Demon's Souls Cut Content - The Northern Limit - Broken Archstone Map Tour and Walkthrough 

The combination of the Fool's Idol music and the inherent unrealness of primitive, unfinished and largely empty areas makes this whole video quite sinister.

They cut out one map and start a whole pattern of the snowy areas being hidden or DLC.

Honestly the look of this place is amazing, imagine what it and the bosses would have looked like if it was finished

Reminds me of the Painted World. Development on the Painted World was where Dark Souls started, which makes me wonder if it was built on recycled ideas from this cut area.

I have a feeling those structures at dead ends had items or switches that opened access to areas, like raising bridges and such. Especially thinking one would raise where you had to use debug mode to progress. Makes the area feel more maze-like and a little more complete when I consider it being played this way.

Insanely, this area is a lot like an area in elden ring, it even has a fire giant in the snow with a mouth belly and eyeball chest very interesting

All Vaati art contest competitors are punching the air rn

Anyone else notice the “pyramids” gave off humanoid shadows?

there's something incredibly unsettling about this area. some of its creepiness is just owed to its nature as an unfinished area - the vast empty spaces, the 1-hit kills, the NPCs frozen in time, the stillness... but it's not just that. there's also the shadowy translucent enemies, that single soldier slumped on the ground, and especially those shrines with the black, upside-down pyramids of void within them, casting humanoid shadows in every direction. it feels like there's something deeply, horribly wrong with this whole place. like a nightmare you can't wake up from. the fool's idol music doesn't help either.

It always hurts to see what could have been in the final game.

There's something rather unsettling about unfinished/out of bounds areas in games, isn't there? There's that persistent feeling of 'you should not be here', like it's something forbidden. All this abandoned content has just been sitting here for all these years, undisturbed, quietly gathering dust on the disk where it was assumed no one would ever find it. It's the sort of place where I imagine one would always have a vague but unmistakable feeling of being watched. The creepy music probably doesn't help, I'll admit.

The inverted pyramids must've been placeholders for torches or other kind of light sources. They immediately reminded me of the similar geometric shapes used for lights in Quake's level editor (QeRadiant).

"Huh...never seen your kind before...." *SLASH*

2:35 “we can see creatures of in the distance” “which appear to be barely functional” that’s me in 2020

"A vast snow field" *Reindeer PTSD intensifies*

Anyway moral of the story, click on this link: twitch.tv/lancemcdonald Well that was a big of 'monumental' effort ho ho ho sorry it's such a long video but I really wanted to just finally have a reasonably comprehensive look at this area on RU-vid. It's such a mess of a map it took days to even work out how you're intended to explore it all. I hope it managed to be interesting regardless of it all.

Those ladies in the red dresses with sceptre's look awfully similar to the dress in bloodborne

The Yeti monster looks like it was inspired by Wyald's Apostle form in Berserk, cool to see it was still an influence on the design of certain concepts even in pieces of cut content

First illusory wall and then you?,it’s christmas in cut content land

It's funny how that falling through a snowfield set-piece ended up in DS3. Apparently FromSoft's ethos about reusing ideas also applies to old, old cut ideas

really cool video! Super bummed Bluepoint and FromSoftware didn't try remaking and finishing this area for the Demon's Souls Remake. A whole new area would've be incredible

I believe Sanadsk did a video on this place, but not nearly as complete, with none of these events... Great work man, hope its in the remake finished

I am not sure if it is intentional or some kind of a bug. But on the ground around the inverted triangles we can see multiple shadows of the shadow creatures. On the first look it seemed like remains of burned bodies. 8:13 11:14 12:45 15:10 It could also be that the triangles are actually the shadow creatures with a changed texture trapped in the column, but the lighting still sees it normally and the lighting is weirdly multidirectional from inside the creature/triangle or up above it. (?) Edit: I looked at it once more and realised that the actual creatures, which can be killed, don't have shadows... Weird... Or because they are set as slightly transparent, they don't have shadows, while the inverted triangles are NOT set as transparent, then it would still make somehow sense.

Those "inverted pyramids" look like fire sconce stand-ins to me. Especially with where they're placed and the coldness of the environment. Who knows, maybe it was even supposed to be darker or harsher an environment as to allow the sconces to bring yourself to them since light and fire feel safe and get attacked by the spirits. Especially a perfect ambush causing you to leave the safety of two flames and go toward the elevated fire at 11:15 and walk yourself right into 5 of them.

I wonder if the concept for this area got recycled into Eleum Loyce.

That sound when a boss dies in demon's souls will never get old.

Dude, I always found these mannequin enemies creepy as shit. That's the kind of monster design you'd see in Junji Ito's work.

Lance: reveal your secrets NPC! NPC: ... Lance: so you have chosen death.

The ghostly figure at 1:30 can be found in world 4:2 on our way to the boss inside the catacombs where all the necromancers are found. They are in one corner tho... and only appear once you get baited to take the item and stab you from behind. They never appear again

Here from there future in 2024 and I'm just thinking.. the whole snowy mountaintops region of Elden Ring culminating in the similarly mouth-stomached giant fight.. it's gotta be a reference right

What a shame this never made it into the final game. This area could easily have become my favourite part of the game. I love me a creepy castle in a snowy area (like Castle Cainhurst in Bloodborne).

I love how the creature at 3:25 is just Wyald’s apostle form from Berserk

First a new Dark Souls 2 dissected and now a Demon's Souls cut content video, this is truely a souls blessed day

Definitely one of the most important Demon's Souls videos on RU-vid.

The chunk cut off in world 2 might have been part of world tendency, the bridge connecting could have been broken unless you were in a specific tendency, similar to the executioners area in boletaria.

These pyramids look like they are placeholders for something. Maybe an effect of some sort.

Thank you for this comprehensive look at the Northern Limit. In the past I've checked RU-vid for videos on it, but none of them have been this coherent or comprehensive. One particular thing that struck me is the similarity between the design of the Shadowmen (specifically their heads) and the design of the giants in Dark Souls 2. If instead of a glowing light in the middle of their "faces" the Shadowmen had a hole, they would look very similar to one another. Makes me wonder if the Shadowmen in the release version of Demon's Souls didn't start out as giants (or their spirits), and if the hollow face design of the giants in Dark Souls 2 doesn't represent some attempt by the developers to recover that concept from the cutting room floor.

"Snowy place, land of giants" From did it in Elden Ring. Miyazaki, you madlad.

1:14 "Vast snowfield": Visions of HorseFuck valley intensifies

Those inverted pyramids were probably meant to be braziers of some kind.

Everytime I watch these Cut content videos about Demon´s Souls and Dark Souls the words "what a waste" keeps ringing in my mind, considering how the northern limit was relatively well developed up until the point when it was cut

i wonder if that big hairy guy inspired the fire giant in elden ring

Hope to see this properly made in the remaster

This castle reminds me of Kingsfield 2

Fools idols theme sounds so off without “huaaaaah” and soul rays blasting me

A giant with a mouth on its stomach, in a snowy wasteland… Seems a little familiar. Honestly I wonder if they reused some of the ideas the had for the northern limit for that northern part of Elden Ring.

Literally the Mountaintop of the Giants in Elden Ring

It's pretty crazy to see how many of these ideas live on in future games. That first enemy looks very similar to Lady Maria and the Cainhurst nobles, the snowfield and castle looks like from Dark Souls 2 DLC, and the snow giant is straight from Elden Ring. The underground section looks a lot like the Sunken City too. Also finding the soldiers is pretty similar to finding the knights in the Dark Souls 2 DLC who would aid you in the boss fight.

You might wait a little while for a Lance video but they're always worth the wait

You are a prophet, a hero and maybe even a messiah

Ever considered digging thru the Armored Core series? the ps3 titles run on the same engine as the souls games.

1:45 cut dialogue "you must leave, now! we've been trapped here for 11 years. Time has stood still, we cannot escape. We are forgotten..."

I can't believe they cut the college of winterhold

A DS2 Cut content from Illusory wall and then a Demon Souls cut content from Lance? Its a good night!

I really hope Blue Point includes this level in their remake. That would be an excellent way to sell it on people that have played the original in and out like most fans. But my biggest hope it that it doesn't lose the creepy other worldly vibe the original had.

Huh I wonder if those black pyramids were meant to be "projectors" that would summon the shadow enemies. With the two unique structures at the top of each tower being a way to shut them down.

Oh wow, amazing as always, i just love these kind of stuff (hence why i am here)

It's safe to say all the concepts that Fromsoft was originally intending to use in this unfinished level probably ended up being used for Frozen Eleum Lloyce, Painted World of Ariandel, and Mountaintop of Giants in their later games. So in a way, we did actually end up getting the northern limit as a finished level.

literally Elden Ring's Mountaintop of the Giants, even the castle part being Castle Sol

2:45 that creature is a cut enemy called a mimic and is obviously very different than the ones in dark souls and despite not attacking here there is actually a attacking animation for it where it's head would turn into a giant mouth and would probably grab you with It's mouth and bite down on you

13:14 World Tendency event

I'm going to say that the northern limit returned in Elden ring in some form

Hey, remember that Bluepoint added a lil extra to Shadow of the Colossus and the Nathan Drake Collection. So we might, JUST MIGHT, see this land in the remake.

BluePoint should have finished and added this area... missed opportunity that will bother me forever. :(

I have a theory that the large open sections and increased scale of the level and the way the architecture is constantly segmented and repeated, was because originally this entire area would passively hurt you. Like you took damage from freezing winds and would need to head to these warm lamps. I think you would then light these lamps somehow and in doing so, you spawn shadow creatures birthed from the light. The level would actually be cold and lifeless until you try to return light to it. The mural's around the level if you look carefully depict the shadow creatures and flames, and infact, these bear alot of similarity to Humanity especially in the mural. I'd not be surprised if these enemies appearing in Shrine of Storms was actually just content being saved from cutting room floor. These shadowmen were probably specific to the northern limit and instead found their way into shrine of storms. This then makes me wonder, all the cut northern limit enemies are all raggedy, beastly creatures and have lots of primitive cloth wrappings and jewelry. The Old Hero matches the visual style of the northern limit enemies with his clothing. Thinking about how kinda random the Old Hero is, and his half baked visibility mechanic in a dark area anyway, part of me wonders, and I'm gunna shoot for it here: Old Hero was originally a Northern Limit boss, and snow and footprints and visibility playing into his boss fight (idea later recycled with Priscilla). He would hear you on the snow. His eyes are covered because of the blizzard. The reason he also is glowing orange is because he was some kind of spirit and giving off heat/light, casting shadows, and I wonder if this would've created other shadow creatures in the fight. I like to this the Old Hero was a great soul powering the fire in the hearth of this level. Killing him results in a cold dark final area. Final Boss area seems to suggest the entirety of northern limit would've been against a giant icy cliff face that we don't get to see, the cave there being inside. I get a Manus vibe from this, with the humanity sprite like enemies and shadow/light, heat/cold motif present, I wonder if final boss would've been some kind of dark shadowy beast.

those incomplete torso mobs are absolutely giving me nightmares tonight...

Unfinished maps in games always unnerve me because they are abnormal since they're so raw, primitive, and empty compared to the final product. I honestly would love to see a horror game or ARG that makes use of this concept to play out its story.

I would imagine that the initial area would have been a cross between the Ashes of Ariandel and Ivory King DLCs. With a massive snowfield obscured by snow, some light mountain climbing and spelunking into a frozen over city, with the stair case at the end leading us up a mountain where the second map piece would be, and you’d get to look back at an unobstructed view of the previous landscape, and have your last boss fight be in a cave at the peak of the mountain. Also think those weird structures that keep popping up in the final map piece may have been planned to be teleports, and that there would have been many more obstructions around to require their use.

The giant with the mouth in his abdomen is just like the one in Elden Ring.

I wish a modder would take this map and create something with it. Or better yet, have the devs finish it as paid DLC.

Fromsoft compensate for Northen Limit by making Moutain Top in Elden Ring and those werid giants with a gap in the chest

It's pretty interesting how the lore for this stone made it into DKS 2 with the giants from the north. Also, I'd love to this area, as well as a better Dragon God fight, in the remake. Regardless, I love these videos so much. You put so much time and effort into them and getting to see all this cut content in action (so to speak) is fantastic. Thank you so much, Lance!

I have in mind the idea that the concept of this cut content was taken and then put back in Dark Souls II in the Frozen Eleum Loyce dlc

It seems obvious to me that you need to destroy the inverted pyramid thingies in order to be able to actually kill the enemies that are near them. On 10:07 the game leads you to two terraces from where you can observe one inverted pyramid in the tower ahead, so rather than a decoration or "just visual" thing I'd say it's a hint for you to know that there's an inverted pyramid there yet no enemy close to it. Afer all, by this point, you would already be aware of this mechanic since you encountered it a couple of times before reaching the terraces. On 11:08 you finally understand that if you want to move forward, you will have to destroy the pyramid above, so you take the route to the right until you get to it in 15:13, where you finally destroy the pyramid and hear the five enemies below instantly die. Similar to killing the reaper and thus also automatically killing all phantoms in Shrine of Storms. I would also say that the small isolated area in 16:00 could've been a pure white world tendency exclusively accessible area, just like in any other archstone in the game. Now what I am really curious about and cannot get to any conclussion to is the "artistic" frames on the walls. They look kinda horrorific for some reason and I doubt they are there just because. And you can also see the same kind of pattern in the structures of the two identical towers (14:00 and 15:37). If anybody has a good theory about those pls respond to this comment.

Those symbols look a lot like the symbol of the Ethereal Oak from the Dark Souls 3 Millwood Knight Armor, which would make a lot of sense

Director: "Alright team, I know you've planned 6 main areas, but as it stands you won't be able to make it before the planned release date. One of them has to go." Entire team : *glances furiously at Valley of Defilement* Miyazaki: "Yeah we're removing the cool snow area"

Watching this video after playing Elden Ring hits a little different huh (if you know, you know)

Hi Lance - do you think the snowy mountain area and Castle Sol are FromSoft finally getting their snowy land of the giants from Demon’s? It feels that way to me, and I love it.

I would really hope the remake gets a DLC (during winter maybe?) And it adds this location with other cut content that would fit. Perhaps they can even add the Tower Knight's armor as a set and more!

This is the most comprehensive tour of the area I've seen so far. You really managed to show how the player was (probably) meant to progress through the level, and I could imagine how it would (probably) have been like. You can really see that it has been designed by Miyazaki; with the frozen surface breaking and the many paths through the building. You made a great video. :-) I really hope this area gets finally included in the remake of the game... I guess it's rather unlikely that they do that though, because of all the changes they'd have to do to the rest of the game in order to tie the Northern Limit in.

Great video! I always love seeing the potential of cut content. Those pyramids are probably placeholders for particles, such as fire or light. They're upside down as to indicate the direction the particles would emit, in this case start from the bottom and expand as it progresses to the top.

One interesting thing you didnt mention is that many (all?) of the upturned pyramid structures feature an artificial "shadow" of the ghostly creature on the floor near it, as if the creature was standing inside the structure. The underground dead-end structures have 3 shadows each. Considering the early state this map is, those must've played an important part in it.

I remember watching a video by IllusoryWall about this area, but I am glad that you were able to do a detailed walkthrough with commentary to show all the details that From Software had implemented into these areas. Watched every second of this without skipping so I was definitely able to bear with you on this one!

It's honestly criminal that they didn't put this in the remaster.

Wild thought, a lot of this reminds me a lot of frozen eleum loyce and its surrounding areas. Could very much be a coincidence, but the slumped knights remind me of the frog dudes, and the snowfield reminds me a lot of... well, the snowfield, especially given its a larger more open area than any other part of the game really.

Lance always flexing on us lol

This would be a fantastic addition to the remake if the rumours turn out to be true

You make some of my favorite content on YT! Thanks for the extremely interesting look behind the scenes, once again!

Lance, this is simply breathtaking! Thank you very much for sharing such a lost masterpiece!

A video from illusory wall and Lance in the same day? Today is a good day

It sux they cut out this content, would've made a cool area for the broken archstone! There's all kinds of references about the broken archstone in game! The monumental spoke about it in his speeches!

In the underground dead end the structure (13:04) casts shadows shaped like the ethereal shadow enemies. I bet those structures with the inverted pyramids would have spawned them from the center. The untextured pyramid like represents a node for a missing effects object. Edit: Upon rewatching, all of the structures cast these shadows

I believe I know precisely what those pyramid spots were for. Strap in, hollows. The number of Mimics is equal to the number of node/pyramid things. More on that in a sec. This area, obviously labyrinthine, seems VERY strongly themed on trickery. Focusing on this concept, it would be easy to imagine the shadowlurkers stalking you throughout this map, with little sound but the howl of the storm and the giggle of the femme shadowlurkers... Onto the inverted pyramids though, I believe each of the structures was meant to hold Mimics. Obviously as I pointed out earlier, there are the same number of mimics in the snow field. Mimics are also essentially stationary, and solely have that very Piranha Plant esq attack seen in other videos. So what was the purpose of each of these, once cleared of a mimic? Teleportation. Adding to the absurd amount of trickery here, I believe each of those nodes was a teleporter node to one another. Another huge tip of this is that DeS has an unused early "vertical" version of the Coffin pose used in DaS1 to reach the gravelord covenant. Notice something at 15:41 that the player would fit perfectly into? With small stairs no less?? Entirely possible that these teleporters would be a one-way return to their adjacent sides to avoid backtracking through nasties, but this would give the best possible way to access the seemingly inaccessible final part of the map. Maybe Miyazaki was getting too many chaotic ideas from them though. One last note; the "Filthy Woman" animations also show her stalking the player in a way. I believe that she and the serpent warriors, along with the various npcs, would have populated this abandoned fortress, hoarding its secrets from the Wolf/Bear/Owl/Hyena soldiers left out to die in the storm. This is suggested by Serpent Warriors being the only ones without the translation of "barbarian" in their name, and that they are the only Bow enemy here, which would give much more meaning to that Wolf enemy with arrows stuck in its side. All I can comment on further is that this "beasts vs Men Of Science" feud is decidedly Bloodborne, but it also gives a reason for these two maps to be separated here, if one was clearly sealed off from the other. Who knows what serpentine horror could have been a boss here, though. We'll find out next year though - I mean, they're adding the cut True Death mode, so anything's on the table.

interesting how frozen irythill and the painted world of ariandel both have elements from this

Thank you for providing such a detailed look at these areas!

This level is so big! It’s a shame it was never completed, but given its scope and the difficulty of the Demon’s Souls project in the first place, I’m not surprised it was cut. But hey, it can be the source of fan speculation for years to come, and perhaps it’ll appear in the remake? Who can say for now?

Both areas are too unfinished to be included in the remake. So realistically they won't be included. But one can always hope.

Big "eleum loyce" energy coming from this map.

Love your work!

A video this early in the morning? Just means I can enjoy it before others. Love the stuff you put out and hope you are staying healthy and safe during these times.