The Nightreign Bell Bearing Hunter might be the scariest boss in the game—and that’s saying something

So I finally ran into that guy. You know the one—Bell Bearing Hunter, only this time it wasn’t like in OG Elden Ring where you fight him at the end of the night, get slapped around a bit, and move on. In Nightreign, this guy shows up in full menace mode, and I swear, the version inside the castle? It's like he’s got his own horror movie lighting. I wasn’t ready.

I first saw him during my third run at Tricephalos’ castle, just messing around trying to farm Ashes. Suddenly the sky went dark, the soundtrack shifted, and there he was—towering, slow-stepping, and dragging that massive blade like it owed him money. That first time I fought him in a hallway, I lasted maybe fifteen seconds. He didn’t even swing. The sword floated, sliced me in half from across the room, and he kept walking. I just sat there thinking: What was that?

But it turns out I’m not alone.

What about the maximum level? Here, a YouTuber explains why the maximum level is useless in the case of Nighttrain, using the example from his data-mined stats. Return to the boss.

Formally speaking, the Bell Bearing Hunter in Elden Ring: Nightreign is a returning boss, but this new incarnation has sparked an entirely different reaction. First encountered by players during nighttime castle runs, the Nightreign version has upgraded AI, new attack behaviors, and a serious intimidation factor. Although he’s still connected to the original Bell Bearing Hunter fights from the base game—where he appeared after merchant quests—this one is tied to the larger Tricephalos arc and seems to play by a new set of rules.

The expansion has changed how encounters work. Some bosses can spawn dynamically based on the environment or time of day, and the Bell Bearing Hunter takes full advantage of this system. He’s no longer limited to a fixed position and can appear in different zones, which means players aren’t always ready for him. His presence in the castle setting seems to amplify his abilities or at least his visual threat level, something multiple players have now noted in community threads.

“He’s just stronger indoors. It’s like the roof gives him buffs or something,” one Redditor wrote.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but I felt it too. In the open world, you can kind of cheese him with spacing or terrain. But in the castle? No corners to kite, no verticality, no escape. You either get good or get vaporized.

What makes him worse is how unpredictable he is. Sometimes he fights like the old version, with telegraphed slashes and standard aggro patterns. But other times—especially indoors—he’ll switch into this delayed swing mode that baits your roll and punishes it with a phantom hitbox. I even caught one run where he threw the blade at me, and then called it back like some cursed Elden Ring Thor. That wasn’t in the patch notes.

This isn’t the first time FromSoftware has pulled something like this. Anyone who remembers Dark Souls III’s Champion Gundyr variant or the Sekiro Headless can tell you that just slapping “it’s back, but stronger” on a boss can work if the fight has real stakes or a mechanical twist. In Bloodborne, the Chalice Dungeon bosses reused models but pushed difficulty through different layouts. Nightreign’s Hunter does the same, except it doesn’t feel like a remix. It feels like a punishment.

But of course, someone figured him out.

“Just walk at him and block. He gets stuck walking and won’t swing,” another user posted. “Then my friend just shot arrows the whole time. Took us twenty minutes, but he never hit once.”

That might sound like a joke strat, but it works. I tried it. I locked onto him, slow-walked forward with my shield up, and the dude just paced back and forth like a haunted Roomba. The window to strike was thin, but with poison arrows and some patience, I dropped him. It's almost insulting that something so terrifying can be undone by… posture?

Still, I don’t think FromSoft did this accidentally. They’ve always loved putting a monster in front of you and daring you to find the weird exploit or unexpected behavior that flips the whole fight. Whether it's kicking Maneater Mildred off a cliff or stun-locking the Demon of Hatred with firecrackers, they’ve made it clear: power in these games doesn’t just come from stats. It comes from learning.

The Bell Bearing Hunter isn’t just difficult—he’s psychological. He shows up in your safe zones. He moves like a ghost. He changes the vibe of an entire level. And even when you know the trick, you still hesitate when you see that sword floating your way.

Nightreign might have bigger bosses, but this one? He haunts the hallways—and the playerbase.