10 Worst Areas In Dark Souls
Which areas in the Souls series left you banging your head against the wall and wanting out?
Throughout the series, Dark Souls has provided players with some of the most spectacular locations and boss arenas to loot, fight and die in.
From the wonder and amazement that we felt finally arriving in Anor Londo for the first time to seeing Drangleic Castle and the visual spectacle of The Ringed City, it has never been a game that held back when it came to flexing its level designing abilities.
But no one bats a thousand. Not every second of every game can be a world beater and a triumph. Some of the more boring or basic areas are relatively forgettable, but there have been some real howlers that the whole community almost universally hated.
Whether the gameplay and mechanics didn't work well, the enemies were unfair or even just the visuals left a lot to be desired, what are the areas in the series that left us counting the minutes until we could leave?
Choosing only from Dark Souls 1, 2 and 3, here are the blemishes that dragged down otherwise excellent games, and the reasons they annoyed people so much.
10. Smouldering Lake
In Dark Souls 3, at the end of the Catacombs of Carthus and before High Lord Wolnir, you crossed a suspiciously rickety bridge.
When hit, this bridge collapsed downwards, usually dropping skeletons to their doom at the same time. Once this animation had finished, you could interact with it, and climb down it like a ladder to enter the Smouldering Lake.
The first thing you'll notice is the strange sound from somewhere off in the distance. The second thing will be three shots from a ballista that send you sprawling in the water amongst the massive crab enemies.
While there is decent loot to be had here, trying to kill the crabs, avoid the ballista and not get demolished by the Carthus Sandworm that spawns near the boss fog takes any fun out of it.
Your best bet is to run past everything (crouching behind a wall and let the ballista bolts kill the sandworm for you first), through the Demon Ruins, disable the hazard and explore at your leisure. Not offensively bad in any real way, but loot, a decent optional boss and an NPC fight are squandered in an area that feels "meh" at best, and frustrating at worst.