Reimagining Terraria Bosses

Reimagining Terraria Bosses

Terraria and Dark Souls I don’t think these two games need an introduction they’re two of my favourite games and they actually have a lot in 
common so I’ve been wondering: I’m an artist so…  what if I took the weird fantasy vibes 
of Dark Souls and applied it to Terraria? these are actually my first 
sketches from like 6 years ago  I never continued though, until about a year 
ago when I decided to pick this project back up.  but this time I decided to work my way 
through the game in order of progression starting with King Slime with him being the first one I didn’t really 
have full idea of how to tackle this project yet I wasn’t sure how closely I wanted the design 
to resemble something out of Dark Souls too far in one direction and we 
just end up with Iudex Gundyr and too little and it just resembles the 
first sketch I drew all those years ago I wanted to make him a little more unique so I gave him a set of arms to flail around with  as well as a few other 
remnants of a former human body I also interpreted the 
little slimes that he spawns as former soldiers that he absorbed into himself but now with hindsight while 
the slimes are pretty cool  I’m not so sure about the king anymore you’ll see later when we get to the queen. but for now let’s head to the second boss or the first real boss depending 
on whether it finds you first for this one I couldn’t really help 
myself but think about Bloodborne which   makes sense with the whole Cthulhu 
thing that Terraria has going for it it’s inherently Lovecraftian so a little 
sprinkle of Bloodborne here and there won’t hurt even though he’s originally just a floating 
eyeball I didn’t want to restrict myself so I gave him a set of tentacles and I imagine he uses those to 
slingshot himself towards the player I also tried another version to bring it closer 
to something you’d encounter in Dark Souls specifically these little guys from Dark Souls 3 they’ve always felt a little more 
eldritch to me than the other designs and I actually kind of like this version even   if it bears no resemblance 
to the original Eye anymore well anyways onto The Eater of Worlds my first thought was: “Well the Carthus Sandworm 
already exists so I don’t need to do anything” but I didn’t want to skip it just like that so   instead I focused on one of 
it’s main characteristics: the fact that it splits into smaller 
worms as the fight progresses I imagined something akin to the 
land octopuses from Elden Ring or something like Rykard I thought of a big mass of centipedes that slowly 
split off of the main body as the fight progresses but I think I’d have to animate it 
to show what I really had in mind maybe I’ll do that in the future well next up Brain of Cthulhu just like the eye it very 
much reminded me of Bloodborne I mean
Amygdala -> Brain -> Cthulhu I think it speaks for itself but like the Eater of Worlds 
I couldn’t just skip it  so I still tried to come up with my own version I used the human nervous system as inspiration and I also added teal to its colour 
scheme in reference to the Moon Lord which is also kind of fitting 
given it casts illusion magic well out of the Crimson into the Jungle
next up is Queen Bee after experimenting with a few regular bee designs
I went with the tried and true Fromsoft-classic: a pretty woman’s upper body
with a monstrous lower body one of the most recognizable 
characteristics that Queen Bee has are these dis-gus-ting trypophobia inducing 
holes that she has at the bottom of her abdomen uegh so as much as I hated it I had to 
include them in her design as well I just went ahead and covered 
those holes in rotten honey  to make them a little more bearable and time to head to the dungeon eventhough Skeletron is very iconic to Terraria,
being the final boss when the game first came out and being the guardian to the dungeon I just felt he needed just a little bit more he really is just a skeleton after all I wanted the Old Man’s curse 
to be reflected in his design at this point in time I didn’t even know 
if I wanted to tackle the Mechanical Bosses so I just went ahead and gave 
him Skeletron Prime’s four arms this also came with the benefit of 
differentiating him from High Lord Wolnir and that’s actually almost all 
of the bosses before hardmode the only one missing? Deerclops of course! I honestly kind of just drew this one for fun   since he’s part of a crossover 
and not really a Terraria boss OK but now the actual final boss before hardmode The Wall of Flesh I wanted to make the urgency of being chased by 
this giant monstrosity a major part of it’s design so I made 3 different versions 
all escalating in intensity so while the first version is a 
giant demon that chases you around the second and the third one incorporate 
the level into the design as well I imagine something similar to the 
Bed of Chaos or the Ancient Wyvern where the player has to 
navigate through the Underworld while also being pursued by the Wall and just like in Terraria where the Wall gets 
faster and faster as the fight progresses  maybe in this version the 
Wall gets bigger and bigger and while it would essentially 
become a gimmick fight we kind of need those don’t we well with the Wall of Flesh 
defeated it’s time for hardmode and the first boss in hardmode is Queen Slime I didn’t just want a repeat of King Slime so I wanted to experiment a bit 
and take a few creative liberties although one thing I really liked about king slime was that little hint of humanity 
that he still has in him so I tried to put that into the Queen as 
well but give it a slightly different flavour I’d like to think that she has just a little 
bit more humanity left in her than the King and those crystals on her back 
might play a little role in that and now that I also have a better grasp of 
what I want the slimes to be like in general I definitely want to make a dedicated video where 
I redesign King Slime to make him match his queen and go a little deeper into 
the lore of their kingdom and speaking of lore this next part 
was a big challenge in that department as I’ve said I wasn’t even sure if 
I wanted to do the Mechanical Bosses  with them having sci-fi designs and all that but I gave it a shot anyways I wanted to find a way to incorporate 
their designs into a fantasy setting of course my first thought was necromancy 
but I wanted it to have a scrappy twist imagine the only tools you have 
available are sourced from Blighttown and the same thing goes for the 
Destroyer and Skeletron Prime I think the lore of the Mechanic being imprisoned   by the Lunatic Cultist is 
actually quite intriguing it kind of fits a Dark Souls-y narrative as well I can definitely imagine an obtuse 
questline revolving around her and that’s definitely something 
I want to explore in the future but for now I’m pretty satisfied 
with the designs I came up with with the Mechanical Bosses out of the 
way its time to move on to the Jungle I made quite a few versions of 
Plantera but one thing stayed the same while technically not from Dark Souls  I used the Scadutree Avatar as 
inspiration for my first two designs and for the next two I wanted to 
incorporate a few more human elements mostly because i already have a few plans 
of what i want to do with her in the future and speaking of plans I kind of didn’t have any for the Golem I was actually surprised at how many parallels the 
Jungle Temple has to Dark Souls’ Sen’s Fortress a large dungeon filled to 
the absolute brim with traps guarded by snake people and culminating in a giant golem boss fight? that is kind of poetic and quite fittingly just like after 
acquiring the Lordvessel in Dark Souls  the game opens up giving the 
player lots of opportunities  to tackle new events and fight 
a bunch of optional bosses the first one that comes to my mind is the Duke technically it’s possible to fight him sooner
but who does that? but then again if you’re up 
for the challenge go for it  sounds like another thing straight 
out of Fromsoft’s playbook doesn’t it?  or rather just good game design in general well either way as you can see I 
tried a few versions for Duke Fishron dragons play a very big role in Dark Souls
with them being the primordial rulers and all that  so I wasn’t sure if i wanted 
him to be a true ancient dragon  or rather have him be a lesser wyvern and to be honest I’m still not sure Terraria really doesn’t have any dragons
so I think there’s a lot of room for me to add some creative liberties
and expand upon them  but I think that’s something for another time for now let me show you some more optional content Terraria has quite a lot of events 
but not all of them feature a boss and one of them is just 
straight up an alien invasion  so I decided to focus on the 
Pumpkin and Frost Moon events for example when it comes to the Pumpking I tried to enhance the scarecrow and 
grim reaper aspects of his design and since the event gets quite hectic once 
you have to start fighting multiple of them I decided to just draw a second one
and turn it into a duo boss fight Frost Moon on the other hand is very different I focused on the only fantasy boss in that event she already reminded me of 
everyone’s favourite princess  so her design is an homage to Priscilla and now it’s time for probably one 
of the hardest bosses in the game  another one of Fromsoft’s staples Sister Friede Lady Maria …Malenia, Blade of Miquella. I think the Empress of Light is 
a perfect fit right next to them especially if you’re willing 
to fight her during the day I’ve experimented quite a bit with her looks  but I definitely want to capture the 
same energy that these women radiate a fierce warrior with unfaltering 
dedication to do anything in her power to make sure you don’t make it out alive her boss fight would be an absolute spectacle I don’t think concept art alone 
will be able to do it justice and I can’t wait to do something about that later well time for the final stretch the leader of the Lunar Cult 
that imprisoned the Mechanic and cursed many others  in search of finding a 
suitable host for the Old One and with his defeat at the hand of the player
the final events are being set into motion a shift in reality that brings 
other cosmic entities with it but the Lunar Pillars themselves 
wouldn’t be a boss fight they’re the burning Erdtree the Eclipse and the stage for the final boss I mean what else is there to say and eldritch god-like entity he’s Cthulhu I had the same issue again the artists at Fromsoft have already 
done it better than I ever will just like Amygdala is the perfect Brain of Cthulhu Moon Presence is basically 
the perfect Moon Lord already and with so much Bloodborne around it was kind of 
hard to keep it within the bounds of Dark Souls eh… whatever… at this point in time I’ve already 
decided to make it my own thing and with that in mind I did the unthinkable I gave the Moon Lord legs and with him being the last boss 
I also gave him something special well… that’s all the bosses at least 95% of them and I’m not done yet I still want to keep going and design a few enemies and 
NPCs and the world overall so if you liked what I’ve done so far and 
want to see more feel free to subscribe I’d very much appreciate that thank you for watching

I spent the last year or so reimagining what Terraria would look like if it was a dark fantasy souls-like, so I thought: “Why not make a video where I show off everything I’ve done so far?” and so I did. This is just the first video of what I hope will be a larger series of me exploring what an entire game like this would look like.

credit to that one bloodborne clip: @bonfirevn

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