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Colossal Knights - Version 8 vs Version 9
Jun 4, 2026, 09:44 PM
Added confirmed Nanite-based Giant Knight rendering detail to the visual design section
Jun 8, 2026, 10:52 PM
Removed duplicate in-body wikilinks
11Colossal Knights are skyscraper-scale armored titans that roam the ruins of Greater London in Tides of Annihilation. They are one of the game's most recognisable features, functioning simultaneously as vertical exploration spaces and as set-piece boss encounters that close out major stretches of the story. The design clearly draws on the Shadow of the Colossus formula, where the environment itself is the enemy, but the developers have folded the concept into an open action adventure rather than a dedicated boss rush. The Colossal Knights also sit at the heart of the game's spectacle, acting as the largest scale on which the Dual Frontline Battle System plays out.22Overview44Each Colossal Knight is a living dungeon. Gwendolyn can spot one from a great distance as it stalks across the ruined skyline, and the act of reaching it, climbing it, and bringing it down is treated as a multi stage event rather than a single boss fight. The Colossal Knights are armored like the legendary Knights of the Round Table but rendered at an impossible scale. Their outlines define the horizon of whatever district they happen to be walking through, and their presence is the clearest visual signal that the London of the game has already fallen to the gray fog and the forces that came through it.77Unlike a traditional dungeon that sits at a fixed point on a map, a Colossal Knight is mobile. It walks a path through the shattered city, and the player closes the distance on foot while the titan's footfalls reshape the ground. Because the target is moving, the approach to the encounter is itself part of the gameplay loop, with terrain collapsing underfoot and attacks from smaller enemies layered on top of the long ascent.99Size and Scale1111The Colossal Knights are tall enough that they rise above the surviving skyline of London. Developer materials and gameplay showings describe them as towering like mountains and as the size of skyscrapers, and both of those framings are accurate in different shots. Seen from ground level, the titans loom past the height of the tallest intact towers in the district. Seen from the upper reaches of a Colossal Knight during a climb, the city below is a sprawl of rooftops receding into the gray fog.1313This scale is why the encounters are treated as set pieces rather than normal boss fights. A standard enemy or even a mid tier boss fits inside a combat arena that Gwendolyn can circle. A Colossal Knight cannot fit inside any arena; the knight itself becomes the arena, and the fight is structured around the geometry of its body. That shift is what separates a Colossal Knight encounter from any of the other enemy types in the game.1515Set-Piece Encounters1717Every Colossal Knight is the centerpiece of a dedicated set-piece encounter. The approach, the climb, the interior, and the final confrontation are designed as a single continuous sequence rather than a series of disconnected fights. The player does not fast travel into the middle of the encounter; the encounter begins the moment the titan becomes visible on the horizon and ends when it falls.1919Each of these sequences is built around the specific Colossal Knight it features. The titan's armor silhouette, the fog it pulls with it, the path it walks, and the weak points it presents are all unique to that encounter. The developers have positioned these fights as the game's signature moments, and early showings have treated them the way an older action game would treat a finale, with long camera pulls across the titan's body before control returns to the player.2121Exploration and Climbing2323The core verb of a Colossal Knight encounter is climbing. Gwendolyn ascends the titan's exterior through a platforming sequence that uses the plates of its armor as footholds, the chains and cables wrapped around its frame as swing points, and the gaps between shoulder, helm, and gauntlet as vertical corridors. The climb is explicitly compared by the development team to Shadow of the Colossus in its structure, with the difference that the route up is more complex and rewards exploration rather than a single scripted path.2525Partway through the ascent, Gwendolyn can enter the titan's interior through openings in its armor. The inside of a Colossal Knight is described by the developers as palatial, and it works the same way a large dungeon does. There are corridors, chambers, collectibles, and smaller enemy encounters inside the titan, and some of the narrative content attached to the encounter is only available to players who take the time to explore those interior spaces rather than climbing directly to the weak point.2727Combat Role and Weak Points2929Bringing down a Colossal Knight requires identifying and striking its weak points. The pattern is consistent with the Shadow of the Colossus reference that the developers have acknowledged openly: the player scales the titan, reaches a glowing or otherwise marked vulnerable point on its body, and attacks it until that point gives way. Toppling the knight is the objective, and each knight has its own layout of vulnerabilities that shapes how the climb is planned.3131Inside the titan, the final confrontation draws on the full kit Gwendolyn has developed by that point in the game. The encounter tests her core moveset, the specific Spectral Knights she has bonded with, and the Partnered State synergies she has unlocked. Because the Colossal Knight fights tend to fall at pivotal story beats, they are typically tuned to reward players who have experimented with multiple knights rather than leaning on a single pairing, and partners like Sir Lamorak have been used in showings to break barriers or parry strikes that Gwendolyn alone could not survive.3333Role in the Dual Frontline Battle System3535Colossal Knight encounters are where the Dual Frontline Battle System reaches its largest scale. The dual line concept depends on Gwendolyn fighting on one layer of the battlefield while a bonded knight fights on another, and the Colossal Knights push both layers to their limit. On the physical side, Gwendolyn is climbing, evading, and striking the titan itself. On the summoned side, her Spectral Knights take on threats that exist at the scale of the titan's body, whether those are attacks emerging from the armor's fog or barriers that can only be broken from a parallel layer.3838The spectacle is deliberate. The development team has spoken about wanting the biggest fights in the game to feel cinematic, and the Colossal Knights are the piece of the design where that cinematic framing is most obvious. A full encounter stacks platforming, multi layer combat, and scripted camera work into one extended sequence, and the resulting fight is closer to a set-piece level than to a conventional boss room.4040World Presence in Greater London4242The Colossal Knights are not encountered in an isolated arena. They walk through Greater London's ruined districts, and their presence is the most dramatic sign of what has happened to the city since the invasion. Their armored forms can be seen in the distance long before an encounter begins, which turns the sighting of a Colossal Knight into a landmark for the player's mental map of the world.4444Because each titan is mobile, its effect on the environment is ongoing. Areas near a Colossal Knight's patrol route are reshaped by its footfalls and by the fog it drags with it, and surrounding encounters often feel the pressure of the titan's proximity even when the player is not yet committed to engaging it. The titans also tie the modern London setting to the medieval source material of the game's Arthurian inspiration, since their armor silhouettes are explicitly drawn from the knightly tradition while the streets they walk are a contemporary city.4646Visual Design4848Visually, the Colossal Knights are built around a medieval armored knight silhouette pushed to an architectural scale. The plate, the helm, and the weapons read as knightly rather than as abstract kaiju designs, which keeps the titans in the same visual language as the Spectral Knights and the broader Avalon mythology the game draws from. That consistency is what keeps the Colossal Knights legible as knights rather than as generic giants.5050The titans drag visible fog around their bodies. The gray fog that defines so much of the game's atmosphere is densest around the Colossal Knights, trailing from their shoulders and pooling at their feet, which both reinforces the connection between these titans and the invasion that fractured the world and gives the encounters a consistent atmospheric signature. Combined with their scale, the fog effect is what makes a Colossal Knight sighting unmistakable even at a distance.5252The studio has confirmed that the titans are rendered with a Nanite-based setup created specifically for these Giant Knight encounters, using automated collision and shadow optimization so a Colossal Knight keeps its fine armored detail even during the fast climbing and camera movement of an ascent. That technology is part of why a single enemy can double as a fully explorable level without the surface detail breaking up at close range. See Unreal Engine 5 for the wider rendering pipeline.5454Encounter Structure at a Glance5656PhaseWhat the Player DoesSightingA Colossal Knight becomes visible on the horizon of a Greater London district. The sighting frames the encounter and reshapes the surrounding area.ApproachGwendolyn closes the distance on foot, fighting smaller enemies and navigating terrain that the titan's footfalls are actively reshaping.ClimbThe titan's armor becomes the level. Platforming across plates, chains, and weapon surfaces leads up toward entry points and weak points.InteriorOpenings in the armor lead into palatial interior chambers. Corridors, collectibles, and smaller encounters are hidden inside.Boss ConfrontationThe final fight uses Gwendolyn's full kit along with her bonded Spectral Knights and Partnered State to exploit the titan's weak points and bring it down.5858Related Topics5959Gwendolyn is the sole protagonist who climbs and confronts the Colossal Knights.Spectral Knights are the summoned allies that fight alongside her during these encounters.Dual Frontline Battle System is the combat framework that the Colossal Knight set pieces push to their largest scale.Partnered State is the shared moveset mode often critical to bringing a titan down.Sir Lamorak is the lead partner knight showcased in large scale confrontations.Knights of the Round Table provides the visual and thematic basis for the titans' armor.Avalon is the mythical realm whose imagery carries over into the Colossal Knights' silhouettes.London is the ruined modern setting the titans stalk.
