The Worst Area in Every Souls Game (Including Elden Ring) 

The Outro was Phenomenal. I subscribe for that👍🏻

Lake of Rot feels like a bad joke that FromSoftware couldn't stop laughing while making it.

One thing I appreciate about the Lake of Rot is the "saddest walk" at the end, the final stretch of dry land you must run across to reach the Grace on the far side of the lake. If you're playing online, this path is covered with blood pools showing all the people who managed to cross the lake but succumbed to the rot before they reached the Grace. Some literally die standing right next to it. Both sad and funny.

“Walk in a new area with 100000 souls”. I felt that deep within.

What "saves" the lake of rot for me is that it's relatively short and has a well placed checkpoint in the middle. The consecrated snowfields are a pain in the ass to get to, have possibly the worst catacomb in the whole game, vast stretches of nothingness with low visibility and Evergaol Chicago where you get shanked and/or gunned down from all sites all just to get to the Haligtree

“Also a lot of people have been mad cause I don’t do outros…” *video ends*😂😂 i overall agree with this list. However the sewers in Elden ring were just as if not more annoying than the lake of rot in my opinion

In Elden Ring, the Lake of Rot was nothing compared Consecrated Snowfield or the Sewers. There are so many ways to mitigate scarlet rot, that it makes Lake of Rot easily manageable.

It’s a credit to FromSoft that all of these areas are still very memorable to me. I didn’t find tomb of giants that hard as I took my time. The bonewheels in DS1 were my first true frustrating experience tho, especially because you’re trapped by the spawn with nowhere to go but back into their arena

I actually really loved Nightmare of Mensis, but the other one with the Amygdala boss is pretty garbo

Wow. I'm surprised Lost Izalith didn't beat Tomb of the Giants in this subject. The lighting is horrible due to the lava, which you're running across after killing the Camera Souls Demon, now having to run around Dragon Butts.

Before clicking on this video I love how I legitimately could not recall a bad area in Bloodborne. One of the MANY reasons it is my favorite game of all time. Nightmare of Mensis is definitely annoying, but I LOVE the atmosphere and the lore behind it with Micolash and Mergo's Wet Nurse.

The Nightmare of Mensis level in Bloodborne is one of the most gorgeous levels in the entire game. The architecture and design of those 2 gigantic interconnected castles/cathedrals is unbelievable! Definitely one of my favorite and most replayed levels in the entire game.

Fun fact about the Lake of Rot (which I learned from Vaati, truly the GOAT): If you roll into the swamp then step on land and wait for buildup max out and give you rot (yes, the old DS2 mechanic still exists), you get a far weaker version of rot to go through the swamp with. Absolutely made it less of a headache to go through. No more stack of boluses or flaming incantations, only took like 4 flasks to go in a straight line from one end to the other.

Holy shit that was a top tier outro. It was so well done, with so much love and care put into it, I couldn't help but laugh.

That lake of rot at first I was like no way but in the end I actually enjoyed working my way around it and finding everything.

I remember going through Shrine of Amana with a co-op buddy, made the experience so much better now that I had someone to share my frustration with. Hope he’s doing well

At least Farron Keep was somewhat short with Abyss Watchers at the end. The Irithyll dungeon felt like forever with having to take your time due to the jailers stopping you from running straight through

It’s the sewers in Elden ring for me. Wasn’t fun or cool to look at. Just dull, long and confusing.

i feel like not a lot of people know about the mushroom man suit. It gives you a lot of scarlet rot resistance and literally doubles your bar, making that area far easier and I never see anyone mention it 🤷🏻‍♂️

Hey ember what class did you choose for the souls run you did in the video?

1:35 Fun fact: I used to place my summon sign down when I was playing as a Black Iron Tarkus cosplayer, and I specifically ferried people through Tomb of the Giants starting from the bonfire before Patches. Being able to pancake the Bestial Skeletons meant that the only challenge was if someone went off trying to get the Large Divine Ember or Silver Serpent Ring and got ganked. Otherwise, a Chaos +5 Zweihander and a Divine Greatsword +10 were my two best friends carrying people all the way to Nito. Good times, and I pray for each and every one of you who had to go it alone.

As much of a pain that these areas are I can't help but to appreciate them. Ending up in places that make you go "I really shouldn't be here, nor do I want to" really adds to the sense of the desperate adventure that you're on in the Souls games.

Putting a dragonkin soldier with tons of AoE attacks on an island in the center of a giant flesh eating pit was a great idea

I remember going through TotG when I played Dark Souls Remastered for the first time. I ran through the entire thing after giving up on actually trying to go through it like a normal area. By the time I reached Nito’s door though, I found out I missed something in the progression and it was locked. I don’t think I knew about the bonfire near the entrance to the fight until after I returned from unlocking the entrance. I think I spent like 7 hours trying to get through TotG with some extra hours being spent on researching how to get through it easier.

For Elden Ring it was Carian Manor for me. Those spider hands are overpowered against me. It triggered my arachnophobia in ways I didn't even think possible and it legit gave me nightmares

Let it be known that on my first playthrough of dark souls 1 (which was in 2019 after having played everything else) I foolishly powered through the graveyard as the second thing I did and got stuck in the tomb of giants. Fondest memory

That Outro was mind boggling. Cool, keep it up.

I love the sunken valley in sekiro, I like the snake eyes mini boss there and I love the scene of sprinting across the bridge with bullets flying by

Honestly, Farron Swamp is probably my favorite Poison Swamp in the series. At least there you can get interesting rewards if you take the time to explore, and the poison damage is forgiving enough to only be a minor inconvenience most of the time. I also really like the atmosphere of the Lake of Rot. An ancient, sunken civilization that worships an unknowable god of Rot? Hell yeah! And the fact that you have to lift up things from the ground makes it really feel like you're discovering something that nobody else has ever seen.

Please keep up this “every souls game” series! To be honest I already know every single area in this video except for Bloodborne could be old yharnam but yeah it’s too obvious lol.

Tomb of the Giants was exactly what I though of right before it was revealed. I died so many times before reaching the first bonfire and man it is a pain having to run all the way back there from the middle of the catacombs only to have those darn giants kick you off the narrow ledges again.

"A lot of people are mad that I don't do outros" *Refuses to Clarify* *Leaves*

The nightmare of mensis imo was awesome, good memories of that area. In Bloodborne I think the worst area goes to Bergynworth. There’s very little at all and there like less than 20 enemies there I think. And Rom is that great either.

The lake of rot is the easiest poison area because you can just use the many scarlet bouluses or equip the faith talisman and use flame cleanse me. Not to forget you can easily run across the entire area and make it to the other side with no consequence. It’s also kinda fun to unveil the ruins. For me, Consecrated Snowfield is my worst area, the fog obscuring your vision and the albinaurics dealing a shit ton of damage while being annoying to hit. The puzzle is also ass unless you get the sentry torch, not to forget it’s just one big open area with nothing really interesting to show off.

was wondering what area you'd pick for elden ring as none stuck me as unpleasant, then i remebered the lake of rot and how i found the quickest way through it to avoid having to deal with how bad it was, accepting to miss anything that was in it

9 month old videos outro just earned u a sub new person who ive only seen on le video of

A tip for exploring the lake of rot in Elden Ring; roll in the rot and go onto land and let the build up trigger scarlet rot, this gives you a much weaker version of the rot that doesn't drain your health nearly as fast and you can more comfortably heal through.

The Ashina depths are worse then the sunken valley passage imo, I loved the feeling of storming a giant fort and taking out all the enemies as I progress up. I mostly hated the depths because it has a reskin of snake eyes surrounded by enemies and poison to make her more annoying, the ape duo fight, and the annoying mist area that I got lost in a lot on my first playthrough.

The hieratical tree was a dreadful experience to get through. And the final boss of the area, just the last push to to guide you into insanity.

I actually loved Swamp of Sorrow in Demon's souls, it's actually one of my favorite areas in the game as the area helped me play much safer because I can't roll or sprint through the swamp so I chose who to fight and when to fight carefully and surprise surprise, I actually died the less in this area. I also love the fact that they just scattered treasures through out the area and you can see it glowing from a distant as the area doesn't hide those treasures, and the boy the treasures in the area ARE WILD!! Not to mention the Lore behind the Archstone where the swamp belongs to. Everything about the area is beautiful and no one can convince me otherwise😂.

I don't think Lake of Rot should take the spot as the worst place in Elden Ring. It pales in comparison to how awful, ugly, and horrible to traverse the Shunning Grounds are, and the enemies there range from annoying to unjustifiably unfair to fight in the small spaces that place consists of, not to mention the multiple drops of death there are and the fact that the place is like an actual labyrinth, and your map and compass do not help at all because it's considered to be a part of the overworld, so you can't even see where you're at in the Shunning Grounds as you'll only see the map of Leyndell instead. It's like fromsoft didn't like how tame the Depths from Dark Souls 1 were, so they decided to make the Depths 2.0, but much bigger, worse, and more labyrinthine.

This is actually amazing, people are sharing their opinions in a RU-vid comment section without getting angry! Also, great work on the outro, truly inspiring.

In my first playthrough of Bloodborne I was seriously struggling through the nightmare of mensis trying to get through the worms, the beasts throwing rocks and the damn lighthouse that drives the hunter crazy. When I thought that it could not get any worse, I got invaded by a Japanese player (I think it was a girl) that showed me absolutely no mercy.

So, I know you said there is no debate with Lake of Rot, but in all honesty, I loved every minute I was swimming through that thing, looking for items and fighting the boss in the middle of the lake. It felt very doable with Flame, Cleanse Me, so I probably wouldn't go for any extra objectives without it, like picking up items. Planning my route with the buttons and the mad dash between them was also quite the rush, which made the whole thing pretty fun for me. Especially because it isn't like there are many enemies there to get in your way, as it is just basilisks.

With DS3, I actually find Farron Keep pretty fun. Smoldering Lake and The Demon Ruins below however I find really annoying to get through and just find it a speedbump to get the Estus Shard and Bone shard

4:15 honestly it was surprising to me, i loved this place because of the music and atmosphere, and i didn’t really have that much trouble with all the enemies in my experience

Shoutout to me not knowing that there were raisable platforms when fighting the Dragonkin in the Lake of Rot. Now THAT was a fun fight...

This is the first video of yours I'm watching but that ending bit got a chuckle out of me.

I love the way you summarised the video in the outro.

I actually love Sunken Valley passage cause I tend to go all in and love the feeling of running thorward barrage of shots while dodging them thanks to well timed drops and grapples.

Bro I rarely comment on anything but that outro bit got me so good that I just had to sub.

which song is that for DS2, it's so familiar, and I can't remember the name

honestly just because of the length and pure confusion subterranean shunning grounds is worse than the lake of rot, at least I can just sprint to grand cloister for the lake of rot where I have to suffer eternally for the shunning grounds

I’m surprised that you didn’t put nightmare frontier as the worst place in bloodborne considering the poison lake, the Stephen curry giants that snipe you with boulders from across the map, and the winter lanterns that frenzy you when they see you.

2:38 I felt true pain when i saw the fog gate

Ahhhh 😫 looking back at all these games, they're all so good! 😤 That openkng theme of Sekiro made me wanna go back and play it again, just hearing it.

DS3 was my first soulsborne game, and honestly faron swamp was one of my favorite places, simply because it was such an adventure getting lost in that place. I'm normally pretty good at navigating areas in games, but to this day I still wonder if there are any items I simply never found in that swamp despite having over 1k hours. For a game that's NOT open world like Elden Ring is, I find that very impressive.

great list, to be honest, i love amana and the tomb of the giants, not that they are really good, but the design/appearance, yeah it's beautiful to look at amana, their problem is the path/enemies, they're all very annoying (although amana is a straight line, it seems to be more complicated than going through the gutter)

Idk about the lake of rot, that dragonkin soldier fight in the lake is super cool. I’d probably say that tunnels in the sewers below Leyndell were the worst for me.

The best way to run through the lake of rot is having beast repellent torch and mushrooms set in ER, the Farron keep was pretty annoying on DS3 though

I just blitzed through the sunken valley in Sekiro. Ran straight by everyone, got to the checkpoint, and found that approaching it that way was *much* easier

I really don’t understand why everyone hates Lake of Rot so much. I thought it was really exciting to discover it. And then go even deeper to the Astel fight. Very cool and mysterious.

Lake of Rot was the only area where I had to actually pay attention to my resources and use crafting. Not joking, it was literally the most interesting part of the game.

In farron keep if you're patient you can kite those big enemies to a white tree in the left had corner of the map, that giant guy who throws spears helps you out. Takes them down in two shots.

Wasn’t expecting Lake of Rot. The “Flame Cleanse Me” incantation only requires 12 Faith and cleans you right up. Was thinking other areas like Castle Sol, Haligtree Canopy, etc.

I think I hated the mist area in Sekiro the most. Invisible enemies attacking you from every angle in the fog in a winding confusing area of jungle and houses. Not to mention the insufferably difficult boss that you have to defeat in order to disperse the fog that is the Mist Noble. Hardest boss in the game by far!

In the snake eyes fight in sekiro, you can mikiri counter the kick move. Makes that fight much more enjoyable; however, the rest of that area is so insanely annoying

I gave the video a thumbs up, but the one that made me suscribe was the outro. Spot on

Tomb of the Giants, huh? I always visit that area as soon as I'm done with Pinwheel. I discover all the bonfires and collect all the items, just so I can warp and run straight for Nito when I get the Lordvessel. Same with the Demon Ruins except the latter is a nice weapon test and basically gives you free souls that walk around on two legs. Now, Lost Izalith may be rushed as hell but the Great Hollow is a really cool idea executed atrociously. It's easy to tell on which branch you can land but some are hilariously slippery. Hunting down all the Titanite Lizards is as braindead as finding one and quitting and continuing over and over until you've killed all in your vicinity that respawn only after you've quit out once. Getting that last item before the second "floor" is ridiculous.

Due to lack of knowledge about areas in Demon's Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro, I'm limiting my thoughts to the Dark Souls trilogy and Elden Ring. And really, I have to disagree on all accounts. For DS1, I found Tomb of Giants to be laughably easy. The only thing that consistently makes me sweat down there is the skeleton dog things. So, for DS1, the unequivocally worst area (in my opinion) is Lost Izalith. It's not a terribly hard area, but the rushed nature and the existence of both Bed of Chaos and the lava lake of dragon legs just spirals the zone into dead last. For DS2, I found Shrine of Amana very easy to cope with if you simply have a bow, or any ranged option, really. Otherwise, you have to get used to the area's geometry, using it to hide where the casters can't hit you while you smack the melee enemies. A struggle, surely, but the level is more about memorizing where pit falls and safe cover are. I still think Shrine of Amana is pretty low on the scale, but if we're ignoring DLCs, then Shaded Woods definitely takes the cake. Invisible backstabbing ghost guys are assholes, nutsack goblin zombies deal poison at a low level area, and curse jars are found left right and center. But thankfully, the player can stick to the left of the shaded woods itself to avoid most of the ghosts, and more interestingly, the player can acquire the Priestess Eye in the Burnt Ivory King DLC to actually see said ghosts as if they were normal enemies. Shrine of Amana and Black Gulch follow closely after, though, and if we consider DLCs, it's easily Frozen Outskirts. For DS3, the absolute worst area is Irithyll Dungeon, simply because of the jailers. They drain your maximum health faster than you can say, "Oh sh*t, that's unfortunate." And then, with a nonexistent health pool, anything that looks at you the wrong way can finish you off. For Elden Ring, I had minimal issues with Lake of Rot, except for the blasted Onyx Lord on the top of those ruins. No, as a faith build who had a massive FP bar, I was pretty darn okay, especially since I did Lake of Rot after Leyndell. For reference, the spell "Flame, Cleanse Me" requires only 12 Faith, takes around 14 FP to cast, and just straight-up cures Scarlet Rot and any poison - it's honestly a necessary spell to keep attuned at any and all times, especially given the low requirement. Thus, my complaint for Elden Ring formally goes to Consecrated Snowfield and Haligtree Canopy, in equal parts. Consecrated Snowfield is just Frigid Outskirts 2.0, where the reindeer got replaced with runebears and where Albinaurich Archers were added as the cherry on top. At the least, I'm thankful that only the first half of the zone was impossible to see through, and that the second half at least allowed me to see farther away.But then, immediately after Consecrated Snowfield, you have Haligtree Canopy, a hellscape of tree branches littered with enemies that inflict Scarlet Rot, and more damningly, littered with the Envoys, who constantly fire a steady spray of high damage magical bubbles. Particularly, I think of the Greater Envoys, who can one-shot or otherwise two-shot any player, even if they have psychotically high holy defense and an absolutely massive health bar. I know that because I tested it. Really, though, I think my complaint for Elden Ring falls more to how horribly imbalanced the late game's difficulty is. If everything we're scaled down a bit to Leyndell or something, I probably would've loved the area. Well, alright, I can't conceivably love Frozen Outskirts 2.0, but Haligtree wouldn't have felt like a tainted hellscape.

2:12 there is no anxiety greater than this

To me its the Volcano Manor, dark, bloody environment in depressing BGM, plus those face eaters coming out of shadow, the entire area is like a maze.

I personally love Tomb of the Giants and Nightmare of Mensis! I think Izalith and Nightmare frontier are worse.

The prison in dark souls 3 was my least favorite because the witches could reduce your overall health points, and just one shot you.

i never made it through the full shrine of Amana. Eventally the first couple enemies stoped respawning :)

I think the cherry on top of the lake of rots coffin is when you get towards the end of it they through a hundred of the worst enemy in the game at you

I didn't mind Lake of Rot tbh. I was kind of expecting an area like this when going into Elden Ring so when I finally discovered it I got excited. Not to mention the great boss fight at the end. My worse area in Elden Ring would by far be the Leyndell Catacombs, absolute nightmare of a place 😂😂

Totally agree about the Tomb of Giants. That area is the primary reason why I've only played through the first Dark Souls game one time. Every other time I've attempted or considered another playthrough, I wind up deciding against it when I think about that zone and a couple others that I feel similarly about.

I think the worse area for me in DS3 is the Profaned Capital, mainly because it's too short. Literally one half of the entire area is optional unless you're doing Siegward's questline or you're trying to get Karla. You can run from the bonfire all the way to Yhorm in less than a few minutes, granted you don't fight the two gargoyles. Also there's only one bonfire for the area with no shortcuts to or from it, a toxic swamp, and enemies that steal your souls while also dropping dung (except the one that drops Eleonora). Farron Keep, in comparison, is a longer experience that encourages you to explore because of the fires you need to put out, and has a fair number of optional items you can grab and areas to explore. Like the stray demon miniboss up on the ruined bridge and the ravenous crystal lizard you see while in the Road of Sacrifices. The poison isn't even an issue as the game has a ton of places safe from the poison that you can stand on and the large ghru enemies are easy to deal with using ranged weapons

That outro was my favorite part of the video, fantastic job.

Crystal cave in Dark Souls Remastered and the dukes archives is the most annoying for me. It just takes forever to walk back to seath and it's even more annoying if you get hit once and die instantly to curse and respawn with half hp.

I'm playing DS3 rn and Farron Keep is my favorite area for the moment. I loved how you are in constant fear of something happening. The poison is more here to slow you down and so you really are expecting something to happen. I think this area is more about fleeing and trying the hardest to find those fire. This was exciting on his own for me.

It’s not even that you get scarlet rot in lake of rot… It’s that you get NOTHING from the area except for a scarlet rot dagger. Huge pain for nothing to gain

Great list! I will say though, Lake of Rot isn’t even close to the worst area in Elden Ring imo. The platforms, boluses, Flame Cleanse Me, and Immunizing Charm make it pretty easy tbh, plus it’s short. The Sewers beneath the capital and Consecrated Snow Field are much worse than LoR

Am I the only one who had no issues with the Shrine of Amana? Maybe it was my build or something but I truly thought it was one of the better looking areas in the game and the ranged enemies gave me no issues. Black Gulch is easily the worst imo.

personally, the valley of defilement is one of my all time favorite levels! the atmosphere and immersion thanks to the slowed down movement and constant danger are amazing.

im so glad you put shrine of amana for DS2, I speedrun that game now im so profiecent at it and still just absolutely despise that area, always have always will

The swamps are unpleasant, but it really isnt a souls game without them. I remember blight town way more than i remember darkroot forest (plain boribg forest) or the tomb of giants (an area people generally just speed through)

Honestly I loved tomb of the giants I still remember how scared I was when I ran into my first giant dog skeleton with the lantern. It was scarier than actual horror games

Your video quality feels like you have 300K+ subs. I appreciate how you get straight to the point, too. And a little cherry on top is how I agree with pretty much everything you say...keep it up!

Nightmare Frontier is worse than Mensis imo

I rarely find someone who did what i did on my first playthrough in ds1 in tomb of giants. Instead of the lantern that I didn’t get from a drop (ty ds) and aside from me not knowing about the maggot. I ended up getting the light spell from the princess of oolacile and used that instead. You can use both hands and have your full armor on.

Your vids make me want to finally play the games I haven't and replay the ones I have for the 10th time. Keep it up.

when I found the lake of rot I had enough crafting materials to make enough scarlet rot remedies for the whole area. It was the only time I engaged with the crafting system and made the area somewhat bearable. It still wasn't a fun area, I didn't like running everywhere and waiting for scarlet rot to subside between rocks.

I really didn't mind the Lake of Rot. As a Faith build, I had access to the cleansing flame incantation so it really wasn't an issue for me. Also, W outro

Out of every good point you made in this video, that outro has to be the best one.

I... actually really like Shrine of Amara. I used to have a 'Batman' caestus build that I'd just run through this area until it depopulated, and I'd co-op to help others. To me, the thing is that each enemy type is actually quite weak on their own- the magic is slow and the users frail, the submerged lizard guys are weak, the water can be avoided by staying to the main path and being cautious. But it's when all those elements combine that it becomes hard- the magic pressures you into dodging or going fast, which triggers more lizards, who distract you from the magic and water edges. But that actually feels like... good design? Taking individually easy elements and combining them into something hard. But the player can methodically break it back down into the individual, easy pieces, if they know how and don't rush. Also the area is aesthetically beautiful. Demon of Song is easy, but cool design. Worst area for me would be Iron Keep, which is ugly, full of the same knights copy pasted over and over, combat encounters that mostly boil down to rushing you with huge groups of said knights (which are way harder than the enemies in SoA), the greatbow knights which have instant hard hitting shots and then are strong in melee (unlike the casters and magic in SoA which are slow and weak at both range and melee), and is still full of death pits and fire traps and lava. Also, Smelter Demon sucks butt.

I was going through areas in elden ring in my head that i really hated, and I despised lake of rot so much that i entirely forgot about it, so i didnt find any that i really diskliked. So yeah. As soon as you named it, it struck me. I remember standing there on the shore the first time i got there thinking "where is the path across it? any path? a brige? a ledge? nothing? Am i really supposed to walk through that?

Saw this title and immediately started brainstorming. Before watching my guess is: DeS: 3-2 or 5-1 BB: Chalice Dungeons but thats kinda a cop out. For actual game maybe the woods with the gunmen or some people hate the frenzy place. All of BB is good tho. DaS: Lost Izalith (Some might say TotG or Crystal Caves, but I'm pretty confident LI. Blighttown only suffered from fps problems) DaSII: Frigid Outskirts DaSIII: Still need to play this surprisingly Sekiro: The area with zombies. If not gun fort (but gun fort is awesome) ER: Rot Swamp seems like an easy pick. People who didn't like sewers or Haligtree I don't understand you, but that would be next guess. Confidence level high: DaS1 DasII Confidence level medium: DeS, ER. Who knows: Sekiro, BB.

Man I was going to cry from the spiders of nightmare of mensis Please mention dlc areas