As a seasoned hunter and tarnished who's braved every twisted realm FromSoftware has conjured, I can tell you this: their worlds are a strange, beautiful contradiction. You'll be gazing at a sunset bleeding over a crumbling castle one moment, and the next, you're face-to-face with something that looks like it crawled out of a fever dream and forgot to put its skin on right. The sheer, audacious variety of these digital nightmares they've cooked up over the years is, frankly, a bit much sometimes. I mean, you have to wonder what they're eating over there in the development studio to come up with this stuff. So, when fellow fans recently gathered to crown the single ugliest abomination across all the soulslikes, let's just say the competition was... fierce.

Kicking things off with a real doozy, we have the Maneater Boars from Bloodborne, specifically the ones haunting the Nightmare of Mensis. These aren't your average farmyard oinkers. Oh no. These are hulking, pustulent beasts with a garden of unblinking eyeballs sprouting from their skulls like some horrific, fleshy bouquet. Just trying to line up a visceral attack on that thing is an exercise in trying not to gag. It's a strong, visceral opener in the ugliness olympics, setting a high bar for pure biological horror.

But Dark Souls 3 wasn't about to be outdone. One fan pointed a trembling finger at what they so aptly dubbed the "Hand Babies"—officially known as the Monstrosity of Sin in the Profaned Capital. The name doesn't lie. Imagine a giant, pallid infant scuttling on all fours. Now, replace its head with a writhing, malformed lump of flesh that's mostly... fingers. Too many fingers, all squirming and grasping. And as if that wasn't enough, some unspeakable viscous substance weeps from its center. It’s a masterpiece of wrongness that makes you want to scrub your brain clean. Just... why?

Of course, the latest expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, brought its own fresh horrors to the table. Shoutout to the Jar Innards. They sound almost culinary, don't they? They're not. These are the pulsating, raw-meat contents of the living jars you find scattered about. They roll and lunge with a wet, meaty squelch, looking like sentient meatballs that have seen things. In a land of golden light and towering trees, they're a stark, visceral reminder of the rot beneath the beauty.

We could be here all week listing contenders, honestly. The community's hall of shame is extensive:

• Elden Ring's Fingercreepers & Revenants: The giant hands that scuttle in the dark, and the multi-limbed, shrieking horrors that induce pure panic.

• Bloodborne's Nightmare Apostle: That one, distressingly massive spider in the Nightmare of Mensis. Nope. Just nope.

• Dark Souls 3's Wretches: The emaciated, dog-like creatures in the Dungeon that... well, let's not dwell on what they do.

• Bloodborne's Labyrinth Sage: A recent point of discussion, this chalice dungeon horror with its elongated limbs and sudden, jerky movements is pure nightmare fuel.

• Demon's Souls' Plague Babies: The original soul-like nightmare. A swamp full of tiny, wailing, toxic infants. It's a concept so messed up it deserves a legacy award.

Game	Creature	The "Ugly" Factor
Bloodborne	Maneater Boar	Eyeball-encrusted swine flesh
Dark Souls 3	Monstrosity of Sin	Fingered-head baby abomination
Elden Ring: SotE	Jar Innards	Sentient, rolling raw meat
Elden Ring	Fingercreepers	Gigantic, crawling hands
Bloodborne	Nightmare Apostle	Cathedral-sized arachnid

Looking at this roster, a pattern emerges. FromSoftware doesn't just make monsters; they tap into something deeper. It's a blend of body horror, existential dread, and a dash of black comedy. They take familiar, sometimes innocent forms—a baby, a pig, a jar, a hand—and twist them into something that feels like a violation of natural order. And we, the players, keep coming back for more, masochistically admiring the artistry in the grotesquery. It's a special kind of love, born from shared trauma and triumph. You're truly, wonderfully messed up, FromSoftware. And in 2026, as we await your next haunting masterpiece, we can only imagine what new depths of beautiful ugliness you have in store for us. The bar is already in the depths of some cosmic abyss, but I have no doubt you'll find a way to dig even deeper.