A player has attempted to tackle Dark Souls using advice provided by ChatGPT, an AI based natural language processing tool. This challenge was taken up by content creator Asuta Taiyou. Their video shows them playing through Dark Souls while following the advice that ChatGPT provides when asked things like how to defeat a boss, which weapon to use, and where to go next.

The video was posted on March 1, but Asuta Taiyou noted that the questions were posed to ChatGPT around one month prior to that—basically, before the most recent updates. As a result, they emphasized that the answers provided by the AI were not very accurate and it gave a good deal of unsuitable advice, like recommending weapons that don’t exist in the game.

To begin, Asuta Taiyou asked ChatGPT if it knew what Dark Souls was. The AI replied by correctly noting the game’s release date and developer but described the story as “a journey to defeat the demon king,” so things were already looking a bit iffy. When next asking about how to beat the game, the AI mixed in some dubious advice, like “obtain the potion,” and “use the doll.” On the other hand, you could say that it was right on point when it recommended adopting the attitude of “enjoying failure.”

The explanation of the starting classes was also lacking, and it described the Deprived class as having “Strong physical attacks and high defense,” contrary to the actual starting stats which are all balanced and not especially higher than other classes.

When asked what starting gift it recommends, the AI boldly introduced a non-existent item that it appears to have made up. When pressed about whether such an item actually exists, the AI began to doubt itself and replied, “I apologize, there are no gifts that can be chosen when starting Dark Souls.” The answers given by ChatGPT seem to lack certainty and its explanations change again and again.

The Asylum Demon, the first boss in the game, is described as a “particularly difficult foe,” and the AI advises that it can quickly be defeated by raising your damage output and using fire attacks. However, at the time when you face the Asylum Demon, there is no way to level up or upgrade your equipment. Even still, Taiyou does their best to stick to the AI’s unreasonable advice. First, they use a glitch in order to leave the Northern Undead Asylum without defeating the boss and go about thoroughly increasing their damage output and acquiring fire-based attacks. They then return to the asylum and, following ChatGPT’s advice, proceed to obliterate the Asylum Demon with the Pyromancy Firestorm.

When asking for advice for the fight against the Capra Demon, the AI encounters an error for some reason and its explanation is cut off halfway through. Taiyou then instead asks how to defeat the “Dog Demon,” which ChatGPT describes as a “boss in the Lower Undead Burg.” The Capra Demon is accompanied by two Attack Dogs, and because these dogs are so strong, some players have jokingly stated that the dogs are the true boss. It’s as if ChatGPT based its answer on memes about the game. Incidentally, when giving tips for the “Dog Demon” fight, it once again thought up an original weapon that doesn’t exist.

Despite the abundance of unreliable advice, it provided some accurate tips for the fight against the Gaping Dragon, noting that long-range attacks are effective and recommending that you move in time with the boss’ rotational movement. After this, however, ChatGPT began to insist that the last boss of the game is the “Nightmare Dragon” that inhabits the Depths. But no “Nightmare Dragon” boss exists, and the last boss is not located in the Depths anyway.

In the end, the advice provided by ChatGPT proved to be highly inaccurate, but as we mentioned previously, the video that we have been discussing did use a version of the tool from about two months ago. One would imagine that the answers provided by the current version of ChatGPT would be much more precise. In addition, users of the paid subscription ChatGPT Plus are even able to use some functions of ChatGPT’s next generation large-scale language model GPT-4. Using that would likely provide even better advice with which one could tackle Dark Souls.

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-03-28 18:49 JST)

Hideaki Fujiwara

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