One would think that a game called Dark Souls wouldn't leave much to the imagination when it comes to body horror, genocide, and disfiguration among other disturbing things but the game hides its grim and macabre stuff under the surface. All those bosses, swamps, and dragons are all just surface-level threats, the lore goes deeper and much gloomier than that.
If players squint a little harder, they might just catch a glimpse of some odd-looking things or some dysfunctional relationships among the game's NPCs. Some events both hidden and explicit can be outright grotesque or morally dubious that it makes deicide and the player's beef jerky-skinned hollow character seem more suited for a younger audience, proving that Dark Souls can be even darker.
8 Fighting Sif
Sif is the giant wolf boss who wields a sword in Dark Souls and the showdown with him is more than just a tussle. It's actually an opportunity for the players to reflect that maybe, just maybe, their Chosen Undead is actually the villain of the story. If seeing Sif limp after a certain HP threshold is imposed isn't enough to reinforce that notion then the surrounding lore for the wolf might just seal it.
Because it turns out, Sif was merely guarding his master's grave who succumbed to the Abyss and the good girl simply wants to prevent other people from sharing the same fate as her master. Then along came the forceful Chosen undead who will stop at nothing from elevating their status, even turning over gravestones and disturbing the dead to fuel their ambition. The fact that one of the primordial serpents gives players a choice to usher in an "age of darkness" means whatever the Chosen Undead was doing was already on the way to villainy.
7 The Gaping Dragon Fight
Then again, not all bosses in Dark Souls are morality-wrestling exercises. Some of them are just poor wretches who got the short end of the stick when it came to evolution. The Gaping Dragon is the perfect example of this. Its ancestors were once majestic and omnipotent flying creatures who held dominion over the world.
Then, life happened and reduced the dragons generation after generation into this malformed monstrosity. Part of the reason why the Gaping Dragon is so misshapen is that it became a glutton where its ribcage transformed itself into a vertical maw to accommodate its lifestyle, or lack thereof, turning its head into a useless nub since there's now a more efficient way of gobbling food. Luckily, its bite is way weaker than its bark.
6 Seath's Experiments
Speaking of freakish dragons, Seath the Scaleless is also quite the contender. He's not only unsightly outside but also within since his mind is one of the most twisted in the game. Players can even stumble upon Seath's "experiments" in the Grand Archives where his aberrations consist of crystallized hollows and other hybrid creatures like the Snake-men in Sen's Fortress.
Meanwhile, Seath himself has some creepy mannerisms and aspirations, especially concerning some of the royal maidens of Anor Londo. There's even an unconfirmed player theory that Priscilla, the half-dragon hybrid, is a result of Seath's experiments with the royal maidens. No wonder the other dragons didn't like him.
5 Kaathe's Machinations
As mentioned earlier, Darkstalker Kaathe presents one of the major choices in the game: forget about the Flame and the gods and usher in the Dark Age of Mankind. Turns out the players aren't the first pawn that this primordial serpent has considered. There have been many others and Kaathe has been pushing his agenda prior to the Chosen Undead's appearance.
The most glaring proof of Kaathe's malevolent schemes lies in the New Londo Ruins which was flooded both literally and figuratively with the essence of the Abyss. Another is Oolacile which perfectly encapsulates Kaathe's version of humanity, free from the shackles of the fire and the gods. Regardless, everything Kaathe does to cater to humanity's greed always leads to the Abyss.
4 Pinwheel
The funny thing about the Pinwheel boss in Dark Souls is that the translation for its Japanese name is roughly "three people in a coat." Players can already guess just how twisted Pinwheel is from that and from its appearance but his backstory is a lot more nightmarish than that facade. Because Pinwheel is not just three random unfortunate people sewn to one another, they're a family.
The Father is the main proponent of this idea and his wife and child actually died prior. So he tried to bring them back using necromancy except something went wrong either with the experiment or his head so all three of them became conjoined in an everlasting state of literal familial bond.
3 Blighttown's Quarantine
Blighttown is a horrid place infected with disease, parasites, and single-digit framerates but how it was sealed off and became a penal colony proved even a much greater tragedy. It was originally a mining town but somehow, the bugs and parasites within started infesting the whole area, laying eggs on the citizens so they can be hosts to giant mutant larvae.
Lordran then sealed it off with a huge gate but the diseased denizens of Blighttown gathered all the wood they could find and built scaffolding in a desperate attempt to escape. Needless to say, they didn't and slowly marinated in a fetid swamp along with the slimy and noxious insects that lived there. Worse still is how they ran to the Daughters of Chaos for help and the latter were forced to suck out their blight pus. This, in turn, infected and mutated the Daughters of Chaos.
2 Smough Kills Ornstein
There are two ways of winning the Ornstein and Smough boss fight. Each involves a kill order so players can easily miss the more tragic and disturbing scenario which is when Smough crushes Ornstein to oblivion. This happens if players kill Ornstein first, except he doesn't actually die by the player's hands. He still has some life left in him and even asks Smough for help, possibly a transfer of life essence.
Smough, however, had other plans in mind and finishes Ornstein without remorse in order to gain his power. Meanwhile, the other scenario where Smough dies first is in stark contrast as players can see Ornstein mourning him for a bit. This glimpse of Smough's monstrosity and psychotic traits do well to portray his character and definitely makes the fight more intimidating.
1 Mimics
It's bad enough that nearly everyone in Dark Souls is out to kill the players again and again but even the developers had to participate in the cruelty. They did so in the form of Mimics. These are the abnormal creatures who disguise themselves as chests to attract some easy kills, like how a Venus flytrap attracts flies.
Players though they get to find sanctuary in the embrace of a reward then surprise! It's a horrendous enemy waiting with open arms. It's moments like in Dark Souls where players are reminded that the game's creators are not their friend; the Chosen Undead is all alone in Lordran in their futile Sisyphean attempt to chase some faint glimmer of fire in hopes of finding purpose. All that stemmed from one cruel joke.
Dark Souls 3 is available on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.