Boss Tease

^{There's a footnote to this page, but you're not allowed to read it yet.}

On occasion, a game will tantalize the player with an obvious encounter, but will not (yet) let the player actually fight the enemy they're being teased with. Perhaps the enemy is in a visible, yet currently inaccessible area, or behind glass (which could lead to a later discovery of the enemy missing from behind the pane...) — or maybe it disguises itself as a Cutscene Boss, but suddenly roars back into an actual encounter later on. They could even appear before their fight in gameplay, but never being Beatable until you're supposed to kill them. This could be to build anticipation for the encounter, or to make the player anxious; played well, it can gloriously set up a Climax Boss.

Can include Final Boss Preview. Contrast The Unfought, where a hyped-up enemy is never battled. Often overlaps with New World Tease.

As a trope discussing delayed encounters in media, this trope is Spoilered Rotten, with many of the following examples containing free-flying SPOILERS, including for end-game content. You have been warned.

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Examples:

Action

• Feeding Frenzy 2: Shipwreck Showdown: Before the Intruder fully appears around halfway into the game, it appears at the last level of each fish's stage as a Sinister Silhouette that swims by in the background, with the playable fish following the shadow afterwards.

Action Adventure

• ANNO: Mutationem: During Ann's visit beneath Freeway 42's Abandoned Laboratory, a Redshirt Army struggles to capture a creature called The Varanus before getting slaughtered. Much later at The Consortium's underground facility, Ann is dropped down a Trap Door into The Varanus' containment room and battles against it to open the sealed door.
• Batman: Arkham Knight: Right after Batman frees Catwoman from the Riddler, Riddler bursts in with a Mini-Mecha and a horde of robots. After defeating the robots, Riddler — who spent the whole fight on the sidelines covered by a Deflector Shield — retreats underground and informs the duo that they must "earn the privlege" of fighting him. This means finding and solving his 243 riddles scattered throughout the city, all while he taunts and insults you over the city's intercom. The whole thing seems to be designed to make the satisfaction of finally beating him up all the sweeter.
• God of War: At one point during the Challenge of Hades segment in Pandora's Temple, the player passes a huge set of locked doors. Later, in the end of the Challenge, these doors unlock and immediately something starts to hammer them from behind. After passing a Save Point and walking through a door that closes behind, it becomes obvious to the player that the room he/she is returning to is actually a Boss Room. When the player reaches the gate, the doors swing open and suddenly we're facing a frikin' gigantic cyborg minotaur.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: The Skull Kid is an altogether tangible threat; you know from early on that he's on top of the Clock Tower, teasing you as you gaze from the Astral Observatory or just playing merry hell with the nearby planetoid. But you can't even reach the platform you need to get up onto without completing a trading quest to gain access to the flower that can boost you up to it in Deku form; and even then, you can only paff at him with a magic bubble to get your ocarina back, as he's otherwise invincible. Come back having freed the Four Giants, though, and you'll soon reach the final encounter. Subverted slightly, as you fight Majora's Mask itself, it having previously controlled the Skull Kid and just discarded him to lay into you.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: The boss of the City in the Sky can be seen when you first arrive, and later serves to cause a Broken Bridge.
• In Mega Man Legends 2, a giant, dinosaur-like Reaverbot lurks about in a large room visible through the windows in the hallway of the first floor of Saul Kada Ruins. If you stand for too long in front of the window and it's nearby, it will poke its head in to attack you. Later, you'll see just how large it actually is as an Invincible Minor Mook that you can't damage, but gives you a sample of its attacks. Later, once you make your way into a certain place and activate something there, said critter will then be damageable and the Boss Fight starts immediately as you enter the room it was in.
• Tomb Raider (2013): Played straight with the Stormguard Oni. You'll encounter the Oni several times throughout the game - during early encounters, you won't even see its face and will be spending most of your time avoiding its attention as it smashes Solarii into red gravy. Even in the major battle with the Stormguard you have towards the end of the game, the Oni seems to turn into a Cutscene Boss as the bridge you are both on is blown away and the battle is averted. You finally get to truly battle the behemoth in the final area of the game.

Action RPG

• Demon's Souls established a lot of long traditions for FromSoftware, including teasing players with future boss encounters.
  • Should you defeat the Vanguard in the tutorial area, you'll be treated to an early look at the Dragon God, the final boss of Stonefang Tunnel, who will kill you on the spot.
  • In the first zone of Boletaria, you'll get attacked by the red dragon on a bridge. You won't be able to kill it until you reach the next zone, where it will hound you until you either reach the end, or kill it. On a related note, it's also possible to find the blue dragon just sleeping away. You won't be able to deal with it until you reach the steps leading to the palace in the last zone of Boletaria.
• Dark Souls is extremely fond of showing off bosses before the player fights them.
  • Just after leaving your cell in the asylum, the Stray Demon can be seen in a cavern through a small window. It is impossible to fight this boss until the character leaves the asylum and returns.
  • The Hellkite Wyvern will land on a bridge directly in front of the player quite a while before it can be fought.
  • The Depths contains a miniboss in the form of a giant rat. You can see the creature through bars in several different areas before fighting it.
  • The Iron Golem can be seen from the roof of Sen's Fortress.
  • In the Demon Ruins, the Centipede Demon can be seen clinging to the wall near the second bonfire.
  • Seath the Scaleless also counts, as the first time that you fight him, he's impossible to kill. You must destroy his MacGuffin in a different area before fighting him for real.
  • Similar to the Hellkite Wyvern, the dragon Kalameet will briefly touch down in front of the player long before he can be fought.
• Bloodborne has the Amygdala. Should you go to the Nightmare Frontier, you'll be treated to a cutsceen where a previously invisible monster will grab you and transport you to a plane not of this world, where an even bigger version awaits as the boss. If you gather enough Insight, then you can see an Amygdala clinging atop Oedon Cathedral even sooner than that!

Fighting Game

• BlazBlue: Chronophantasma: The end of Azrael's Arcade Mode teases Ragna trying to go all out (activating the Azure Grimoire) against Azrael, who gets excited as the two go to jump at each other...and then the game ends. The story mode rendition of this event, however, subverts this; Ragna does start activating his Grimoire, but — due to his Character Development (about not throwing his power so easily) — he stops it midway, then goes to mock Azrael, who expected a bigger fight out of him. (Kagura then takes Ragna's place.)
• Mortal Kombat:
  • Mortal Kombat (1992) would allow you to sneak a glimpse at an extra character who wasn't on the roster being down to fight, appearing rarely before fights to offer hints as to how he could be fought himself. By doing specific things in a specific order, one could finally fight Reptile. Also, the last endurance match is always fought in Goro's Lair. During the second round, you can hear Goro growling and stomping around offscreen as you fight.
  • Mortal Kombat II did much the same with Noob Saibot, Smoke, and Jade, with each having hints on the specific tasks needed to fight them. Their presence was also hinted at when other opponents were fought in the Living Forest.
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl: A meta-example — Snake & Sonic were massively hyped up for the release of Super Smash Bros Brawl, but they had to be unlocked in-game, and two out of three methods for doing so involved fighting them for the privilege. And a subversion in-game — Snake appears very early on in a brief cutscene in The Subspace Emissary, during which you see his cardboard box shake a little bit. It's not until much later in the story that you encounter him properly, unlocking him for gameplay.

First-Person Shooter

• Subverted twice in Bioshock Infinite.
  • Throughout the game, you see or have close encounters with the incredibly powerful opponent called Songbird, but you don't actually fight it. Near the end it looks like you're finally about to have your long-expected battle with it, but it turns out that you can bring it under your control as a devastating ally by playing a short tune. And again, after you lose the device that controls it]] and it does attack you, Elizabeth uses her powers to effortlessly defeat it.
  • You see the Big Bad Zachary Hale Comstock at least once on the deck of an enemy ship early on and find many other references to him, so you naturally assume that the end of the game will include a huge Boss Battle with him. Imagine your surprise when your character finally meets him in person and you end up drowning him in a pool of water in a Cut Scene.
• Quake IV:
  • During most of the last third of the game ("Operation: Last Hope") Kane keeps crossing paths with a giant gorilla. This gorilla is fought at the end of the level "Data Networking Security" as the last Mid-Boss before the mook-infested "Nexus Core" and the Boss Battle against the Makron in "The Nexus". Speaking of which...
  • The Makron itself appears at half-game, in the level "Nexus Hub", right after Kane activates the control panel and makes quick work of two Stream Protectors. This fight cannot be won and leads straight into the infamous Stroggification scene, provided Kane does enough damage to it. The Makron is spotted again in the "Nexus Core" level, and finally fought (and finished) for real in the last level, "The Nexus".
• Return to Castle Wolfenstein has Heinrich appearing in the opening cutscene. The campaign consists of B.J. preventing this resurrection which happens as the last battle in the game.
  • Wolfenstein has Hans Grosse, who's seen in a Bar Brawl which takes place at a cutscene in the middle of the game, then at Deathshead's castle where he appears as Strasse's bodyguard and seemingly executes Caroline Becker, and then is fought at the very last level when he gains a Powered Armor.
  • Wolfenstein: The New Order has two examples: the first is either Wyatt or Fergus, whom you fight at the end depending on which one you chose to sacrifice in 1946. The other is, of course, Deathshead, whom B.J. meets in 1946 and is responsible for extracting either Wyatt or Fergus's brain, and by 1960 he becomes a General and the last enemy you face.
• Unreal Tournament 2004: The opening cutscene of the single-player ladder features the leaders of each of the "Godlike" tier teams (ClanLord for Iron Skull, Malcolm for Thunder Crash and Xan for The Corrupt) plus Juggernauts leader Gorge before you face them in the ladders: Gorge at midway of the team ladders and Lord, Malcolm and Xan as one of the final bosses depending on how well their teams did against you.
  • Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict has Apophis and Selket appearing throughout the entirety of the Ascension Rites (though only in cutscenes), only to be fought at the semifinals and finals respectively.
  • Unreal Tournament III: Akasha is found at the opening cutscene and at the cutscene preceeding Act III: The Liandri Conflict, before finally appearing as an opponent (first as part of the Black Legion team, then as a solo opponent) in several missions of Act V: Disposable Assets.

Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game

• In Vindictus, there is a major boss fight against a giant polar bear. A couple missions before the encounter, he breaks open the roof of a cavern you're fighting in and roars at you for a bit before moving off.
• World of Warcraft has a number of examples; during the Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm expansions, the respective Big Bads had a habit of popping up during the levelling process long before they were added to the game as killable bosses, while back in Burning Crusade the raid boss Magtheridon was visible through the floor of the Blood Furnace, a 5-man dungeon.

Platformer

• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night: The swordsman Zangetsu appears in the background of the ship level, rowing towards the same place you're heading, long before you get to meet him - and he's not pleased to see you when you do.
• Cave Story: Misery will occasionally appear just to stir up trouble and get the player wondering if they can shoot her yet, though she is often a Bait-and-Switch Boss. Oddly, the player can do this to themselves with Balrog — a dialog option in your first encounter will mean that you won't need to fight him there, though you will have to later on.
• The Divide: Enemies Within have the Creature, an unidentified gigantic alien beast, introduced right in the opening cutscene, where it ingests the dropped alien probe (which killed another one of it's kind), resulting in the machine assimilating it. Your backstory have you being ambushed by that very creature who then leaves you to die before the first level, and it returns as the boss of the second-to-last world.
• Mega Man:
  • The Robot Masters of Mega Man 11 all show up in Dr. Light's lab during the opening scene right before Dr. Wily kidnaps them. Also, Acid Man can be seen swimming in the pools in the background of his level.
  • Mega Man X:
    • The ending narration of Mega Man X3 mentions that X has to destroy Zero to save mankind. It foreshadows a fight between X and Zero as the Climax Boss of X5 — especially in the bad end route, where Zero turns Maverick and X has to destroy him before he wreaks havoc.
    • At the end of the first area of the introductory level in Mega Man X4, the Hunters will run into Magma Dragoon. He's a fellow Maverick Hunter, but the heroes would later learn that he's the real culprit behind the Sky Lagoon disaster. Colonel will also show up at the end of the very same intro level.
    • After disabling the intro boss of Mega Man X6, an Evil Knockoff of the missing Zero teleports in and outright destroys it. After that, a large Reploid named High Max arrives, supposedly on the trail of "Nightmare" Zero. You actually fight High Max here, but it only lasts for a few seconds and X has no way of actually damaging him.
  • Mega Man Zero
    • Zero runs into one of the Weil Numbers, Childre Inarabitta, at the very beginning of the Oceanic Highway Ruins of Mega Man Zero 3. The mission becomes a race between Zero and Inarabitta (who jumps into a submarine) for the Dark Elf, with Zero sabotaging the vehicle's progress throughout the area. They only fight at the end of the level after the Dark Elf eludes both parties.
    • At the end of the second introductory level of Mega Man Zero 4, Zero comes face to face with the Einherjar, the game's eight main bosses, as well as Commander Craft, all at once. Instead of taking care of Zero right there where they easily have a number advantage, they all leave on their separate missions.
  • In Mega Man ZX Advent, about 1/4th into the story you'll meet the "Enemy Mega Men" in the end of 2 stages (Aeolus and Siarnaq in Rospark's level when they come to retrieve a Model W, Thetis and Atlas in Chronoforce's level since they wanted to get a good look at the new competition). Like Grey/Ashe, they're also participants in the "Game of Destiny", but none of them are in any mood to fight at the moment (Siarnaq just wants to get the Model W and finish the mission, Atlas doesn't think the newbie is worth her time and punctuates that by dropping them into the water to fight Chronoforce, Thetis isn't in the mood to fight, and Aeolus thinks he's giving them a small mercy to grow stronger in preparation for their proper fight).
• Metroid:
  • Super Metroid: A statue depicting four creatures guards the entrance to a late-game area. By the time you visit this statue for the first time, you'll likely have defeated one of these bosses, causing its colored gemstone to fall away and that part of the statue to fade from gold to dark stone. It's easy to guess that you need to defeat the other guardians to open the way, especially since the most prominently depicted creature is Ridley, whom you've already fought and weren't able to defeat yet.
  • Metroid Prime: During the escape after defeating the Load-Bearing Boss of the first level, Samus walks into a large basically empty room, then looks up and sees Meta Ridley on a ceiling beam spreading his wings and roaring down menacingly. Instead of fighting, he chooses to escape the ship too. He is glimpsed again once later from a distance, before finally forcing a showdown with Samus just before she gains access to the final area.
  • Metroid Fusion:
    • Subverted with the SA-X. You are clearly told to Run or Die whenever it appears, as it is strong enough to kill you within seconds and, even when you get a weapon that can affect it, you cannot deal it any damage; merely slow it down. However, in the end, you'll get the battle you truly wanted.
    • Nightmare appears in the background when Samus leaves Sector 5 for the first time. It flies around in the background as you progress, causing rooms to shake violently. However, you cannot fight against it immediately — it is only after an explosion occurs in Sector 5 and Samus is told to investigate the ruined sector when you can finally revisit the area and start the actual boss encounter there.
    • In the Sub-Zero Containment in the BSL's main hub area, players can catch a glimpse of Ridley's frozen corpse.
  • Metroid Dread:
    • Samus gets in a fight with the Final Boss, Raven Beak, in the prologue before actual gameplay begins. As with other boss battles, his introductory cutscene shows you every attack he uses (in his first phase, anyways) and how to dodge and damage him.
    • You can notice an invisible Corpius hunting and hiding around in the background several times in Artaria before his eventual fight.
    • You can find a tortured creature during your first traversal in Dairon, but it's confined to the background, unable to do anything. Later on, said creature is possessed by the X and becomes the Experiment No. Z-57 boss fought during your return to Cataris.
    • There are two Chozo Soldiers patrolling in the background at the beginning of Hanubia. They eventually notice Samus and proceed ahead of her path to confront her later.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic Adventure:
    • Amy Rose's story and gameplay consists of being hunted by, and running away from, E-100 ZERO, a robot specifically designed to end your run and capture the small bird you're carrying. While you can temporarily slow it down in action stages, you can only really defeat it in your final encounter. Justified in that Amy can't access the tough robot's weakpoint without the electrified fences in the boss arena.
    • E-102 GAMMA's story will, at one point, lead you into a cutscene wherein your "big brother", E-101 BETA, is being rebuilt in a funky new form, in what probably registers as robotic Body Horror for poor Gamma and Beta. E-101 BETA Mk.II is the last boss for Gamma, to be fought much later.
    E-102 GAMMA: "THIS IS THE WRONG ROOM."
    • Sonic's ineptitude will provide Dr. Robotnik with all the Chaos Emeralds he needs to mutate his pet Eldritch Abomination into stronger forms. He starts in his Chaos 0 form, ramping all the way up to his Perfect Chaos form once he absorbs all 7 emeralds. Chaos 1 appears in a cutscene, but is never fought; Chaos 3 and 5 are never even seen since Chaos absorbs two Emeralds at once in both cases to skip right to Chaos 4 and 6.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog CD had Metal Sonic swoop down at the start of Collision Chaos Zone, kidnap Amy, and fly off. The next time he shows up is when you race against him in Stardust Speedway Act 3.

Role-Playing Games

• Final Fantasy
  • The WEAPONs in Final Fantasy VII, waking up as the heroes and Shinra make their escape from the Northern Crater. Only two of them are fought as storyline bosses (Ultimate and Diamond), another one (Sapphire) is later dispatched in an FMV, and Ruby and Emerald are optional.
  • Final Fantasy X-2
    • The Gullwings have their first glimpse of giant superweapon Vegnagun in a sphere recording near the beginning of the game. Vegnagun is fought (in four different parts) as the penultimate boss.
    • In Bikanel Desert, there is a chance that the player will run into giant Fiend Superboss Angra Mainyu whenever they're in a digging session. The player can only spend a few minutes in that battle before Angra Mainyu ejects them. Angra Mainyu can only be properly fought after a lengthy Fetch Quest in Chapter 5.
• Mega Man Battle Network: In the third game, Mega Man has an encounter with a seemingly heroic Flame Man before later facing him in the Undernet after the deception is revealed.
• A variation is used in the Neverwinter Nights 1 Original Campaign. Gradually, through the various "episodes", you get at first hints and then knowledge about "The Ancient Ones" and "The Creator Race" until the final Boss Battle.
• Pokémon:
  • Pokémon Gold and Silver. In the cellar of the Burned Tower, the player will first encounter the three Legendary Dogs Raikou, Entei and Suicune...who then promptly flee, requiring you to search the land for your battles with them.
    • There's also teaming up with Lance to take on Team Rocket at the Rocket hideout; while only the remakes allow you to truly fight alongside him, in the originals you still get to storm the hideout with him, including seeing him order his Dragonite to attack a Team Rocket grunt.
  • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire and Emerald (and their remakes) sees the evil Team of either game awakening the Legendary they're after, but the player doesn't get to fight and/or capture them until they reach Sootopolis City. Emerald also requires you to go to Sky Pillar and awaken Rayquaza yourself, but you can't fight it until after the events in Sootopolis are over.
  • Pokémon Sword and Shield
    • The opening has the player and Hop watching Champion Leon's exhibition match against Gym Leader Raihan with Leon dynamaxing his Charizard. You will face off against both of them on your way to becoming the Champion.
    • A two fold one: at the beginning of the game, you go to rescue a Wooloo from the Slumbering Wield and end up facing your boxart legendary (Zacian in Sword or Zamazentain Shield) in their base form, but the form can't be attacked and won't attack and you are kicked out after a couple of turns. Later in the game, both legendaries show up to help fight Eternamax Eternatus in their Crowned forms with you and Hop acting as glorified cheer leaders. It's not until the end of the post-game quest line are you able to catch your boxart legendary with Hop catching the other and then battling you immediately after.
  • In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, you meet up with the boxart legendary (Miradon in Scarlet/Koridon in Violet) at the start and feed it a sandwich to give it the energy to assume its Apex Form/Ultimate Mode which it uses to escort you through a cave, but afterwards is unable to resume that form. Later on you face the legendary again as the Post-Final Boss, but its a Mirror Boss with you using the boxart legendary against an aggressive member of its species.
• In Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, halfway through Sector Delphinus, you will find a statue of a demon. There isn't anything else you can do except progress through the story until the spirit returns to the statue, at which point you face Asura.
• Tales of Vesperia: The Quoi Woods have a path which at one point runs in front of a dense barrier of trees - not dense enough to hide the massive, multichromatic insect monster behind them. You won't be able to reach the Chimera Butterfly until later on, when you improve your Sorceror's Ring.
• XenoGears: When the party chases Stone down an underground base, they see him escaping in his Alkanshel. They later battle after he personally decides to eliminate them.

Shoot 'em Up

• Andro Dunos 2 has a Leviathan boss who first appears as a Shark Fin of Doom. You fend off it's projectile attacks, the Leviathan takes a dive, and you follow it for an Underwater Boss Battle.

Stealth-Based Game

• Metal Gear Solid: Sbake will, at one point, run into a tense standoff with Sniper Wolf; the problem is that he won't have a sniper rifle at this point, so he'll have to come back for this battle when he acquires one.

Survival Horror

• Resident Evil:
  • Resident Evil (Remake): Lisa Trevor appears several times, guarding or patrolling areas, before her actual boss encounter — being dealt heavy damage before this fight will only knock her down for a while, and she'll soon be up on her feet again. This makes it important to avoid her early on.
  • Resident Evil 2 (Remake) shows Mr. X on a video monitor as early as the player arriving at the police station for the first time. Mr. X would show up again punching through a jail cell and killing Ben Bertolucci.
• Silent Hill 2: Even before that cutscene in the Wood Side Apartments, the player can get a glimpse of Pyramid Head staring at them from a barred-off hallway. And even if this is ignored, there are several other points throughout the game where he attacks James before the penultimate fight against two Pyramid Heads.

Wide Open Sandbox Games

• Saints Row: The Third: It's established almost immediately that Phillipe Loren is not your friend. However, when you become combat-capable after your encounter with him, you aren't given the option of fighting him; you'll need to ignore him and get out of dodge (by parachute-jumping), only pulling the cord when you've caught your companion, Shaundi. When the PC realises that the plane is going to ram you in midair, they announce their intentions to shoot out the cockpit window, shoot Phillipe to death whilst flying through the inside of the plane, steal another parachute and get out the other side to catch Shaundi again; they do all these things except kill Phillipe, who cannot be found and is only too happy to taunt you when you land.

Non-Game Examples

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: The show has said numerous times that the Avatar must defeat the Fire Lord in order to restore stability in the world. It finally takes place in the last season's finale, where Aang defeats Ozai by De-power-ing him.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: In each Story Arc, there's a pivotal moment where the Big Bad displays a brief instance of their Stand's ability before the heroes come to do battle in the last fight.
• Rom: Spaceknight: In-Universe. ROM was often compared to the Hulk, at which point ROM would inevitably look off pensively and think to himself that one day, he would have to encounter this creature that men call...The Hulk." This went on for quite a while, until the Hulk was just about to be sent off to the Crossroads (in Incredible Hulk #300) so they had to get to the ROM/Hulk fight quickly, squeezed into half an issue of Hulk. Read more here.

^{Now you may read the footnote.}

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