10 Insane Dark Souls Shortcuts You Totally Missed

By an absolute mile, this shortcut is the most difficult one to pull off right. If you manage it, however, you can save yourself literally hours of gameplay - and at least one unavoidable death.

The Duke's Archives is the home of Seath the Scaleless, which you first encounter in the highest tower of the building. Once you take the lift to get there, the fight is unwinnable, and dying results in you being thrown in the heavily guarded archive dungeon.

But what if there was a way to skip all of that? You may die a few times trying, but achieving this extremely tricky skip will let you bypass at least three quarters of the Duke's Archives.

At the top of the lift you take to Seath's first boss room, pull the lever to send the lift back down on its own. Just as it starts to descend, the player needs to roll in just the right way, landing on the very edge of the lift railing. Once the balconies underneath come into view, you need to roll forwards with absolute precision, and if successful, you'll land on the balcony and be free to travel right to Seath in the Crystal Cave.

There's no legitimate Dark Souls exploit quite like this one. What is normally a blistering grind through unforgiving hallways can be totally trivialised with this method. And all it takes is one well-timed roll.