Hidden Mechanic Behind The Dark Lord Ending

[@ygorschuma3059]

"Everyone knows that Dark Souls 1 has two endings" Ah yes > *The Linking the Fire ending* > *The "I'm gonna go back to Firelink to leve-wait wtf? ending*

[@nightmareking8425]

Wait why would you want to level up at firelink shrine ? , you can level up at any bonefire

[@IrvineTheHunter]

@@nightmareking8425 Because Gwins bonfire seems like it would be special like Nito, Izalith, Seith, and 4 kings, instead of the nice safe firelink, cleanup fire.

[@nightmareking8425]

@@IrvineTheHunter okay

[@capperbuns]

I did the dark lord ending the first time because i wanted blavk Knight weapons...

[@snowmcsnow4732]

@@nightmareking8425 It's the last bonfire, so in my case I knew that would have triggered the end and I wanted to continue exploring. Little did I know...

[@Velka-.-]

"Done with my first run, now for Ng+7"

[@djw_tekken8490]

Rip

[@littlesisterlover9105]

Of all the bugs they left in the remaster they fixed a useful one lmao

[@shavedata5436]

all the useful ones

[@KarmasAB123]

Kind of like when Bethesda "fixed" the Oghma Infinium so you couldn't use it multiple times.

[@cult_of_odin]

Well the drop arrow, exit game glitch is useful and it still works.

[@Acorn_Anomaly]

I'm honestly curious if they actually fixed this one intentionally.

[@samforpanek8401]

really concerned about your name + avatar

[@CreativityCurve]

I'm always impressed when remasters end up fixing bugs that nobody even knew about, or really obscure ones that hardly anyone would know

[@lucyx3008]

then at the opposite end of the spectrum you have the skyrim switch port, which seemingly went out of its way to add more

[@Foogi9000]

@@lucyx3008 lol

[@kvb_4117]

oyasumi punpun ❤

[@agnel47]

This land is peaceful, it's inhabitants kind.

[@jacobhoover1654]

Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

People die when they're killed.

[@monkeybusiness673]

Water isn't actually wet...your skin is!

[@conorflanagan9000]

Mirrors are more fun than television

[@hail2jigglypuff168]

What are you smoking and can I have some?

[@GamersWeekend]

...Catalystz you'll never cease to blow my mind you absolute Madlad.

[@yazidfahhama5062]

I juts want to say that i love your content and i hope you have an amazing weekend

[@jonquese8340]

You should've named your character fistme

[@amberhernandez]

What kind of challenges do you think you could do with a skip like this?

[@bol9332]

Aye you hefe my boy?

[@anonymousnoname4225]

Hey I love your dark souls stuff. Can't wait for more. Think you could do ds2 Pyro only?

[@L00ww]

thank you, humble messenger

[@core-nix1885]

Angel means Messenger. The BB messengers are Cherubim. Gael is an Archangel.

[@samuelnieves1752]

Very interesting, a shame it’s not in the remaster going from NG to NG+2 or 3 seems like a fun challenge.

[@RagnarokiaNG]

For when you can't wait to make it harder on yourself, the true masochistic challenge experience.

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

This makes me wonder if Miyazaki left this in intentionally so that he could suffer more sooner?

[@derekcampbell4209]

When I got my platinum for ds1 last thing I needed was this ending. And being an idiot in a rush, I sat the bonfire after killing Gwynn totally forgetting to walk out. Lol when the trophy didn’t pop, I shut the game off while the credits were rolling. Thought I was gonna have to play through again. Luckily it worked and I didn’t have too!

[@Duvdeve]

Damn you were lucky! Congrats on platinum!

[@derekcampbell4209]

Thanks brotha. Just got the demons souls plat on the ps5. Next is gonna be Elden Ring, then finish ds2 and I only need one more for Sekiro, but it’s just grinding skill points :/ lol only games I get trophies for.

[@DrayLoco]

@@derekcampbell4209you get the Bloodborne platinum?

[@derekcampbell4209]

Oh yeah. That was the first one I platinumed

[@IlIlllIllIIIlllllllII]

Same here except elden ring was my 1st and I have platinums on all souls games on all consoles, now I'm doing them again on PS3 and the only one I need is knights honor on ds1 and I'll have plat in every souls game on every console​@@derekcampbell4209

[@trufreedom]

I definitely 'accidentally' became the dark lord my first time beating DS1, by just exploring the area after stomping out Gwyn...

[@ichfurkan666dunet]

Another thing i didn't know, thank you for sharing man

[@verymelonman12]

A decade later, Dark Souls 1 continues to be the gift that keeps on giving.

[@lenikai]

Incredible how you figure all this interesting stuff out

[@Married-To-The-Universe]

I dont even know who this man is but you can tell he quite literally lives in this game.

[@l.968]

Just a reminder that there is a very active and dedicated community around Dark Souls, which Catalyst often reffers to in his videos. In the description of this video he gives credit of this discovery to Kahmul. I don't want to take away any of Cata's credit for the amazing things he has achieved, both individually and for the DS community, he's a legend. But breaking a game to it's smallest pieces is above all a collective work of making discoveries, sharing them and building up knowledge over the years.

[@RisingOnion]

Might try this to skip straight to ng+6, thanks humble messenger

[@Foxingg]

I hate when developers fix exploits like this. The exploit doesn't hurt anybody and can't be used against other players, and it would be very very unlikely to do unintentionally. I think things like this only make the game better, as it encourages players to fuck around and find out.

[@catalystz]

Yeah I wonder why they decided to change the ending properties in the Remaster. I would assume it's just something they noticed and were like "Hey, this could be abused." So they changed it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

@@catalystz meanwhile, promptswap is just sitting there, one E+Lclick away.

[@gardian06_85]

I wonder if the change was made to prevent an unintended increment. there could be a situation where if your system crashed after the game saved for the "credits trigger" but before the credits played, and then when you came back you were still in front of the ending trigger, so you just walk though. there is no way in game to see your current journey/clear number, so the player could unknowingly be in NG+2 instead of the expected NG+1 or can this only be triggered with Save+Quit specifically?

[@Foxingg]

@@gardian06_85 That's a good point but it might not work with a crash, because of how Dark Souls saves. I'd imagine unless there's specifically a save trigger as soon as you trigger the cutscene, it would just start you back up from where your last save was

[@Toksyuryel]

@@catalystz I think it's less "hey this could be abused" and more "a bug exists. it must die."

[@Consumstra]

That's actually really good info! Too bad it doesn't work in the remaster. But to skip to another NG+ cycle would be useful for challenges, thank you!

[@SaHaRaSquad]

Well, LobosJr just used a cheat engine to e.g. start from NG+7 in his challenge runs, so it doesn't really save any time unless you want to avoid that. I guess for some crazy official speedrun category it would be useful.

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

@@SaHaRaSquad ng+7 any% force-quit speedrun could become a legit category at some point using this.

[@SaHaRaSquad]

@@theapexsurvivor9538 The problem is that the Prepare To Die Edition cannot be bought anymore and many people prefer the remaster with the 60FPS anyway. So even if it becomes a category it won't be very popular.

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

@@SaHaRaSquad pirate copies of PTD can be allowed for categories that require it, just like emulation.

[@digonto7156]

I have never played the remastered so just curious, why won't it work in remaster? Is the trigger different?

[@GelberDracheLP]

New speedrun category, Dark Souls max difficulty any% / all bosses (NG+6+...)

[@krrombopulos1618]

Really I've been getting 1shot working SL1, NG+7 for 2 months now and your gonna show me this.....thanks as always cata.

[@FreeSpeechAbsolutist1776]

First dark souls game was 2, then 3, then finally remastered, I didn't know beating gwyn would immediately put you into new game + so I accidentally finished the game before I wanted to. I replayed the game through ng+ to get to the same place my brother was at, just so I could help him if needed.

[@M.A.R.S.]

10 years later and still finding absurd things in Dark Souls

[@cristian-bull]

top 10 things I will never need but I'm glad I learned

[@A.C_B.]

this could be huge for NG+7 speedrunning. I know it's not a popular category, but being able to jump straight from NG to NG+7 might change that and make for an interesting run. edit: clarification: I mean a speedrun which regires you to start on a fresh file, new character NG, and the goal is to reach NG+7 credits as fast as possible. This would have formerly required you to finish the game 7 times, but with this strategy this could be cut down to only twice.

[@webpombo7765]

It can be faster, but only if you can beat the game in NG+7 fast

[@Taolan8472]

​@@webpombo7765 beating the game in NG+7 isn't much different strategically from beating the game in NG; the bosses just have more health and do more damage. Bad RNG patterns can cause speedrunners to encounter boss mechanics they normally wouldn't, the bonus health in NG+7 would mean the runner always encounters this mechanic because it simply takes longer to kill the boss. I could see soul-dupe-leveling being almost a necessity here. Level to your chosen build with duped soul items, then spend the last moments of your first NG cycle gathering your preferred kit if you didn't already. I see Dark Bead builds being effective here; with the right build all five projectiles hitting the same target can be something like 3k damage per shot if I recall correctly.

[@webpombo7765]

@@Taolan8472 Yeah it might actually be not to bad with soul duping exploits, i was thinking a run where you don't do that, but that would just be torture

[@Taolan8472]

@@webpombo7765 I have seen SL1 NG+7 runs. "Exercise in frustration" does not begin to explain them.

[@webpombo7765]

@@Taolan8472 Do it with a character that has every stat at lvl 1, uses no armor and a broken broken sword

[@ericschuster2680]

Am I hearing the Metal Gear Rising menu theme in the background??? Exquisite taste.

[@catalystz]

Indeed! Fantastic dramatic music.

[@edlerkrieger8045]

Now there's a pretty meme Exquisite

[@dylansurendranath3091]

This may actually be useful to get to NG+6 for my Soul Level 1 playthrough!

[@alibabasfc4108]

This hidden mechanic truly blew my mind cata!

[@l.968]

Great video as always! love your uploads man.

[@martinizvorsky7864]

Does that mean that you can get both endings in one playthrough?

[@skycrafter2042]

on ps3 no you cant as the trophies only activates at the credits

[@catalystz]

Yep, it's the same way on other platforms as well, so no two endings in one playthrough just yet.

[@hugofontes5708]

@@catalystz keyword: yet Inb4: wrong warp at the kiln

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

@@hugofontes5708 if you could time it right, it might be possible to pcc wrongwarp at the first flame.

[@jinrex015]

So QLOC knew about this but didn't even omniroll the game.

[@Never_at_All]

The amount of times I've died due to not having omni-directional rolling is astonishing.

[@RxAxIxNxBxOxW]

Amazing stuff, like always!

[@stanleyurey1013]

"They told me that Dark souls forces you to NG+ after Gwyn. But I can just Walk Ou-"

[@Re_Souls]

Truly awesome to know!

[@steffen69118]

You are a great soul catalystz. Because of people like you this epic of a game doesn‘t fade out.

[@FirestormDDash]

This is the power of the dark side

[@RealMasterChief117]

Finally Lobos can finish his ng+69 run!

[@McNibbler]

“Everyone knows Dark Souls 1 has 2 endings” Tfw beat this game over 7 years ago and never knew this

[@kahlzun]

Better go back and get the other one. Look into the lore also, there is a surprising amount of story you can miss out on

[@MajorMokoto]

Remaster forever running our fun.

[@shaynehughes6645]

Try quitting ahead In short, prepare for pain

[@robinmansions2884]

Having never played Dark Souls in my life, all I can say is Neat

[@capperbuns]

I can use this to make it easier to do my sl1 ng+6 run

[@zipherdias420]

I'm glad I still have a classic copy.

[@Mortablunt]

I'm going to use this to fast track to later NG+'s so I can power level like a megachad!

[@1337ofDiscreet1]

Thank you, Humble Messenger ❤🙏

[@Just4FunGaming]

Soooo could you do a run, end it like this and then work your way back from the kiln of fire ending in the undead asylum? could you actually leave firelink altar? or are you stuck there?

[@yoso378]

You're stuck there since trying to leave or using the bonfire will trigger the ending, so you can't apply NG+ to your current progress.

[@Markus-8Muireg]

@@yoso378 I know you can't escape with homeward bones, but would a wrong warp also trigger the ending?

[@gatubraz9425]

We found it, the fixed bug in the remaster!

[@KB-rh4vd]

TIL there is a second ending. I've always linked the flame not realizing I could just leave.. Derp.

[@sdrdrgz1]

Those are glitches the devs leave in intentionally. So they can rapidly get to a different location without having to go through the whole process for testing purposes

[@orcynus_]

Appreciate the MGR menu soundtrack there ~

[@baraka490]

I only let the fire because of solaire my boy didn't make it the second time I was like now that hurt

[@baraka490]

What they left it in at least for the remaster is I can drop souls and all that to people also come in as a red phantom die giving them even more souls and giving them bottles wish they can use to frampt the level themself up even more also I can just redownload my progress right before I decided to do all that and get it all back so I can help the next person easy peasy

[@ternamo]

Yooo dude is this the theme song for metal gear rising revengance? i loved that game

[@Nevict]

And that's how you do a speedrun from NG to NG+8. XD

[@AdjustedDisparity]

wait so you're telling me the ds remastered guys actually fixed something, that didn't happen often

[@PraisetheFluffyTail]

If there was something like this in DS3...

[@lanceg6197]

"I'm just gonna check if I left anything outsi-....wtf is happening?"

[@vergiltheartofpower6616]

Now, I'm gonna punish myself. NG+7 SL 1

[@klenoringer]

what's the name of the song in the end of the video

[@GMPranav]

Description

[@Bombom1300]

@@GMPranav That's a strange name for a song, but I suppose I've heard stranger.

[@GMPranav]

@@Bombom1300 you would be surprised to know there is also a song named "check the description" :p

[@klenoringer]

@@GMPranav i've found nothing after putting the name of this song in the search bar

[@catalystz]

It's right here, brother: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fabdq6Gojb2VrZI

[@BigDaddyWes]

"Hidden mechanic" is a weird thing to call a bug.

[@danielsinclair6586]

I don't see why we can't just have the option of jumping straight up to NG+7 after one playthrough. It'd most likely mean being stupidly under-leveled, but at least we wouldn't have to complete 6 additional runs just to start a single NG+7 run.

[@aosomnissj4585]

Thanks for This, now I can say to people that I'm on 400th ng

[@CubeItself]

what a sweet short vid

[@fraxterranto6104]

First of all how did you figured this out

[@robsmashed]

Is the NG count the only thing changing by doing this? Does the world reset only after the credits, along with the character location?

[@cheeksjd]

Wonder if you could do this then homeward bone to a reset world?

[@catalystz]

It's only the NG+ variable which changes.

[@catalystz]

Homeward Boning just spawns you back in Gwyn's arena, as that is your default position after killing him.

[@mrok3887]

NG+100 Sl1 challenge run, who got it

[@amberhernandez]

"Oh, cool; now I'll be able to set up a challenge run, and I'm on PS4---" Cata: It was fixed for Remastered. "...heck."

[@QUIICKCLAW]

Could this be somehow used to leave the Kiln while remaining in NG? If it could, it would mean you'd be able to get Gwyn's set and Sunlight Spear in NG without trading...

[@catalystz]

Unfortunately there is no way of leaving the Kiln and killing Gwyn as of now.

[@stefanpavlovic9001]

I just finished DS remastered, and when i killed Gywn i left the place and alt tabed in loading screen after cutscene. When i came back i was put in firelink shrine then i tried to rest and game crashed. I tried other bonfire but game crashed again xd. Idk what to do i wanted to play ng+ really bad.

[@noalsono393]

Could this not be used for an all achievements run to knock out all endings super easy

[@catalystz]

Unfortunately not, because the achievement is only granted on the credits screen in both version of the game.

[@Israphel776]

Did the Dark Lord ending launch with DkS1? Tried looking it up but didn't find anything useful at first glance. If it didn't, then this makes sense, since the counter increment would be tied to an event the same way the Link The Fire ending is triggered by an event. Actually, does the counter increment on initiating the event of the Link ending or only after credits? Neat stuff regardless.

[@nordgaren2358]

Just checked, because this video made me curious. It seems the clearcount is a signed integer, so that means max NG cycle is 2,147,483,647! New challenge run? Edit: I explain below, but, I'm guessing that it's only a signed int in the debug menu, so really you have like four billion NG cycles. :)

[@nordgaren2358]

P.S. as far as I can tell, negative values for NG+ just act like NG+6! So, I think in the debug menu it might be a signed int, but under the hood it's actually unsigned. Purely a guess.

[@aust6798]

Only because I wanted to summon low lvl ppl on NG+7 at undead burg

[@DemonPE]

Ok but once you trigger the NG+ your game stays like that. Can you still link the fire or do something to pop credits up???

[@Kyara-wv2du]

So what happens if you ALT+F4 as soon as the credits start in the Remaster? Could you still potentially abuse this glitch with frame perfect timing?

[@catalystz]

Nope, as soon as credits begin you will respawn in the cell.

[@MetalThornTree]

No, you have a great day!

[@persiansatan]

so we can skip going to ng+ in remastered? if we skip it can we trigger it again?

[@Markus-8Muireg]

You can't skip ng+, you just can't use the quit out to advance to higher ng cycles while staying in the boss arena. You still can't leave it without triggering the ending again.

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

I wonder what the bounding box on this trigger is. Does it extend to the force-quit/pcc wrong warp point?

[@xMrDemonRushx]

Can you use Homeward Bone in the arena? And what would happen if you did so?

[@IrvineTheHunter]

Any attempt to leave Gwin's room post fight, ends the game.

[@Teurger]

When you kill Gwyn, your last bonfire position gets set to Kiln bonfire. So Homeward will put you in front of First Flame.

[@Stachelbeeerchen]

A nice tip for people wanting to ng +6 without running through the game 6 times.

[@KaimanSB]

thats cool

[@snugglebunnyskullcrusher]

So you're telling me i can get to NG+69 after just one playthrough? Nice

[@catalystz]

Damn right you can

[@TheJanitorIsIn]

Chad Dark Lord gang

[@Professor-Badger]

Useful for console versions but cheat engine will forever be more accessible and easy to use

[@DeerBonesBaby]

New Game +1 sub 10 sec Speed run

[@vitanera4032]

So you can stay forever in the first ng?

[@IrvineTheHunter]

Yes, untill you beat gwin, then you can't leave without triggering an end cut-scene.

[@vitanera4032]

@@IrvineTheHunter i Denver you could leave without starting a ng+

[@vitanera4032]

@@IrvineTheHunter I used a bone if a remember

[@catalystz]

You can't leave Gwyn's arena after the boss is dead. Unless you managed to somehow go straight back to Firelink, the Dark Lord ending plays as soon as you are out of the arena anyways.

[@vitanera4032]

@@catalystz I used a bone

[@slabbypatty1662]

6 people never beat the game

[@ElectricKitty]

metal gear music based

[@steliost2217]

WOW

[@I-VoidParadox-I]

Is it possible to keep moving forward bit by bit until you're outside of the zone that triggers the ending cutscene? I'd like to know if it's possible to escape Gwyn's room!

[@MikeHesk742]

Dark Lord ending sucks the most out of all endings. From what we know of the later games, someone else just rocks up and links the fire anyway so your entire undead journey didnt do anything or usher in anything new. You just killed some bosses, amassed some souls, and walked away. You're basically Vendrick. You either go hollow or end up being rescued by whatever undead has the cohones to actually link it for you.

[@bulutcagdas1071]

I always thought that linking the fire wouldn't even fix the current undead problem, since the undead and the ritual of feeding of bonfires is somehow tied to keeping the flame going on. For all we know it could just be a lie made up by Gwyndolin and Frampt. You would just extend the life of the world at the expense of the space time continuum and people would still stay undead and eventually hollow.

[@ShadowAraun]

honestly ds3 has the only chad dark lord ending, you literally just take the flame. or the even more chad super hidden ending where you betray everyone, take the flame, and probably lose it in pvp like 5 minutes later. but at least you did it for your sake and not for some weird ugly snake man and his ho.

[@slenderMax28]

tbh I think this is more of an issue with DS2 and 3 than it is with the original. Before they came along with their unoriginal idea of "cycles", it could be assumed that the ending you chose in DS1 made a significant difference.

[@yoso378]

If you link the fire it's gonna go out eventually anyways, if you have that mindset. Neither ending is better tbh. DS3 made linking the fire the worst ending, with the pathetic amount of fire being produced when you sacrifice yourself implying that doing that was legit pointless at that point in the timeline.

[@zc8211]

How to speed run NG+

[@ArchangelExile]

Interesting... 🤔

[@TheRealNiruz]

Dope.

[@V4L3R13_steele]

i needed this for my ng+69 run holy shit

[@matthewkeen6281]

nice

[@MelioUmbraBelmont]

My xbox and prepare to die on steam thanks the message

[@JojenReed]

Wow

[@gendarmeowl4689]

cool

[@theundeadempire3640]

Cool

[@AkioJunichiro]

I know that voice, this is the guy who made a tutorial on something in internet

[@selensewar]

Another reason why PtdE is better than the reeemastered. :D

[@mathewsoltan8487]

For console players, Remastered is the way to play.

[@selensewar]

@@mathewsoltan8487 PC masterrace.