Knight. Although Rennala is a fairly difficult boss, many players consider fighting Moongrum to be even harder than the boss fight it precedes. This enemy uses a combination of both melee and magic attacks that make it so that players often need more than once chance to defeat him.
Players might need some help beating Rennala in Elden Ring, but she's not nearly as frustrating as Moongrum, Carian Knight. Moongrum uses both a Carian Knight’s Sword and the Carian Piercer sorcery, making for some hard-to-dodge attacks due to his incredible speed.
Not only is he capable of quick and damaging blows, but he also utilizes the Carian Retaliation skill to launch magic attacks players make right back at them, and he even has his own flask that allows him to heal once during the battle.
Warhawks Are Relentless In Elden Ring
Warhawks are admittedly one of the coolest enemies in Elden Ring from a design perspective, with talons in the form of sharp swords. However, these creatures found throughout the game are also some of the most difficult and annoying fights players will have to participate in. Their only upside is the fact players can get the Warhawk's Talon Elden Ring weapon from them, but their cons far outweigh the pros when it comes to this enemy.
Warhawks are first found shortly after the notoriously difficult Margit boss fight, and are a rough encounter following such intense combat. The Warhawks that reside at Stormveil Castle utilize their sharp feet for brutal melee attacks, and as if that weren't enough, can also launch explosive barrels at the player from a distance. Other Warhawk variants that the Tarnished can encounter in other parts of Elden Ring's world can even throw fireballs at the player, making things even more difficult.
Fingercreepers Are Disturbing & Difficult In Elden Ring
Out of all the truly horrifying enemies in Elden Ring, Fingercreepers are both one of the utmost disturbing and difficult creatures players can face. Particularly bad for those with arachnophobia, these cobbled-together giant hands are quite challenging, able to knock players down with just a few blows in close combat. Sometimes these creatures even hide in the ground waiting to snatch up players as they pass by, which almost always means immediate death for the Tarnished. The Colossal variant of these spider-like walking appendages is even worse and can be harder to take down simply by being distractingly unsettling.
Elden Ring's Revenant Are Scarily Difficult
Elden Ring's Revenant are another arachnid-inspired horror show that can be quite hard for players to defeat. Just as the boss version of the enemy, the Royal Revenant, is one of the most annoying Elden Ring bosses, regular Revenant are incredibly irritating as well. Revenant have a wide skill set designed to take players out as quickly as possible, from their rapid-fire attacks to their abilities to teleport around with portals and spit poison at the player, which is both creepy and quite detrimental. Additionally, Revenant sometimes appear in groups, making an already difficult fight exponentially worse.
Giant Crayfish Are Deadly In Elden Ring
Although they're often referred to as lobsters, these horrible crustaceans are actually called Giant Crayfish. These enemies are fast and powerful, with a grab attack that can quickly kill the player. Giant Crayfish also have an incredibly long-range water shot, like to hang out in groups, and sport hard shells that make them difficult to damage. This is especially true for a variant of the creature that's infected with parasites, who have red eyes, more power, and disgusting wriggling creatures on their underbelly. These Elden Ring enemies feel cheap and annoying alongside their difficulty, making for an overall unpleasant experience.
Elden Ring's Pests Are Aptly Named
Lesser Kindred of Rot, also known as Pests, are enemies that most players dread to see show up while they're traveling through the Lands Between. They're the regular enemy version of Elden Ring's Kindred of Rot boss and have the boss's same bug-human-hybrid appearance and devastating attacks. Pests have an incredibly accurate homing Pest Thread attack that's quite hard to dodge, which paired with powerful melee strikes makes them one of Elden Ring's most difficult non-bosses.
FromSoftware titles have always been renowned for their difficulty, and Elden Ring is no different. With so many hard bosses, it's easy for the difficulty of normal enemies to be overlooked, but they also add their own challenge and flair to the game. Elden Ring 2 is inevitable, and alongside more DLC likely on the way for the base game there will no doubt be many more difficult enemies in store for Elden Ring fans in the future, but these take the cake for now.
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