A Look Back At The Abyss Watchers

To celebrate its tenth birthday (as of April 2026), I thought I'd chat a bit about DARK SOULS III. More specifically, I wanted to talk lore with you all, with this article focusing on the Abyss Watchers of Farron Keep.

First things first: who are the Abyss Watchers?

Well, they are a group of undead who united long ago to halt any advancement of the dreaded Abyss — a malevolent force that corrupts all it touches. To achieve this, they modelled their order around the fabled Knight of Gwyn, Artorias, who they believed once defeated Manus, Father of the Abyss, many millennia ago. However, in reality, Knight Artorias — though a brave and powerful warrior in his day — in fact, fell to Manus and the vile Abyss, leaving him a monstrous shadow of his former self. A shadow eventually felled by the Chosen Undead (the protagonist of the first DARK SOULS: REMASTERED).

Moving on slightly, some of the Artorias inspiration does extend beyond mere hatred of the Abyss. Firstly, while the Watcher’s armour is largely dissimilar to Artorias’ own, the angular design and pointed crest helm do still manage to produce some amount of semblance.

Secondly, their fighting style omits a shield, and instead, they wield a greatsword paired with a hooked dagger — a style that perhaps, once again, was chosen because of a misunderstanding of past events. It is somewhat accurate that Artorias discarded his shield in battle, but that was due to an injury rather than a change in technique, for he simply couldn't bear its weight. How much of this minute detail is a deliberate decision by the Watchers and how much is a nod from the development team is difficult to know; more than likely, it's a bit of both, as I strongly suspect that such a small fact wouldn't have realistically trickled down through time.

Now, unfortunately for them, when the player stumbles upon the Watchers in Farron Keep, they too are succumbing to the Abyss. One by one, they're being taken over by it, and their old comrades are being forced to put them down. However, due to the group's undead nature, they reawaken over and over again, and so the battle continues; the whole group, driven completely mad, is locked in a never-ending civil war, and it seems that the player is the only hero strong enough to put them down for good and retrieve their Cinder.

Wow, what a setup for a boss fight. Their story is so damn rich, no? All the tasty fantasy goodness doesn't stop there, though, because the fight then turning out to be a certified banger is the cherry top! The showdown is equal parts fast, visceral, and tense — all the areas where DARK SOULS III manages to shine the brightest.

It's also a multi-stage encounter, which, besides the speed increase, is a serious breath of fresh air overall. Thanks to Bloodborne, gone are the days of hulking giants once dubbed “difficult” stinking up the boss troupe leaderboards. Now, we get bosses of all kinds, with speed dials spun to 11 and mid-point beef-ups that often drastically alter the flow of things. And the Abyss Watchers are no exception.

To conclude (and bluntly so), the Abyss Watchers are by far and away my favourite boss fight in DARK SOULS III (and perhaps even one of my favourite things in all of fantasy). For all the reasons above, these guys just absolutely rock!