Dark Souls III Cut Content Analyzed

As a general rule, the entire Dark Souls series revels in being maddeningly mysterious. As such, it’s no surprise that there’s no shortage of people willing to try and uncover those mysteries. This PC Gamer article, for example, directs us to a series of tweets by one Lance McDonald who analyzed Dark Souls III’s files and discovered some interesting things, including the fact that the game was initially supposed to have a day and night cycle system and a different final boss. An excerpt:

Lance McDonald is a Soulsborne sleuth. After several months uncovering cut content from From Software’s PlayStation-exclusive Bloodborne, the indie dev-turned-hobbyist game engineer has now turned his creative hand to Dark Souls.

McDonald’s latest discovery, revealed via a series of tweets, suggests Dark Souls 3 had players, at one stage in development, fighting Pontiff Sulyvahn and not Soul of Cinder in the game’s final showdown. Moreover, the encounter was set in an unreleased version of Untended Graves, and not the Kiln of the First Flame.

Those familiar with the third Souls game will recognise Untended Graves as the optional area accessed beyond the Oceiros boss fight, that bears a striking resemblance to the Cemetery of Ash and Firelink Shrine. Likewise, Pontiff Sulyvahn is a mandatory boss who we meet in Irithyll of the Boreal Valley.

It’s worth noting that, while intriguing, this is still pretty speculative. McDonald has pulled specific details from the files, but I couldn’t say for sure that everything listed was part of the developer’s original plan.

“Dark Souls 3 originally ended in the Untended Graves, but it wasn’t the night-time version, there was third version,” explains McDonald here. “The last boss you originally fought there was later renamed to ‘Pontiff Sullivahn’ and moved to a different map, but Sullivahn was absolutely the last boss.”