‘Dark Souls’ Mistakes You’ll Never Be Able to Unsee

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Even after all this time, the original ‘Dark Souls‘ has a few strange little details that become noticeable if you pay attention. Some are due to the limitations of the older consoles it was first released on. Others are just weird things enemies do, or game mechanics that feel a bit out of place. None of these issues ruin the game, but once you’ve spotted them, they’re hard to unsee.

Blighttown’s infamous frame drops

The original PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game sometimes experience significant slowdown, especially in Blighttown’s upper walkways and swamp areas. This is most noticeable near the wheel lifts and the bonfire by the water. Adding effects like toxic blowdarts, fire, or having many enemies appear on screen can make the problem even worse. While the remastered version runs better, players on the older consoles will still encounter this stuttering in those same locations.

Bed of Chaos persistence and fall pits

After you’re defeated and return to the arena, the Bed of Chaos keeps its broken roots in place. This allows you to destroy the cores on either side with separate attempts, but it also creates dangerous holes that can instantly kill you. The boss’s sweeping attacks often push you into these pits, even when it seems like you’ve dodged successfully. You can only access the central core after destroying the side roots, revealing how the arena changes with each death and rebuilds itself.

Ceaseless Discharge cliff dive behavior

Once you collect the Gold-Hemmed set at the altar, the boss will start chasing you. During this chase, the boss might jump off the ledge. If you run back towards the fog gate, the boss can sometimes get stuck trying to swipe at you, causing it to fall off the ledge. This results in the same animation as defeating the boss normally, including the soul reward. This behavior only happens after you pick up the set, which makes the boss become hostile and reveals this unusual way to defeat it.

Taurus Demon bridge fall

In the Undead Burg, you can trick the Taurus Demon into falling to its death near the battlements. By luring it close to the edge and timing it right during its charges or jumps, you can cause it to fall off the arena. The arena’s design has a narrow walkway with a short wall that doesn’t always keep the boss contained, and if the Taurus Demon lands outside of the playable area after a jump, it will instantly die. This trick works every time you play the game and demonstrates that enemies can sometimes move beyond the intended boundaries of the level.

Undead Parish boar doorway jam

The armored boar in the Undead Parish frequently gets stuck in the narrow gate near the bonfire entrance. When it tries to turn around, its animation gets caught on the doorway, causing it to repeat the same action endlessly. Using Alluring Skulls to draw it there makes the problem worse, as the item pulls the boar into this tight space. This shows that larger enemies sometimes have trouble navigating the smaller areas of the older parts of the game.

Ragdoll cling after death

Sometimes, after defeating enemies, their bodies can stick to your character and get dragged along with you as you move. This happens most often in tight spaces like the Undead Burg and Depths, where bodies tend to pile up. Simply bumping into a body part or stepping over a pile can re-activate its physics, causing it to spin or stretch oddly as you look at it. This effect stops when you roll or go up or down stairs, highlighting how unpredictable the game’s physics can be with dead bodies.

Crystal Lizard limited attempts

As a Dark Souls fan, I’ve learned the hard way that Crystal Lizards are super frustrating! Unlike most enemies, they don’t just respawn endlessly. Each one only lets you try to fight it a limited number of times. If you accidentally scare it off or close the game before defeating it, you lose one of those attempts, and it won’t reappear for the rest of that playthrough. Even resting at a bonfire might cost you an attempt, depending on the situation. This means you can actually lock yourself out of important upgrade materials, and it’s really annoying because you’d expect them to respawn like normal enemies. You basically have to beat the game and start a New Game Plus to get more chances at them!

Anor Londo rotating bridge oddities

When the main elevator bridge turns, enemies and items can briefly float in the air until it stops moving. Silver Knights walking on the bridge during the rotation might glitch and fall, or suddenly reappear on the bridge once the movement is complete. Bloodstains can also appear floating and then land on the bridge surface. This all demonstrates how the level’s structure changes while things are happening on it.

Lost Izalith dragon butt pathing stalls

In the Lost Izalith area, you’ll encounter large dragon-like enemies that often get caught on the environment – things like tree roots and broken walls – when they pursue you. Their turning animations are long, and they frequently bump into obstacles, causing them to briefly pause. If you manage to draw the attention of two of these enemies at the same time, the problem becomes even more noticeable as they get in each other’s way in tight spaces. This creates a temporary stall, allowing you to easily observe how far they can actually move without needing to plan anything special.

Early item and soul duplication exploits

Early versions of the game had a glitch where players could create duplicate items and souls by quickly manipulating their inventory with certain items like the Bottomless Box. This happened because the game temporarily lost track of how many items the player had, resulting in extra copies appearing after opening and closing the inventory menu. While later updates fixed this issue, and the updated version completely removed the ability to do it, the glitch can still occur when playing older, unpatched versions of the game offline. Because of this, speedrunners and players following specific challenge rules often require a particular version of the game to ensure fair play.

What ‘Dark Souls’ errors or oddities did you notice the most? Share any strange details you’ve spotted in the comments below!

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2025-10-25 18:15