Obvious late game spoilers in this thread so watch out. Right now, I'm nearing the top of the grand archives. Generally, I'm not one to waste time on optional levels in Dark Souls. I didn't spend a lot of time in lava town and I did a quick sprint through the consumed king garden that ended with me somehow making it to the boss.

I did some research in the Dark Souls wiki. I know, I know, wiking Dark Souls stuff is a slippery slope. But two things about the remaining optional areas interest me. First, the dark history firelink shrine. Admittedly, a lot about what interests me there can just be seen in a youtube walkthrough. And it would have been very cool if I had just discovered it. Wiking it ruins it a bit. Second, the Nameless King. I know nothing about the Nameless King other than he seems to be a lot of people's favorite boss.

Is it worth doing the optional levels?

I think if you want to make the most out of your Souls run, it's better to complete everything within the game, so yes absolutely do the optional levels. The Nameless King was not my favourite Souls boss, but it was definitely the most challenging so if you want a challenge, you should at least try it. Getting to his level though requires some items and gestures you might've missed if you didn't go through other optional levels.

I wandered into the Smouldering Lake last night and got completely wrecked in a totally fun Dark Souls manner.

Yes. Real tempted to end my post here, but let's go on for a bit.

While I admittedly will say that about any and all Souls content, the optional areas in this here game are very strong even for this series' standards, especially Archdragon Peak. It doesn't have one of the best bosses in the game, but two in fact, and the area itself is of matching quality. Don't Youtube that stuff, experience it for yourself. The alternate version of Firelink shrine, on the other hand, is very cool for story purposes and grants you access to additional endings, but unless you're invested in that aspect of the game, I'd give it a pass as there's just not much there in terms of gameplay.

I think the mobs in Archdragon Peak are trash as is the area their placed in from a design perspective its pretty much the worst place in the game by miles for me anyway. As for firelink it has one of the best bosses in the game and cool lore.

The 3 areas (it sounds like you didn't do Smouldering Lake?) you haven't seen yet take about 3 hours to explore at most. The bosses will be difficult but you can at least see them and decide they're worth your time.

You should start with Archdragon Peak. It's not an enjoyable area but none of them are, and at least the end boss is memorable.

Go for it, I thought of skipping but did them after the endgame.

They're not particularly long, but they're certainly memorable. I liked the bosses, and Nameless King was fun but not impossible at all. Archdragon Peak has its own vibe and I'm glad I took the time to explore it.

If anything, you'll get some more levels to prep for the DLC!

What does this even mean? Why are you even playing Dark Souls if it's not to complete the levels and fight the bosses? Why does them being optional immediately void them of any value making them a time waste comparatively to the rest of the game?

To answer your question though, Demon Ruins is a garbage area but the rest of the optional areas are great and the bosses are some of the best in the game if not the franchise.

@baronsamedi: I get the distinct impersonation that quite a few people play these games just so they can say they've beaten then which is fine play the game the way to want to play it

@ikramit: But the optional areas are still something to be beaten? 'wasting time' on optional areas just makes it seem like the most important thing is the credits rolling and not the actual act of playing the game itself.

They have two of my favorite bosses in the game, so I'd say yes, but you don't have to do them at the expense of anything else. Finish up the game, beat the last boss, and then choose to stay in your first playthrough rather than going on to NG+.

That way, you can do them at your leisure, and you won't feel like they are keeping you from finishing the main game. There's one thing to note, though; if you care about alternate endings, you need an item from one of the optional areas in order to see one of them.

@baronsamedi:It seems that way because it is to some which is what I was trying to get at.

@personandstuff: the nameless King is From Softwares last loud war cry that clearly says "we know some of our bosses have real bad camera issues, and we don't care." It's a decent fight but honestly nothing special. The first phase is short but quite annoying.

@baronsamedi:I can see the logic in that but there is something about beating a boss and then getting a new area to explore that is rewarding and makes it worth it. I have no interest in working my way towards killing the king of lava town simply because he's there. But if the king of lava town is in my way or if, his death would service my goal, I'd love to kill him. Also, I really want to play Doom and I know I need to beat Dark Souls 3 first.

@milijango: Good to hear I can continue after I beat the final boss.

Archdragon Peak is second only to Irithyll, I definitely wouldn't skip it. It's like skipping Castle Cainhurst in Bloodborne, you just don't do that.

Definitely. The Untended Graves stuck out to me as one of the more interesting areas in any Dark Souls game - this is what it looks like when nobody links the fire. There's some pretty cool stuff in Archdragon Peak as well.

If you beat the boss in Consumed King's Garden, then you might as well go through Untended Graves. Archdragon Peak is a longer, more fully-featured area, and the Nameless King is the hardest boss in the game, so you'll probably spend a fair bit more time there.

It sounds like you don't expect to return to this game anytime soon, so go ahead and go through the bonus areas. Even combined, it's not going to take you that long to finish both areas, although you might get stuck on Gundyr or the Nameless King for a little while. I suggest getting to the point where you could just go ahead and beat the game, and then do both areas last.

That is, unless you're rushing to just finish the game, but I think that's a terrible way to approach Souls games (or any game, for that matter).

I would say you should, I don't think they are that great gameplay wise but they are pretty interesting and neat looking. I have heard lots of talk about Nameless King but I somehow beat him on my first try so I didn't really get much time fighting him. You do also get some cool items for beating those areas.

why wouldn't you do the optional areas? Boss fights are what you play this game for and you will be missing out on some of the best boss fights in the game.

Why wouldn't you do the optional areas?

@personandstuff: The one optional area that I would say is an absolute must is the alternate Firelink Shrine. Of the three optional areas, it's the shortest, has the most interesting lore, and also has IMO one of the top 5 bosses in the game. I think it'd be a shame if you didn't play through it, especially since you already got through the Consumed King's Garden.

Smouldering Lake is okay. It has a bit of interesting lore, has one neat gimmick portion before it gives way to a more pedestrian rest of the level, and has a pretty middle of the road boss. That being said, this area contains multiple Undead Bone Shards and an Estus Shard as well as a bunch of Pyromancy items. If you're at end game levels, it shouldn't be that difficult.

Archdragon Peak... man. It contains what seems to be universally considered one of the weakest bosses in the game, and the area itself is kind of a mixed bag. And then there's the Namelss "Camera" King. Nameless King seems to be the most divisive boss the series has ever produced. Reddit did a user poll where he placed top 5 both in favorite boss and least favorite boss. If King of the Storm was an individual boss, I bet it'd be considered the worst one in the game. I have no idea what camp the average person will end up in as so much of it has to do with the first phase of the fight being trash. I consider him to be a pretty middle of the road boss overall. It is probably the most skippable of the optional areas in that it's intentionally the hardest area of the game and everything else scales to the mandatory sections. But it is at least a more interesting area than Smouldering Lake was.

@cav829: Nameless King has an inarguably terrible first phase and then a rather unremarkable second phase. Now if you're a lore hound then the items might prove a treasure trove - I'm not so for me it was just another dood swinging a sword that I eventually killed. Watching ENB play through that area and be completely awestruck does mark the difference between your average player that simply makes their way through these games and those who live and breathe Dark Souls. ENB was completely speechless when he got to Untended Graves while for me it was just another level. I was pretty jealous and kind of regret not getting super heavy into the plot of Dark Souls as it obviously elevates your enjoyment, but the first game turned me off so much from this series that I never really gave it another chance and unfortunately DS3 is quite entirely built around the established fiction from the first game.

I'm currently a bit stuck on the Untended Graves boss, so i'm now questioning my optional levels life choices.

Absolutely. The optional areas has two of my favorite bosses and the amount of loot you'd be missing out on makes it totally worth it.

Yes? Why wouldn't you? Or even if you would why would you ask a group of people that are guaranteed to say yes?

@humanity:You've got a lot of good points there. Even as someone who adored the first Dark Souls, Archdragon Peak felt like a missed opportunity to me. That is a super cool moment and all when you realize who the Nameless King is if you're into Dark Souls lore, but I don't think the game really did anything interesting with that lore to further enhance the character. I don't get why they designed the two boss encounters in that area the way they did. The Ancient Wyvern might have been okay as a boss if it was in the first 20% of the game, but it had no business being one of the last bosses in the game. The King of the Storm and Nameless King fights meanwhile feel like two different bosses jammed together into one fight, which is a complaint I don't think I've ever had before with a Souls series boss. They should scratched the Ancient Wyvern fight, made King of the Storm its own fight, and then fleshed out the Nameless King fight.

They probably should have addressed this in a second piece of DLC for the original Dark Souls. Here, it was like "yeah I guess we should get around to addressing that since we're ending the series."

I'm working on a blog post I hope to have up next week with some further thoughts on various bosses in the game as I didn't want to include any spoilers when I wrote up my Dark 3 review.

I mean if you want to play the whole game you bought then yes.

The optional areas are actually secret areas. They're only optional because they're a secret.

You should not read the spoiler below if you don't want to know. You've been warned.

Technically, even saying that, they aren't optional if you want the real ending. You can't get the real ending without going to certain secret areas.

The Untended Graves/Dark Firelink should definitely be on your list - they're short, feature one of the best boss fights, and also gives you a ton of interesting lore and also unlocks the second ending (so you can choose which path to go down). Archdragon Peak is a really fantastic area with one great boss and one interesting, but perhaps slightly disappointing, boss. The area as a whole is great though.

You can skip the Demon Ruins, it's fun but there's not much down there of real note if you're really eager to finish the game. Personally I didn't want to miss any inch of the world on my first playthrough, but if that's how you prefer to go then give that place a miss.

Yes, they're some of the coolest looking areas and they have great bosses and lore inside them too. From rarely makes their optional content the most trivial stuff in the game, I mean the extra content itself is supposed to be this super cool treat for exploratory players.

Arch dragon peak is, visually, my favorite area of the game. I think it's worth a look.

@cav829: personally I have no clue how they play tested the first phase of that fight and said "yup this is absolutely fine, ship it." Either gross negligence or worse yet they intended the bad camera to actually factor into the difficulty of the fight, which is beyond bad/lazy boss design. At this point it's inexcusable as this issue has plagued the series since its inception and it's something they have done nothing to rectify.

The arena itself is also fairly weak, looking rather comical than anything else. The game looks best well when things are dark and preferably wet but lighter shades reveal the world to be rather blocky and dull, lacking discerning detail or interesting textures. Drsgin Peak itself isn't that bad, but it does seem weirdly divorced from the main game but not in a good way like the Untended Graves.

@milijango: One thing worth noting, you have to go to one of the other hidden areas before you can even get to Archdragon peak. You don't have to CLEAR it but you certainly have to go there.

I reckon I'm only about a third of the way into the game but I don't really care about spoilers. What's this "dark history" Firelink Shrine" that the OP mentioned?

I don't get what's so cool about the Nameless King. The part of the fight that's actually challenging feels like the most DS2 boss ever. One handed weapon humanoid enemy, with the spinning-on-a-top overhead tracking in full swing. And he can two-shot you. How... "challenging". Not much better than the Dragonslayer Armor, I think. Plus, it's another boss that has the annoying "two stage" structure. Only a few times did I find that fun in this game. Having to do the dragon bit every time (which I got to the point where I could beat it with no damage) became tedious, fast.

That said, I'd say all the areas are worth doing. I don't really understand your reluctance to do them, but if you want to skip one, I'd say the Demon Ruins, since it ends with a little bit of a whimper, rather than a bombastic boss.

Man, I'm glad I got to the alternate Shrine without being spoiled. What a surreal, cool moment in that game.

Just for mentioning for the difficulties of finding these areas, it seemed that fellow pilgrims, and I also suspected the game itself, left you notes about how and where. How to handle the first boss at Arch Dragon peak, at least three messages were there covering that.

I too was yelling camera so much during the game, that finally I knew I wasn't getting From's deep caring/tear shedding over it. So by the second boss at Arch Dragon peak I was possibly more amused than snarling.

And the magic of walls.......!

If you're of the sort who might not return to Dark Souls 3 any time soon, then I think it's even more important that you at least take a look at what the optional areas offer.

No. Exploring areas in Souls game is a huge waste of time.

(come on, man)

Why not? If you already bought the game might as well play as much of it as you can.

Interesting, considering I was thinking about that last night as I went to the final boss. You know, I played these games back-to-back, and honestly, I am kind of tired of playing them, so I just went to the final boss, died twice, and quit. I was tired of the two phase bosses, and the final boss having that made me want to move on finally. I'll maybe beat it at some point, but I'm done for now. I was done enough that I got to the final area, thought this same exact question you ask, and said 'nope'. If you're really interested in it, then I say of course, especially if you're a completionist, wanting to see everything the game has to offer. If you're just not interested, then no. Also, though I think DS3 is a fine game, it's probably my least favorite of the Souls games (Bloodborne included). Considering The Witcher 3 Blood and Wine is coming out, I want to play Uncharted 4 on crushing; and Doom is out which I am waiting for my brother to beat so I can, I want to be done with DS3.

I'm not watching ENB play Dark Souls 3, but there are a lot of things in the game that blew me away from a lore perspective. I'd see an environment, enemy, boss, item description, characters, etc. and my mind would race with what it meant for the overall series.

It's for this reason that I could not understand why Brad and other people on the bombcast were labeling recurring Dark Souls elements as "fan service." They were talking as if things were just randomly being placed in Dark Souls 3 as some kind of Family Guy reference mill. They're definitely not random.

Watching certain parts of playthroughs on youtube it's clear to see what players care and are familiar with the lore. People that care definitely get more out of the series.

weird sort of question. why not give them a shot and decide on your own

Yes.

@golguin: well some things are fan service. The meat cleaver NPC encounter isn't in a meaningful location nor does it factor into the lore outside of "the cycle repeats itself." It's just a fun callback. The dragons toasting the bridge are a callback.

But I defend mutely agree that for people who followed the lore thus far it's a lot more satisfying than to those like myself that mechanically "beat" these games without bothering to ever uncover the who, what and where. Although I partly didn't care because these games have no definite answers. Everything is shrouded in half truths and speculation based on tiny nuggets of actual story. People criticize Kojima for cobbling together the Metal Gear storyline from disparate games as he went along, but the Souls games honestly do the exact same thing except they don't even bother trying to tie the loose ends together in some haphazard ways.

@humanity: I think the difference between MGS and Souls is that Souls doesn't shove it down your throat.

@baronsamedi: Oh yah It is definitely the complete opposite side of the spectrum - they are absolutely hands off for the whole thing to the point where tons of people finish these games without having even an inkling of what they were about.

Incidentally I think neither extreme is all that great, and a middle ground is preferable.

A lot of people here seem very down on the Nameless King. I think he's one of the best bosses in the entire series, I was stuck on him for an entire weekend. When I finally managed to beat him it was incredibly fulfilling. Champion Gundyr is no joke either.

The bosses alone make the optional area's worth it. But the levels themselves are also really cool, Archdragon Peak being the best looking level in the game.

@humanity: It depends, I think listening to the NPC's is a good middle ground. I wouldn't welcome anything along the lines of cut scenes or forces story segments in Souls game it would be too intrusive. Problem is the NPC's don't divulge much at all in DS3 I was quite surprised when I only got 1 line of dialogue from each NPC when I first got to the Firelink Shrine.

The other thing I'll say about the Souls v MGS comparison is Souls is intentionally ambiguous. MGS is convoluted due to lack of editing and biting off more than one can chew (among numerous other things.)

@baronsamedi: I don't really think they are comparable at all. My main point was that neither creator really seems to know where they were going with all of this except Kojima attempted to wrap things up in the end while Miyazaki just kinda threw more things at the wall knowing that the fervent fan base will make them stick one way or another.

I can't speak for everyone, but when I hit the Nameless King boss fight I just felt exhaustion more than anything. It was like, okay, here's another boss whose primary mechanic deliberately breaks/manipulates the camera. Here's another boss whose two discreet phases feature two discreet lifebars I have to slog through again and again every time I die. Here's another boss whose attacks just stunlock me and my attempts to block, or just simply ignore my shield hitbox altogether, forcing me to just roll through everything.

I think the fight's strengths are primarily aesthetic and narratological. Like, it's a stunning visual feat for a Dark Souls game, and it manages to both tie up and expound on some longstanding mythological loose ends. But none of that mattered to me because I had zero fun actually playing during this sequence. When it was over, I didn't feel fulfilled, but rather, I felt like "Okay, thank god I did it because now I have no reason to play this game again."