20 More Things Only Dark Souls Fans Will Understand

Is it even a Souls game really if it doesn’t include a truly horrible area where seemingly everything in sight inflicts you with the poison status effect?

While Dark Souls is full of memorable areas, it’s likely that you remember the areas full of poison more for their levels of frustration than anything else.

It all began with the original swamp in the Valley of Defilement in Demon’s Souls. This then became even worse in Dark Souls when Blight Town combined a poison-filled swamp with catastrophic levels of lag, just to really test the mettle of any player who got too cocky in the proceeding areas.

Poison is infuriating in Dark Souls because you generally must contend with it at the same time as dealing with other threats. On the way to fight Queelag, for example, you’ll have to trudge through the swamp, probably be poisoned, and also deal with two giant foes chucking boulders at you at the same time.

In Dark Souls 3, they made it even worse by having areas in the Profaned Capital and Consumed King’s Garden that inflict Toxic. Toxic is an even worse version of poison that saps your health much, much faster than poison does. If you don’t have a Blooming Purple Moss Clump or another curative item, you’re absolutely boned.