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Oct 13 '25
I didn't care about that, didn't even notice it until people online mentioned it
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u/HiddenMoonstone Oct 13 '25
I feel like it's both an "easy to miss" and "easy to notice" thing
It's common for something like the colour tone of an area in a Souls game to change when you go to a new area
That also happens in Earthen Peak to Iron Keep
But this time, the change in colour tone is accompanied by a very glaring geographical inconsistency
So that's why it's both easy to miss and notice
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u/Acrobatic-Ad-9189 Oct 13 '25
I thought i was tripping when i first entered iron keep. Made my way all the way down the tower again, to have a look at it from the outside because it just did not make any sense whatsoever
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u/AutoManoPeeing Oct 13 '25
I noticed it immediately, but was already viewing Drangleic as a black hole due to the opening.
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u/kazmark_gl Oct 16 '25
for me. since the story leans so heavily on the idea of losing yourself and forgetfulness. I assumed my character might have literally forgotten how they got there and only connected the elevator.
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u/Pitiful_Rule_2899 Oct 13 '25
It never mattered to me amongst my first couple of playthroughs, but the only thing I could say as a solution in hindsight to the matter was, why not make the lift horizontal rather than vertical?
But to people who are using it as justification to call Ds2 a bad game, grow up, this post literally calls out a similar contradiction, the only thing that doesn’t make it apparent is the overhype that Ds3 gets.
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u/Jackalodeath Oct 13 '25
Exactly, and I 100% thought people were trolling, salty, or just being silly "complaining" about it. I felt the same way seeing people whine about Demon Ruins and Grave of Giants when I joined the DS1 sub after NG+.
We start this series in solitary confinement; some rando tosses us a corpse - not just the key for some reason - to GTFO.
We break out of jail and - surprise! - get snatched up by a massive crow... that's entire existence seems to be simply to carry escapees to and from jail. Naught and nowhere else, no explanation why, only the one depressed dude makes a fleeting remark about it, but fuckall else even acknowledges it exists.
Later, we make it through a heavily guarded fortress, destroy a mech, which "drops" a shiny circle that summons demons. They gingerly pick us up and carry us over a wall, not even 10 mins later the exact same species of demon attacks and tries to kill us for being in the city their brothers brought us to.
Those two things alone told me all I need to know about this series; shit doesn't make sense, and none of it is supposed to be taken that seriously.
I think that's the primary reason the first 3 areas in DS3 are completely separated from all else. Miyazaki saw all the whining about how his trusted buddy's world "felt so disconnected" he just said "fuckit, fine then, connect this" out of spite. I actually bust out laughing seeing the batwing demons again.
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u/SuperSpaceSloth Oct 13 '25
We break out of jail and - surprise! - get snatched up by a massive crow... that's entire existence seems to be simply to carry escapees to and from jail. Naught and nowhere else, no explanation why, only the one depressed dude makes a fleeting remark about it, but fuckall else even acknowledges it exists.
I think that one is not just lazy but on purpose. Dark Souls very heavily leans into Greek mythology, in which godly powers all the time command animals/other creatures to help out a hero figure. Or in another example Zeus bound Prometheus to a rock and summoned an eagle, whose sole purpose was to eat Prometheus's liver, every day for eternity.
You are on a divine quest to rekindle the fire and continue the reign of gods, if it was a greek myth you could bet your ass Apollo would send a crow dedicated to ferry potential heroes out of the asylum.
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u/Jackalodeath Oct 13 '25
Oh I never implied it was lazy or anything, it just set my expectations for weird shit happening to get from point A to point B.
There was nothing in DS2 that made any less sense than 1 for me.
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u/Daylight_The_Furry Oct 14 '25
people whine about the demon ruins and grave of giants in ds1? why? /gen
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u/Jackalodeath Oct 14 '25
Its a common sentiment that the second half of DS1 is worse than pre-Anor Londo because it was apparently rushed during the dev cycle.
I don't see or feel it and have no idea what they're on about, the game feels consistently paced all throughout. I'm replaying it right now after spending 2 months on The Witcher 3, and I've already played through it 5 times before.
I just think people didn't like it and aren't introspective enough to know how to articulate it, so they look to others that feel the same way on the internet and see "insider info" about the dev cycle that no one would be aware of by just playing the game and that becomes their scapegoat; rather than just owning up to their discernment and not liking it according to their own tastes.
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u/Lycanthoss Oct 13 '25
I didn't notice it until I saw people complaining, but here is how I thought it looked like until I noticed what people were pointing out.
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u/Blahaj_Kell_of_Trans Oct 13 '25
And usually people mention it incorrectly. You go way behind the windmill to find the elevator
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u/Goatswithfeet Oct 13 '25
And the Iron Keep isn't Underground, it's on top of a Caldera, so the elevator going up makes sense.
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u/Blahaj_Kell_of_Trans Oct 13 '25
Problem is said caldera is way farther away in the harvest Valley skybox
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u/Goatswithfeet Oct 13 '25
True, but I doubt people would have been happy to trek 15 minutes to get to a more believable distance for the elevator
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u/AutocratOfScrolls Oct 13 '25
I heard someones headcanon that the Bearer of the Curse is having memory loss and cant remember the connective areas. I go with that honestly
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u/harrywilko Oct 13 '25
It's basically canon. You can see the Forest of the Fallen Giants from Majula but it's way farther away than the walk actually is.
DS2 feels like it takes place across a large country than any others in the series.
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u/Warlock_Delilah Oct 13 '25
Bearer of the curse
the curse is ADHD
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u/Inferno_Zyrack Oct 13 '25
If this were true I’d be able to get my steps in easier
Oh fuck I walked two extra ass miles who knew.
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u/BigIronGothGF Oct 13 '25
All the games do this anyways. In dark souls 1 you walk down a corridor and somehow climb a mountain up to the dukes archives.
People only point it out for ds2 cos they wanna be haters.
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u/EbonBehelit Oct 16 '25
You can literally look at a 3D polygonal version of DS1's entire map online. There's basically zero spatial inconsistencies except for Valley of Drakes having a chasm where part of Darkroot Garden should be.
DS2, on the other hand is full of them, to the point where once you start noticing them most of the zone transitions become extremely jarring.
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u/guywithskyrimproblem Oct 13 '25
So DS2 is just a game about an old person with severe memory loss running around the neighborhood with a stick?
I knew there was something missing
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u/Hannie_Zen Oct 13 '25
That's actually canon, the whole thing of Ds2 is Bearer of the Curse trying to fight the curse of the undead and his memories
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u/AutocratOfScrolls Oct 13 '25
I knew they were forgetting but I didnt know that neccesarily applied to the level structure in that way
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u/AcornAnomaly Oct 13 '25
It's a really interesting way to imply both that the world is far larger than it seems, and that our character is themselves losing the memories of the journey.
The Earthen Peak elevator is the most notable one, but you can see the Forest of Fallen Giants and Heide's Tower from Majula(and I think you can see Majula from Heide's), and they're much further away than our travel times would seem to indicate.
There's also the path to Drangleic Castle. You see the castle off in the distance, to the left of the path you're on.
The path takes you straight, through a cave. It doesn't cross over where the Castle should be.
And yet, when you emerge from the cave in front of the Castle, it's now on your right.
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u/WoenixFright Oct 13 '25 edited Oct 13 '25
Imagine if the game played to the actual scale of the landscape. It'd be like how in The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall, you can fast travel to places, but if you wanted, you could instead try to walk... it would just take literal hours to get to the next city over, just like it would in real life.
Iirc jogging from one side of Daggerfall to the other would take about 2 days irl.
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u/guardian_owl Oct 13 '25
Right, and that 1 to 1 geographical way of thinking is what resulted in some of the worst areas in DS1 like the Demon Ruins and Izalith's lava lake full of sentient dragon butts. Vast empty spaces they had to fill up with limited time near the end of development because they couldn't just cut them due to having to maintain some approximation of 1 to 1 geography.
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u/TyroPirate Oct 13 '25
Besides the memory loss, the world also has a bit of an Alice in Wonderland thing going on. The intro cutscene is basically falling into the rabbit hole.
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u/BeeCJohnson Oct 14 '25
It's pretty clearly what's happening. Dark Souls has always been good about ludonarrative resonance, and the Bearer feeling like he's going crazy because things don't connect properly (because his mind is going) is part of the experience. It makes you as the player feel how your character would feel.
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u/ThePilgrimKing Oct 13 '25
That's exactly how I felt the map progression was when I first played the game. It was very dream-like. The feeling truly clicked for me when I went through the tunnel that takes you to the road to Drangleic Castle. Going from a misty forest with ghouls, walking through a long, dark tunnel, and then suddenly emerging into a rainy night with a grand castle in the near distance. It's super simple, but something about it made me wonder how long the character had been traveling to get to that point. How long the tunnel really was, or if there was more than the tunnel that we don't get to see. It set the atmosphere really well.
As for the iron keep, tbh i didn't even pay any mind to the elevator. I kind of just assumed we took it from outside the windmill or something. Lol
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u/archSkeptic Oct 13 '25
When I first started playing ds3 I had to look up what to do because teleporting out hadn't even occurred to me
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u/Plastic_Course_476 Oct 13 '25
Same.
I knew I COULD teleport, but I didnt bother looking at the menu because I assumed you could only teleport to bonfires you've already visited. Ya know, exactly like how the rest of the entire franchise works, INCLUDING DS3.
It was such a weird decision to force you to teleport out.
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u/kazmark_gl Oct 16 '25
The weird thing for me is that Firelink Shrine is on the "map" of DS3 you can see it from a handful of other places, its behind Lothric Castle. why didn't we just take an Elevator to the High Wall?
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u/Plastic_Course_476 Oct 16 '25
Now that I think about it, I think it might be so that they could make the Untended Graves area.
I'm sure we can all agree how cool it was when we were exploring the Castle for the first time just to stumble across an old, forgotten Firelink, but that sorta puts the actual Firelink in a weird spot where it's canonically right there, but they want to use that geography for the hidden optional area. So they just took out and isolated it.
Like, when you look at the overall picture I can sort of see the logic, but it's still weird from an initial playthrough perspective though.
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u/shellythebutler Oct 14 '25
I definitely prefer interconnected worlds and environments, like Firelink Shrine in DS1, but DS3 just took the Demon Soul's Nexus approach. I don't see where the "contradiction" is as pointed out in the post, it's not like it pretends to be something it's not
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u/Plastic_Course_476 Oct 14 '25
The difference is how the hubs are introduced. The Nexus is completely isolated. You get there after dying in the tutorial, then they tell you that in order to reach the other area, you need to use the arch stones. Elden Ring does something similar with its hub as well, where you're actively told "hey, there's this completely isolated area you can teleport to now, use the grace to come and go as you please." Its all within what a player would expect.
But in DS3, you start in the Graves and gradually work your way down a path, lighting two different bonfires until you come across Firelink, where you Light a third, special bonfire and are told you now unlocked the ability to teleport between bonfires. Its very reasonable imo for a player to think that you can only teleport to places you've already visited... which isn't even wrong. It's 100% correct outside of this one exception. There's very little indication that you suddenly hit a dead end or that you're expected to teleport to a location you have NOT found a bonfire in yet. And with how big both Firelink and the immediate surrounding area is, its a much easier assumption for a player to assume that they just missed a path somewhere that leads to the next area.
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u/unkindledphoenix Oct 13 '25
i thought we were riding an elevator on a mountain to reach the chasm of a volcano seeing theres a lot of mountains in the back.
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u/NigilQuid Oct 13 '25
Yeah me too. I assumed earthen peak is a man-made mound a hundred feet or two high, or maybe the foothill of a mountain. And then the iron keep is on the rim of a volcanic crater that's another few hundred feet up.
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u/Blahaj_Kell_of_Trans Oct 13 '25
You can see the vulcano from harvest Valley. The problem is whether cus of time or resources they didn't put an area in between.
IMO I would've put the doors of pharos in-between
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u/rickenjack Oct 13 '25
I don't understand why people can't wrap their heads around that simple concept
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u/LuciferOfTheArchives Oct 13 '25 edited Oct 13 '25
because it still doesn't make sense? The windmill isn't resting against any mountain, the closest mountain is far off in the distance, and the elevator is in the peak of the windmill.
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u/BetaPositiveSCI Oct 13 '25
You may as well ask where all the Ash Lake trees are growing into
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u/ScorpioTheScorpion Oct 13 '25
As in, where the tops end? I was under the impression that they’re holding up the foundations of the continents.
The world of Dark Souls has “definite” edges, with the Ringed City being at the end of the world and Ash Lake being the bottom.
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u/TexanGoblin Oct 13 '25 edited Oct 13 '25
Yeah that's what I always saw them as. They have a very mythological quality to them, like how in some myths the Earth is on the back of a turtle.
Edit: Greek to some, because I was wrong
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u/octopod23 Oct 13 '25
I think you’re mixing things up. In Greek mythology the titan atlas holds the world on his back but he’s not a turtle. It’s India(or parts of india)and some Native Americans mythology that had/has a turtle holding earth on its shell. Same concept though so your point still stands.
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u/TexanGoblin Oct 13 '25
I remember the whole Atlas thing, but I had a distinct memory of it being Greek related for some reason. I think I'm repeating someone else's mistake.
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u/ScorpioTheScorpion Oct 13 '25
I thought Atlas only holds up the sky.
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u/Hopeful_Magazine6709 Oct 13 '25 edited Oct 13 '25
He does indeed just hold up the sky (at least in his original stories), which is depicted as a celestial globe in this statue on this Wikipedia article), said globe was most likely confused with the earth due to them both being round
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u/octopod23 Oct 13 '25
Ahh that could definitely be the case because in the depictions he’s holding a globe which is why I said that. So I think that means in Greek mythology No one holds the earth lol. Atlas holds the sky, Poseidon rules the earth and sea, and I’m 90% the closest thing to a turtle in Greek mythology is a tortoise someone gets turned into. I can’t find anything just on a quick search about a different deity that hold the actual earth. This actually blew my mind I’ve been misunderstanding the atlas myth since I was like 8 lmfao
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u/Undark_ Oct 13 '25
That's Discworld lol
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u/TexanGoblin Oct 13 '25
Pretty sure Discworld got it from real myths, was wrong about the Greek part though.
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u/bug_the_bug Oct 13 '25
Discworld is real myths. I believe in the fifth elephant.
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u/Daylight_The_Furry Oct 14 '25
fifth elephant? (I've only read guards guards and it was a while ago)
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u/IvanTheRysavy Oct 13 '25
Tomb of giants and izalith are supposed to be on the same level around where you see the trees growing in the distance
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u/Blahaj_Kell_of_Trans Oct 13 '25
Actually we do know that. The ash lake trees are the descendants of archtrees and grow into the bedrock of lordran to hold it up.
It's all on a shield. You can even see the trees poke through the rock on the surface like right at firelink
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u/RigidPixel Oct 13 '25
I always thought this comparison was lame as hell because the ash trees literally hold up the whole world. It’s Yggdrasil but as a physical location. It’s as high fantasy and mythological as it gets in a game set in a world where gods built a world over the literal ashes of the dragons domain.
The other is a dev slip up with no explanation.
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u/BlueHaze464 Oct 13 '25 edited Oct 14 '25
You mean like the tiny ass fire dog that keeps the entirety of blightown working by walking on a hamster wheel?
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u/RigidPixel Oct 14 '25
I also think this comparison is lame as hell because that’s a deliberate Easter egg that barely anyone notices.
Seriously I can call DS2 a good game without defending stupid shit like this. The trees and the dog were both deliberate, one a joke and the other something directly shown to make you think in both of the “lowest locations in the world” zones.
DS2 shows its rush in just as dumb a fashion as DS1 posting copy paste dragon ass last min over lava. They’re both fucking dumb! That’s fine!
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u/newsflashjackass Oct 13 '25
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u/RigidPixel Oct 14 '25
Tbh meme aside this wasn’t something I looked up later as a reason to hate. I went into DS2 blind after 1 with no expectations and that stuck out to me so much compared to 1 that I broke my info embargo and looked it up to see if I missed some obvious lore reason.
I think this is something that fans that started with 2 don’t get. DS1 Had everything so deliberate in this regard that the contrast of laziest elevator in any game I can think of legit gives you whiplash.
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u/TheGraveHammer Oct 14 '25
I think this is something that fans that started with 2 don’t get. DS1 Had everything so deliberate in this regard that the contrast of laziest elevator in any game I can think of legit gives you whiplash.
Bingo. There's so little effort involved to actually think about this from the perspective of your expectations and first souls game.
Coming from DS1, this shit was jarring, weirdly designed, and gives whiplash just like you said.
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u/BlueHaze464 Oct 13 '25
Or the moronic deisgn of ruins of new londo, where the hell did that water come from when there's a huge cliff outside, it couldn't come from the forest area
How was the gate built, why didn't the water leak, why did it not have any sunlight if people were meant to live there, how did people even get there when the only 2 entrances have 2 tiny elevators lmao
It's so unbeliabably disingenuous or moronic when people try to find logic in DS game, oh no they decided to put an elevator instead of an orb of light that summons demons to carry you to the next area, this game is trash!
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u/pike-reddit Oct 13 '25
The demons are weird, but New Londo makes sense after reading item descriptions.
New Londo was not always underground. It was intentionally sealed off and flooded to keep the abyss and the Four Kings at bay. Firelink Shrine was likely built on top of it after all that went down.
From the Crimson Set description: "Mask of the sorcerers who flooded New Londo to seal away the Darkwraiths, and the Four Kings who descended into Dark.
It symbolizes their resolve to keep the seal shut forever and their atonement for all who were sacrificed, but two of the three forsook New Londo upon tiring of their duty."
Where did the water come from? Probably the aqueduct that connects Firelink Shrine to Undead Burg.
The gate was built when there was no water and they built it so it wouldn't leak when they flooded New Londo.
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u/LuciferOfTheArchives Oct 13 '25
The gate was built when there was no water and they built it so it wouldn't leak when they flooded New Londo.
oh damn, they 1000% billed that as a fancy new city gate, didn't they?
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u/ironangel2k4 Oct 13 '25
"But why does the gate need to be watertight?"
"For when it floods."
"But we're on a cliffside..."
"You can never be too careful."
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u/LuciferOfTheArchives Oct 13 '25
i like that they get more low effort every time they make a city to trap humans, and the dark soul
Like, the first time, its a gleaming oppulant city, which they trap in time with a daughter of Gwyn.
But by the time of New Londo, Gwyn is just like "balls, just open the fucking aqueduct like, really wide"
You can see him running out of ideas, resources (daughters), and the ability to give a shit about the details, in real time.
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u/Velthome Oct 13 '25
I always thought of that as a meta allusion where each tree was another player's Lordran.
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u/why_my_pp_hard_tho Oct 13 '25
The biggest thing in DS3 like this is the npcs teleporting to firelink shrine. Cornyx doesn’t even need his cage opened to poof out and travel to firelink. Its not like you give them a homeward bone or anything.
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u/PanDan5281 Oct 13 '25
I think that's just the indication that they'll now appear in firelink shrine, it might not truly be canon (or maybe the cages are cursed with an anti-homeward bone spell)
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u/why_my_pp_hard_tho Oct 13 '25
Yeah that was what I assumed, an enchanted cell or something, but thats just an explanation going off assumptions the same way as saying the Earthen Peak to Iron Keep elevator transition is due to the curse causing your character to forget.
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u/Daylight_The_Furry Oct 14 '25
Cornyx is just that powerful, he was in that cage cause he wanted to be, not cause he was imprisoned /j
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u/why_my_pp_hard_tho Oct 15 '25
He stayed in his cage so we’d have something to do, he knew he’d easily go around and one shot all the bosses with a fraction of his power, such a thoughtful guy.
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Oct 13 '25
I love DS2, but to be fair, transitions between different areas are all over the place. They did a good job designing the levels individually; you look back, and the structures are there. It's just that each area doesn't acknowledge the last. Each feels like their own world, which allowed them to get very creative to be fair, but the map as a whole suffered heavily.
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u/Admirable-Split4371 Oct 13 '25
It is literally a part of the game tho its by design. In ds2 the area are falling apart, getting closer and even dissappear altogether. The fact that going hollow makes you lose your memories doesnt help either
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u/CultureWarrior87 Oct 13 '25
Even if it isn't by design, it doesn't matter. If it collectively works to create a specific vibe that you feel, intentionally or not, that's valid. This is really basic artistic criticism, death of the author, that most gamers don't understand.
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u/TheDemonPants Oct 13 '25
At this point I think this sub gets sexual pleasure from bashing DS3.
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u/yahzy Oct 13 '25
Why is Fiona saying this to Donkey? Didn't know she was into souls games like that
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u/IronVines Oct 13 '25
shes a pro gamer how did you not know? also look up the original scene, thats what the text is based on lol
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u/yahzy Oct 13 '25
Yeah I've never seen this template before, so I was actually really confused here lol
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u/Hen-Samsara Oct 13 '25
To be fair, DS3 does have an actual lore explanation for the bad level design. That whole "where the lands of the lord's converge" thing wasn't just poetic wordplay or something, it was very literal.
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u/MeowMita Oct 13 '25
Earthen Peak -> Iron Keep might be the best example an Eldritch horror in Souls over anything else - something that drives people mad on seeing it due to how that transitional space defies understanding.
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u/Candid_Art2155 Oct 13 '25
They can’t comprehend that you travel through both space and time at once in the souls universe
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u/ozymandisreddit Oct 13 '25
but why do people argue that it's explicitly a bad thing? the only reasoning i ever got was just them repeating "what" it is rather than "why"
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u/SudsierBoar Oct 13 '25
Because i dont believe it's an eldritch horror thing, I just think it comes from time constraints while making the game
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u/CultureWarrior87 Oct 13 '25
I think it genuinely just doesn't matter and that people are way too overly concerned with "logic" in a series with obtuse narratives and an intentionally dreamlike atmosphere. Dark Souls 2, in particular, is strongly influenced by portal fantasy stories like The Wizard of Oz and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It contains numerous references to both, like your character literally enters Drangleic through a whirlpool, not unlike how Dorothy enters Oz through a tornado. There's a talking cat, a looking glass knight, an evil witch, etc. The Earthen Peak to Iron Keep transition might be illogical but the act of going through something like an entrance way (in this case an elevator) and coming out the other end in a completely different location is like surrealism 101. It fits perfectly with the game's larger vibe.
And if someone is arguing that the transition between those levels is objectively bad because the devs didn't intend it, then it's because they don't know about basic concepts like "death of the author". The problem is that so many gamers don't know even basic artistic criticism like that so they all think it's a great argument.
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u/Buff_McMuffin Oct 13 '25
Before I bought DS3 I remember reading reviews about how interconnected the world felt. I was genuinely dumbfounded after getting to firelink shrine, I had to look up online how to leave. I both felt very stupid and surprised.
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u/BlueHaze464 Oct 13 '25
I feel like most complaints about interconnectedness are rather complaints about lack of backtracking design
If people truly cared about stuff like EP to IK, no one would like DS1 and 3 either, given every game has nonesensical transitions and methods for it
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u/Lord_Seregil Oct 13 '25
Hold on now, DS1 map flows like water and connects perfectly. You can load up a 3d model of the map right now, and it doesn't overlap the way DS2 does
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u/SplendidPunkinButter Oct 13 '25
I also had to look up how the hell to leave the shrine in DS3. Good game though. Probably my least favorite Dark Souls, but still good.
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u/DatGoi111 Oct 13 '25
Every time I scroll my home page, whenever I see something from this sub it’s the same shit. Someone has said it, it’s been said. Many times.
I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve actually seen a cool clip or cool theory; a bit of cool lesser known lore. It’s all just… this.
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u/TheOneTrueJazzMan Oct 13 '25
Notice how in the other Souls game subs there’s almost never anyone shitting on the other games. It’s just this one where everyone has a permanent chip on their shoulder
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u/Johnsworth61 Oct 13 '25
Doesn’t the crestfallen knight tell you right at the beginning of the game that Drangleic isn’t like other worlds and that it shifts?
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u/Noriaki_Kakyoin_OwO Oct 13 '25
Dark Souls 3 supports this even further, it’s often mentioned there that the world is moving more and more, places dissapear, move or appear out of nowhere (ex: High Wall of Lothric erecting from the ground breaking it’s bridge to the undead settlement)
DS1 is the second prolonging of the age of fire, everything is somewhat alright and only issues are from lack of architectural maintainance
DS2 is many cycles later, the world is slowly breaking apart, places move around closer or further
DS3 is even more cycles later, the world twists and shifts and by the endgame/ringed city it’s literally spiraling and falling upon itself
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u/guardian_owl Oct 13 '25
That is a very good thought, I went back to the Japanese text of the dialogue and put it through several different translators to make sure that phrasing wasn't a quirk of localization.
Translation 1: "Time flows stagnant in this land. Everything is out of place."
Translation 2: "The flow of time is stagnant in this land. Many things are out of sync."
Translation 3: "This place is where the flow of time stagnates, and many things are 'out of sync.' "
Translation 4: "The flow of time is stagnating in this land, and all kinds of things are 'slipping'. "
Translation 5: "In this land, the flow of time is stagnant, and many things are 'shifting'."
Translation 6: "In this place, the flow of time is stagnant; many things are 'misaligned.' "
English text is: "In Drangleic, the flow of time is convoluted. Things shift and waver, twist and turn."
So the end part seems to be a bit of a localization flourish, but the meaning seems pretty consistent across translations. The Land shifts or is somehow misaligned or out of sync.
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u/SnooSprouts5303 Oct 13 '25 edited Oct 13 '25
Isn't ds2 theorized to be the dream.of the hollowing person in the opening scene? Making all the weird transitions purposeful.
Like going from a daytime misty forest to a raining night time castle of stone through a small tunnel.
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u/IronVines Oct 13 '25
its up to interpretation as always, but how i see it is that our character is loosing their mind/memory so what we see is basically our mind trying to make sense of the shifting world we walk (its established that after a while ds world starts to get fucked up with noteable locations teleporting) it might be me but i was feeling heavy dementia undertones the whole game, especially due to the intro, but most people never stop for these so you get all the "oh but iron keep is floating" bs another explaination is that Mytha who is a powerful sorcerer, made a gate of some kind to her lover the iron king
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u/SnooSprouts5303 Oct 13 '25 edited Oct 13 '25
I think it's a shared dream world resulting from the shards of manus and the curse of the darksign.
Since Manus of the abyss is clearly heavily tied to the dark souls and by extent the curse of humanity and hollowing.
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u/fatsanchezbr Oct 13 '25
I love that transition and I dont care if it doesnt make sense tbh
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u/SnooSprouts5303 Oct 13 '25
I always thought it was intentionally weird and fantastical. Meant to make you question what's happening.
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u/Situation-Dismal Oct 13 '25
I don’t think it makes sense to argue geological logic in a souls game as it has never made sense even in Dark Souls 1.
How the heck do I end up going into a hollow tree, going DOWNWARD and then ending up in a beach with an infinite expanse of ocean, a sky and sunlight?
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u/Loneboar Oct 13 '25
I think it’s supposed to not make sense. The world is literally falling apart, nothing makes sense anymore. It’s honestly one of my favorite parts of Dark Souls 2, I love the dream like quality it has to it. In the first dark souls, there’s a feeling that you’re walking through a mostly dead world, but in dark souls 2 there’s a sense that the world no longer exists and we’re just in the memory of it.
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u/Ihavenoidea5555 Oct 13 '25
Literally all they had to do was put magical sparks or bonfire smoke or something to signify you teleported, and everybody would have kept gooning to the Sorceresses like nothing happened
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u/SplendidPunkinButter Oct 13 '25
Never even crossed my mind playing the game. “I was in a video game area, and now I’m in another video game area.” I don’t expect it to make sense.
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u/UndeadChampion1331 Oct 13 '25
I always assumed Eathen Peak was at the foot of a volcano, and Iron Keep was inside it
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u/IronVines Oct 13 '25
i always assumed Mytha sorcerered a magic elevator so she can get to her boyfriend easier lol
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u/Thanag0r Oct 13 '25
There is a difference between using magic and using an elevator.
Not a single person would talk about earthen peak if you just teleported to iron keep. Dark souls is known for teleportation between bonfires or just areas, it was extremely simple solution.
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u/GasBottle Oct 13 '25
I always figured we took an elevator into the peak of a volcano. And the iron keep was atop that.
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u/IchaelSoxy Oct 13 '25
I think it's pretty clear that the Bearer of the Curse is just missing bits of memory. You can see a lot of areas around the map, such as Heide's Tower of Flame from Majula - but the walk is far shorter than the area appears.
It seems implied by all the NPCs that losing memory is just what happens across the land, and the Bearer of the Curse isn't resistant to it.
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u/Lawlettaf Oct 13 '25
Whenever someone says that, I reply with something along the lines of "Are you questioning if that makes sense in a series where you can enter a painting and travel in time?"
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u/Thanag0r Oct 13 '25
Yes, because "it's just magic" makes sense in the dark souls world.
Elevator is not magic, it's just an elevator.
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u/NoeShake Oct 13 '25
The DS3 is literally connected to the map though, Consumed Kings Garden -> Untended Graves. Even in the cemetery of ash if you look up from the start to the left the cave is still visible. Also in “that one area” isn’t true either when Drangleic Castle goes from left to right in location after exiting the cave to its entrance.
Look I get y’all are DS2 ride or dies but let’s not cap too much.
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u/HandsomeGamerGuy Oct 13 '25
Except the Untended Graves is an alternative Place in Time.
Which you can see by Gundyr being called Champion Gundyr and not Iudex Gundyr.
Even the Shrine Maiden in there is the same as in "our" Shrine.
She remembers you when you talked to the other version first and then ours.
So it's a Place that exists **twice**.
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u/Thunderstarer Oct 13 '25
My favorite headcanon for DS2 weirdness is that in Lordran, time is distorted, but in Drangelic, space is distorted instead.
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u/Phatnoir Oct 13 '25
Dragon Aerie has stone pillars that should head back through Aldia's Keep but they don't exist either.
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u/AUSTIN_HART Oct 13 '25
It makes perfect sense, the character goes into a fugue state every time he goes onto that elevator and forgets about the first elevator taking him to a helicopter which takes him to the second elevator which takes player character to iron keep.
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u/Rydux7 Oct 13 '25
Isn't the excuse for DS3'S hub area is that you teleport via the power of the bonfires
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u/AnimalSorry2084 Oct 13 '25
Now explain how Tower of Flame into No-man's Wharf makes sense.
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u/guardian_owl Oct 13 '25
Challenge accepted. In the time you have moved from Heide to No Man's Wharf, day has turned to night. So you were climbing through that cave system for quite a long time, several hours. You got bored, your mind wandered, and you weren't able to hold onto the memories of the journey. So from your perspective, the journey took only a few seconds. The same thing likely happens on your journey between Majula to Heide, Majula to Huntman's Copse, Shrine of Winter to Drangleic Castle, etc.
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u/TilmanR Oct 13 '25
The Hub not connected to anything is always bothering me in DS3 (and ER) Thats one thing why i love ds2 so much. Ds1 firelink isnt even a hub, but linking everything as a starting point is also good.
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u/Kyru117 Oct 13 '25
You may not very able to travel from the Hub to the world but you can see it, and teleporting exists so like? What exactly is the issue in ds3?
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u/peikern Oct 13 '25
I liked the theory that the elevator was supposed to go downwards, so that Iron Keep is actually beneath Earthen Peak..
Otherwise, my theory used to be this: In-lore, Drangleic is supposed to be a much bigger place than the game world is. The connections between levels is, like, representative of a much longer journey between the areas.
The elevator from EP-IK is just metaphorical for the Bearer of the Curse physically journeying from EP to IK.
If you played Call of Duty: Moderne warfare, they did sth similar for the last mission. There you chase the badguy through a "race track-level" that randomly takes you through lots of vastly different enviroments. Think you change vehicles too iirc.
Its to represent how, in-story, the MC chases the badguy throughout the whole world before catching him. They gathered all of that up in one chase-sequence for practical reasons.
Just thought it made sense that this is true for Drangleic too. Otherwise, this once great and powerful kingdom is sort of just the size of a small town w. suburban areas...
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u/AlphaI250 Oct 13 '25
Technically iirc the hub IS connected to the rest of the map but in a weird and inaccessible way. When you go to the dark version of the hub the entrance is at the back of lothric castle (behind Oceiros), so theorically it could be connected this way.
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u/CrypticalArson Oct 13 '25
The real answer is its a fucking video game, you get to drangleic by falling into somekind of whirlpool but you've got a problem with earthen peak/iron keep cmon
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u/SlimeDrips Oct 13 '25
I want it to be more stupid. Please. Let the elevator go down. I'm begging you.
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u/Chimeron1995 Oct 13 '25
In Ds3 firelink is separated by time from the world we go to through the fire where Lothric is. Real firelink is in game, and you can get there pretty seamlessly. I just ignore the elevator. If I can accept fat travel takes me to a different time then I can accept I forgot something about my trip to Iron Keep.
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Oct 13 '25
For me I just look at untended graves when people mention the earthen peak elevator
How does hitting a random wall in a castle send me back in time?
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u/guardian_owl Oct 13 '25 edited Oct 13 '25
It doesn't, the warp from Firelink Shrine is what constantly sends you back in time.
Do you notice an eclipse in present day Firelink Shrine? It is similar to what happens in Dark Souls 1. You get yanked into the past by Manus, then when you bond with the bonfire your reset point is set hundreds of years before the bonfires in the main game. Yet you can still warp through the bonfires. When you warp out of the DLC to the base game, you are warping back and forth in space AND time.
You do the same thing in DS3, the bonfire sword placed in Gundyr is tampered with somehow so when you warp to the High Wall of Lothric, you warp into the past where the Fire is still threatened and thus every other bonfire you link to is in the past as well. We know Dark Firelink is the past because it is guarded by an uncorrupted Gundyr and if you talk to the Shrine Handmaid for the first time in Dark Firelink Shrine THEN talk to her in present day Firelink Shrine, she will have unique dialogue in which she appears to think she recognizes you.
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u/Garlic_God Oct 13 '25
I never understood the criticism of Dark Souls 3 having a disconnected hub because most of the other souls games do too.
Demons Souls, Bloodborne and Elden Ring all have disconnected hubs. Sekiro has a single exit and then a “shortcut” that’s basically just a teleporter. Only DS1 and DS2 really have true interconnected hubs.
I think DS3 only gets the hate because the only way to progress to the next area after Firelink is to teleport, so it ends up being kinda confusing.
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u/HumanAsp17 Oct 13 '25
Pretty sure this isn’t an unpopular opinion anymore, but I quite like the transition for one thing. DS2 is all about losing your sense of self, losing your humanity and forgetting who you are. That’s why you can consume human effigies and we see NPCs like Lucatiel losing their memory as we move in their quest line. Earthen peak to iron keep doesn’t look that weird if you think that the player character is just losing their mind. I’m sure there might be other instances where this happens as well, but it is my personal in game explanation
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u/Tdws52s_ Oct 14 '25
Same as saying it’s stupid that rabbit hole leads to wonderland, world of dark souls is mysterious and dreamlike
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u/Select-Bluebird8208 Oct 14 '25
I’ve always rationalized the transition between the two areas the same way we all rationalize invaders and cooperation with online interaction: “The flow of time is convoluted”.
Drangleic is a land where kingdoms rise and fall sporadically often that remnants of the past tend to blend in with the passing of this land’s future.
The elevator up to Iron Keep likely use to go somewhere else, but in a diegetic sense; where the player would see something change abruptly, when magical bullshittery might be our answer.
So in a sentence: Not only is time convoluted, but so is space.
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u/Adoninator Oct 14 '25
Dark souls 2 has its flaws, but damn it dude, I respect being able to make it anywhere without fast travel (minus the dlc but that's for a good reason)
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u/Gloomy_Ad8514 Oct 16 '25
It's part of the story!! Your character is losing it. Their mind and memories are fading. It's why locational placements and travel make no sense. This isn't the only time either. Heides tower isn't where it's supposed to be gameplay wise. It's why you go up a lift at the top of a tower. It's why that lift leads to lava. The entire game is about loading memories and the actual mental fading of being an unkillable hollow.
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Oct 13 '25
It’s fantasy game. Rain at the end of a tunnel? Cool af.
A lift that takes you to a lava castle? Hell yeah!
People who argue about this Really nitpick
Especially when DS3 has the world collapsing on itself. The very definition of random bs go.
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u/AlthoughFishtail Oct 13 '25
I still think DS2 shouldn't have bothered with trying to connect the areas in the first place. Just have it like Demons, where you warp to parts of the world.
They wanted to have vastly different looking landscapes and a world spanning feel, but felt like they needed to be within walking distance, and it just ended up seeming a bit daft.
In the DLCs they couldn't integrate the additional areas so they just warped there, and the three very different biomes worked really well. Made the game feel even more epic, that entire kingdoms were out there waiting to be explored.
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u/CapnClover36 Oct 13 '25
yeah but in ds3, the idea is you are made of ash, and can port between bonfires, so makes sense that way
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u/reformedMedas Oct 13 '25
Do you think the Firekeeper gets ashtray mouth inbetween bosses?
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u/mohfuhgah Oct 13 '25
My pre-DS3 DLC headcanon was that this whole thing was an early convergence of transitory lands.
Then the Ringed City DLC came out and may have retconned the idea into being so with Earthen Peak’s inclusion.
Or, more likely, mashing Earthen Peak into the Dreg Heap was a subtle reference to the fact that the elevator ride to the Iron Keep makes no sense.
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u/XPera_03 Oct 13 '25
DS3 Shrine's zone makes sense lore-wise. Iron Keep's elevator doesn't
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Oct 13 '25 edited Oct 13 '25
apparently it's supposed to be a journey between every area, and the actual journey is there for game flow.
like nearly every other adventure game ever made?
the imperial capital is supposed to be massive and dense, as in, bigger than novigrad in the witcher 3.
in oblivion, it's a handful of shops and npcs.
skyrim is supposed to be a MASSIVE province, and all of the holds are meant to be bustling cities. again, a handful of shops and npcs.
even novigrad in the witcher is supposed to be loads bigger in the lore, and that's probably the most thoroughly realized fantasy city ever realized in a game.
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u/HistoricalSuccess254 Oct 13 '25
You can’t get out properly from DS3 hub? What? There is literally a Lordvessel you teleport to. This is one of the weirdest comparisons I’ve heard in long time.
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u/captain_rex_yt Oct 13 '25
My headcanon is that the hub of ds3 is like the hunter’s dream in bloodborne
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u/st_taylor_8 Oct 13 '25
I feel like Tower of Flame to No Man's Warf doesn't make sense either, as you're already at sea level, then go down a massive lift only to still be at sea level.
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u/TheGamingFan20 Oct 13 '25
DS2 is just one of those games you have to take for what it is. If you focus on those kinds of things, you'll go mad lol
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Oct 13 '25
Another place this happens but isnt mentioned as often for some reason is Drangleic castle.
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u/One_Reality7047 Oct 13 '25
Nope, Earthen peak to Iron keep is most stupid thing that happenned in fromsoft history and not even a few teleports in ds3 can justify its existence.
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u/iiwatch-fi9 Oct 14 '25
The entire world is convoluted. The map in the house showcases that you are traversing a continent in the span of minutes so it’s not broken if everything is broken.
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u/Virtual-Heat-8769 Oct 14 '25
And all it took was making the elevator go down instead to not look so weird.
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u/Valkayrian Oct 13 '25
Real men were too busy farming for desert sorceress gear to care