How To Complete Dark Souls 2 without resting at a bonfire

Anybody who is familiar with the Souls series will also be very familiar with dying… in the games, that is. If you’ve played Dark Souls 2, you may have noticed a sharp increase in difficulty from the first game, especially due to such factors as starting with only a single Estus flask instead of five, and dying whilst hollow reduces your maximum health capacity. A lot of the little exploitable mechanics from the first game have been well and truly ironed out in Dark Souls 2, and it is a more brutal yet more gratifying game because of it.


Arguably, one of the most difficult challenges in Dark Souls 2 is completing the game without ever resting at a bonfire. “Impossible!” I hear you cry, swiftly followed by "pointless!". Well, you’d be mistaken, because despite the smoothing over of Dark Souls’ rough edges making life harder, Dark Souls 2 has some rough edges of its own that you can exploit to try and get ahead of the game. In addition, if you manage to complete this daring feat of bravery and skill, you will receive the Illusory Ring of the Exalted, which causes the weapon in your right hand to become invisible: an excellent item to use during PvP.

Hints and tips for completing Dark Souls 2 without resting at any bonfires

For a start, not resting at any bonfires doesn’t mean not lighting any bonfires, and luckily you don’t have to rest at a bonfire to use it as a checkpoint. When you die, therefore, you will spawn back at the most recent bonfire you lit. This is massively helpful as long as you don’t accidentally rest at the bonfire when lighting it and ruin the entire run.

Once you’ve lit a bonfire, you can simply jump off a cliff (or kill yourself in any other way you desire) in order to completely repair your items and refill your Estus flasks. Try to also join a Covenant that allows you to be summoned by other players and engage in jolly cooperation. The act of helping another player also restores your items and refills your Estus flasks.

When venturing far from the hub area of Majula, you can use a Homeward Bone to spawn back at Things Betwixt, along with all your hard-earned souls. You can then happily go off and spend your souls in Majula as necessary, then kill yourself to return to the last bonfire you lit when you’re done.

Although this is the essence of what you’ll need to be doing in order to complete Dark Souls 2 without resting at any bonfires, you will also need a considerable reservoir of time, patience, and skill. If you haven’t already completed the game at least once, we would recommend trying that beforehand!

Have you completed Dark Souls 2? Have any tips for those despairing at the first boss battle? Why not help them out by leaving a comment below?

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