Not only Zack, Ben, and the others—even regular players who had cleared Dark Souls: Age of Fire, or veterans who had finished several cycles, or the hardcore ones who had done countless playthroughs and built perfect characters—
They all looked at the brand-new Death Mode. They knew it would be hard, but still thought they could handle it.
But after actually trying it, many of them realized…
The na really fit. It truly was Death Mode!
Bosses in their pri were terrifying beyond words!
They brought players back to the raw, original kind of fun.
Artorias at full strength, wielding his greatsword and his massive shield, was utterly terrifying.
Then there was Yhorm the Giant from the previous ga. He still kept his gimmick—Storm Ruler could deal massive damage to him.
But there was a catch.
In multiplayer, only one Storm Ruler could be brought.
Why?
Haven't you watched the story?
There are only two Storm Rulers in total. One with Onion Knight, and the other by Yhorm's throne.
And in Death Mode, players faced Yhorm at his peak.
At this ti, Yhorm hadn't lost his mind to the Abyss from seeing his people die.
So of course, along with his terrifying giant blade, he still had the massive shield that had been with him for ages.
aning—in Death Mode, Yhorm wasn't a mindless beast, but a giant king with both sword and shield.
Even Storm Ruler's blasts could be blocked by his shield.
So the only way to deal heavy damage was to find Yhorm's openings and strike around his shield.
The only bit of relief for players was that, because of his size, Yhorm's movents were slower compared to other bosses.
But then ca the new version of Gwyn. In Death Mode, players finally saw what it ant for Gwyn—the First Lord—to be the strongest fighter in Dark Souls.
His Sunlight Spear—if it hit you, it was instant death.
It was the only true one-hit kill move in Death Mode.
(Of course, that doesn't count the cases where players strip naked and fight bosses like that.)
Still, while powerful, the wind-up for Sunlight Spear was obvious, so with enough attention it could be dodged.
What really broke countless players was that pri Gwyn was completely different from the hollowed Lord of Cinder Gwyn.
This ti, players could not parry Gwyn's attacks at all.
In the older ga, many mocked Lord Gwyn as the easiest boss—easier even than the first Taurus Demon.
The main reason was simple: the burned-out Gwyn could be parried.
And in Dark Souls 1, the parry window was much wider than in Dark Souls 3.
Even though Lucas had tweaked so of the numbers, the fact that Gwyn could be parried made his moves too easy to read.
That gave a lot of players the false impression that Lord Gwyn was weak.
But if players aren't allowed to parry Gwyn, the Lord of Cinder, the fight instantly becos way harder.
And now in Death Mode, not only is Gwyn's AI stronger, but parries are also completely disabled. You could say the difficulty skyrockets.
...
For most regular players, their focus was still on Random Mode.
Although Random Mode already appeared in the previous ga, with the new ga's open and interconnected map design, the experience was clearly very different.
As for Death Mode?
Many casual players tried it once just to see what it was like, then quickly admitted it wasn't sothing they could handle.
Random Mode, being more fun and lighthearted, was really made for the average player.
Death Mode, on the other hand, was always ant for hardcore players who wanted the ultimate challenge.
It also served to fulfill so long-standing wishes.
On forums and community boards, many players had expressed regret that they never got to truly experience how strong Gwyn and the gods were at their peak.
Death Mode was made to give them exactly that.
Even though it was brutally hard, plenty of top-tier players were determined to push through and defeat its bosses.
After all, for many veterans, the series' difficulty that once felt overwhelming at first had turned into pure muscle mory after hundreds or even thousands of hours.
With all items and weapons in hand, unless they slipped up and got one-shot, bosses were basically just routine fights.
So players even went to extres—like doing a level 1 run against every boss.
Or beating every boss without weapons, just using a shield.
For those players, Death Mode brought back the feeling of what Dark Souls was like the first ti: raw, punishing, and thrilling.
And it wasn't just players in one region—gars overseas were also fired up for Death Mode.
Since it launched worldwide at the sa ti as Dark Souls: Age of Fire, both speed-kills and first-kills were tracked on global leaderboards.
With the lure of fa and bragging rights, top players everywhere started discussing strategies.
After countless deaths and retries, the best players from both inside and outside the country began to summarize Death Mode's key features and tricks.
For example, even though up to three players could team up to fight a boss, the difficulty varied depending on the boss.
Take Yhorm the Giant from the previous ga—many thought he was easier with a three-player team, since one person could focus on charging the Storm Ruler. But it wasn't completely brainless, since the Storm Ruler needed ti to charge, and the one using it would attract Yhorm's aggro.
But with the Abyss Watchers, co-op actually made the fight harder, because the number of Watchers scaled with the number of players. The more players in the team, the more Watchers spawned.
And the more people there were, the ssier the fight got.
After all, players aren't AI. Even if everyone is skilled, things can go wrong in the chaos of battle.
AI bosses don't make those mistakes—they're programd perfectly.
So ironically, fighting with more people could actually be tougher.
As players analyzed each boss, they slowly uncovered details about their chanics and difficulty levels.
On livestream platforms both in and outside the country, progress updates beca popular.
One day, an overseas player or team might get a boss down to a sliver of health.
The next day, a top dostic player would push the progress even further.
Both inside and outside the country, everyone was holding their breath, hoping to land the world's first kill.
After all, getting that honor would forever be recorded in Dark Souls history. Just imagine—every Undead who visited Firelink Shrine would see your ID engraved on a stone monunt. How amazing would that be?
Of course, plenty of players were also begging Nebula Gas on the official forums, communities, and even Lucas' personal blog for one feature:
The ability to change their character's na.
Since Dark Souls is mainly a single-player ga with online features, lots of players had picked silly or joke nas at the start without thinking twice.
Normally that didn't matter. But now, with Death Mode, if soone actually managed the world's first kill with a ridiculous na, it would be super embarrassing.
What about switching to another save file?
Who could bear to throw away a save file with over a thousand hours of playti?
Similarly, many players were also asking for a way to redo their character's face.
After all, showing up on the leaderboard with a creepy "ancient god" face would be awkward too.
And it wasn't only hardcore players who felt this way—plenty of casual players shared the sa regret.
At the beginning, lots of them just rushed through character creation, picking nas like AAA, 123, or ABC, and making random silly faces like "silver twin-tailed old man."
But after playing for a while, they realized the na and look were actually pretty embarrassing—especially in online play.
Yet throwing away a long-played save file was just too hard to do.
So because of this, a lot of players started making petitions.
And their reasons were pretty solid—if in real life you can change your na or even get plastic surgery, why can't you do it in a ga!?
For all these passionate requests, Lucas only t players halfway.
As for nas, a new exchange item would be added to Firelink Shrine, but each save file could only use it once.
As for faces? What, five chances to adjust them still not enough?
Lucas gave his reply: "The world of Dark Souls doesn't have that kind of advanced technology."
Seeing Lucas's response, plenty of players were speechless.
What do you an "not that advanced"? Whether it exists or not is totally up to you!
(End of The Chapter)
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