Dark Souls III: Soul of Cinder Boss Fight

Soul of Cinder is the end boss of the base game and the one you will need to kill in order to be able to start the game on the higher difficulty, New Game Plus. With that in mind, this video may contain spoilers on the end of the game, so keep that in mind before you watch it to the end.

He is found in the area called Kiln of the First Flame. You will be transported there once you kill and return the soul of the last Lord of Cinder you need. For me, that was the soul of Prince Lothric, but depending on your progress route, it may be another boss for you.

That meant that the last boss I fought before Soul of Cinder was Slave Knight Gael, the end boss of The Ringed City. Huge, huge change of pace. Slave Knight Gael was relentlessly fast and brutal. The Soul of Cinder is brutal too, but in a more slowly paced and methodical way. Many of his attacks are just slightly delayed, so after fighting Gael I would constantly roll too quickly, which made this boss feel a lot harder to me than it actually is.

He does have a lot of different attacks and mechanics, so it takes a while to get a feeling for them all. Most of the time, he attacks with his sword and then you need to be especially wary of his grab attack where he will toss you into the air and hit you multiple times before impaling you. That one is hugely damaging and worse, just straight up embarrassing! ;-)

After you kill him you may think to yourself that this was an easy fight. Relax, that was just phase one. True to the form of bosses never ever playing fair, the Soul of Cinder will resurrect himself immediately after you kill him, starting phase two.

In phase two he attacks faster and gains some caster abilities. He also starts summoning some sort of lightning spear that he just loves to impale you on, like you're some sort of shish kebab and he's having a barbecue on the little that's left of the fire.

Phase two is definitely harder than phase one, but once you learn the patterns, none of his attacks are horribly difficult to avoid. I wouldn't exactly call Soul of Cinder an easy boss, but to me at least, he was nowhere near the hardest boss in the game.

Once you manage to dispose of him you will have the choice of ending the game in different ways, depending on which quests you did. I'm not entirely sure exactly how many possible endings there are, but I had the choice of two different ones: I could either link the first fire or I could summon the Fire Keeper.

I had no idea that summoning the Fire Keeper would actually choose an ending, I just thought she had been very patient and so helpful throughout the ordeal with all the leveling up and curing my embarrassing Dark Sigil no questions asked, that I would like to share this special moment with her. As it turns out, summoning her will plunge the entire world into darkness, so judging by her title, she apparently sucks at her job. I should have linked the stupid fire instead or at least thrown a log on it or something.

Anyway, this is the end of this Soul of Cinder video, and it will most likely also be the last Dark Souls III video I post as I rarely play the same game more than once, but you never know. Thanks for watching. And it wasn't the Fire Keeper's fault. Just kidding, it was totally her fault! ;-)