Intrepid Dark Souls archeologist Lance McDonald, the same man who previously unearthed unused story content for Bloodborne’s Old Hunters DLC and a scrapped Dark Souls 3 free-for-all PvP mode, is back at it again. This time, McDonald has discovered a series of in-game epitaphs for Dark Souls 3 which would have extrapolated on the game’s lore had they not been removed before launch.
You can watch McDonald’s latest video below for a more in-depth analysis of what Dark Souls 3’s epitaphs were, but in short they were basically small statues placed at various spots in the world which could be interacted with. If a player interacted with an epitaph, they’d be able to read a short string of text-based lore, similar to the brief lore bits that are attached to the game’s item descriptions.
In true Dark Souls fashion, the epitaph text prompts were quite cryptic, but they could also provide valuable insight for players who were willing to pause and figure out the meaning behind their vague refrains. For example, shortly before one of the early-game encounters with the powerful Winged Knight enemy, an epitaph with the following text could be found:
“To honour and shadowy retreats. Fear the sun’s temptations, and the winged executioner.”
Since Winged Knights wield large two-handed axes (much like medieval executioners) and since this knight in particular is patrolling near some lootable items (represented by noticeable white glowing orbs), the epitaph sure seems to be saying that players who want to claim the items for themselves will have to face the Winged Knight first.
It’s hard to know the full extent of how useful the epitaphs would have been since they were ultimately cut from the final version of Dark Souls 3, likely because FromSoftware felt they gave players too much of an advantage or revealed too much of the game’s indecipherable lore. Still, at the very least, McDonald’s findings once again show just how much unfinished content can be buried in the code of a finished game.