Chapel of the Deep is a perfect example of why this game is better than previous games.

Hear me out, this is going to be surprisingly my OPINION on why I believe this level to be a prime example of creativity and design that was never present to this degree before now. To shorten this up, I'll bullet what I think this area did much better than any other area before it, this early.

• This area no longer holds your hand like the semi-straight forward (yet greatly detailed and fleshed out) areas like Undead Settlement and early Lothric. The way to get to this boss involves you going off the beaten path and defeating a seemingly optional boss, only to open you up to a whole new area.

• This area involves multiple paths that are ultimately interconnected to the cleansing chapel, which at first glance may seem like a dull dead end, but opens up to be the hub of the entire area. Multiple important parts of the area are set on different levels of the cathedral, and each is dramatically different from the others. The ground level is a graveyard that has deadly hollows that can infect you with maggots, the top level has rooftops and buttresses with hollow mercenaries and cathedral knights, and below is the grand red and black stone cathedral that has giants, knights, fleshy wastes of skin, blobs of goo, and more returning elements.

• For the first time in this game, I felt helpless and lost. I'm not going to deny it, the jumping puzzles and challenge set by the giants' presence made this area difficult for me. I didn't know I could pass the second giant leading up to the boss fight, and neither would a lot of other people, so I almost went crazy trying to find multiple ways to the deacons boss fight. In the end though, the reason I was confused for that long is because From threw in some random elements like the water gates that had a hidden purpose, and really had me going for a long time. I even spent 30 minutes trying to fight one of the giants, and eventually cheesed him to death only to find I went the wrong way. It really was an experience to be completely clueless and having to rely on wit.

• The boss is a nightmare to fight alone, and really had me biting my nails to see if I could beat it before I ran out of Estus and got swarmed. It's not really a unique boss, other than the fact that the soul of it flies around as to change up the mediocrity of beating up low health hollows over and over.

• The atmosphere. It encapsulates the Dark Souls universe so damn well. Nothing really I can say much more than that, it's something you have to experience.

I hope more areas are like this, because it took me about 4 hours to clear, and I loved every minute.