FromSoftware's Dark Souls trilogy of games are known to be some of the most difficult modern games available. Simply beating one of the games to the end credits is a feat in and of itself, so it's especially impressive whenever a Dark Souls fan dedicates themselves to the games enough to not only beat them, but also do everything necessary to unlock all of their associated achievements. There are some relatively easy achievements to unlock in the Dark Souls games, but there are also some that are exceptionally difficult.
There are plenty of hard Dark Souls achievements. Sometimes these achievements are difficult to unlock because they require an absurd time investment, but other times they are difficult because of the challenge they present. Other times still, the hardest Dark Souls achievements require players to complete a sequence of events in a very specific order to trigger a development that will in turn unlock an achievement.
Each Dark Souls game has an achievement for unlocking all the other achievements, but that one will be disregarded here. For the purposes of this post, we have selected one especially challenging achievement from each game in the Dark Souls trilogy.
Knight's Honor (Dark Souls)
The Knight's Honor achievement in the original Dark Souls is easily the most time-consuming and challenging achievement to unlock in the entire game. While there are other achievements that are convoluted and require a lot of specific actions, they can at least be conquered when using a guide. Even with a guide handy, though, the Knight's Honor achievement in Dark Souls is an incredible undertaking that should not be taken lightly.
To unlock the Knight's Honor achievement in Dark Souls, players must acquire all the rare weapons in the game. While this sounds simple enough on paper, it requires a whopping two and a half playthroughs minimum for players to accomplish this. That's because some of the rare weapons in Dark Souls must be crafted using the souls of defeated bosses, and some of the weapons require the same boss soul. Since bosses do not respawn and players can't farm the souls by helping others in co-op, they have to replay the entire game at least twice to get them all.
After beating the game twice, players must then progress all the way to Anor Londo to talk to the blacksmith there and forge the final weapons that they need for the achievement. Other weapons that are part of this achievement have to be farmed (with the extremely rare Channeler's Trident enough to make many players give up on this achievement completely), cut the tails off specific bosses, or are only obtainable by killing enemies in a certain order, like in the case of Ornstein and Smough. Because it requires players to beat an incredibly difficult game multiple times, beat all its bosses multiple times, and farm for hours, the Knight's Honor achievement is easily the most difficult in all of the original Dark Souls game.
Master of Hexes (Dark Souls 2)
While it's fairly obvious what the most difficult achievement is in the original Dark Souls game, things are less clear when it comes to Dark Souls 2. Dark Souls 2 has some of the most annoying achievements in the entire franchise, but sometimes this is due to technical difficulties and not because of the achievements themselves. For example, it's not uncommon for Dark Souls 2 players to have the Lucatiel and Moonlight Greatsword achievements glitch on them, requiring a full new playthrough, but that has nothing to do with how challenging those achievements are, but rather, server issues not registering when players have met the requirements to unlock them.
Discounting those especially annoying achievements, the two that stand out as the two most challenging would be the Master of Hexes and Master of Miracles. The Master of Miracles achievement in Dark Souls 2 is certainly the most tedious in the entire game at this point, as it requires players to earn 30 Sunlight Medals. Sunlight Medals can be obtained without too much trouble if one is able to play Dark Souls 2 in co-op, but otherwise it requires a lot of farming and getting lucky.
Farming Sunlight Medals in Dark Souls 2 is boring, but it's not particularly difficult. Therefore, the nod has to go to the Master of Hexes achievement. It requires players to collect all of the Hexes in the game, which is another tedious task, but doing so also requires beating one of the game's most challenging bosses, the Darklurker. The Darklurker is only accessible to those that have joined the Pilgrims of Dark covenant and have reached the end of said covenant's quest. The boss itself is enough of a challenge when players are facing off with it one-on-one, but it splits into two halfway through the fight, which makes the battle twice as hard. Throw in the fact that the Darklurker has many devastating attacks that can make quick work of players, and it's easy to see why the Darklurker boss has frustrated so many Dark Souls 2 players.
The Darklurker fight is a massive roadblock for Dark Souls 2 players hoping to get all of the achievements in the game, but it's made 100x worse because of the long run players have to repeat every single time they die. Not only does it take forever to get back to the Darklurker fight, but players also have to spend a human effigy every single time they want to initiate the battle. These issues combined make the Master of Hexes achievement the hardest to unlock in Dark Souls 2.
Master of Rings (Dark Souls 3)
Dark Souls 3's hardest achievement is, like the other achievements here, another one about collecting all of something in the game. But out of all the Dark Souls series' achievements for collecting things, the Master of Rings achievement in Dark Souls 3 just may be the most time-consuming. To unlock the Master of Rings achievement, Dark Souls 3 players have to collect a whopping 107 rings, which includes duplicates of rings they may already have. This requires multiple playthroughs, though it is worth pointing out that players can get this achievement if they find a co-op partner that drops all the ones they need for it.
Considering how rare the Master of Rings achievement is in Dark Souls 3, though, it's highly unlikely that most players will find anyone that has it unlocked, let alone someone willing to give up all 107 rings they collected during their time with the game. However, if one manages to make the Master of Rings achievement and the other collection achievements in Dark Souls 3 negligible by trading items with other players, then the hardest achievement nod would likely go to The Nameless King achievement.
The Nameless King achievement in Dark Souls 3 is arguably the most skill-based achievement in the entire game, as it asks players to defeat its most challenging boss, the titular The Nameless King. The Nameless King is one of Dark Souls 3' most memorable fights, though the battle is completely optional. Quite easily the hardest boss in the base game, The Nameless King has two phases and neither one is a walk in the park.
