L'incroyable histoire d'Otzdarva et de la run Dark Souls la plus difficile

The BNH category (no hit, no death) consists of completing Dark Souls 100% without ever being touched or dying. Although almost all FromSoftware games have been completed in BNH, Dark Souls 2 still resists the challenger community.

During Aquila's stream, a streamer asks when Dark Souls 2 will be completed in BNH. The answer is immediate: it's impossible. A viewer named Otzdarva, known for his PVP sessions, takes up the challenge without truly believing in it at first.

Otzdarva is a YouTuber who spends most of his time doing PVP on Dark Souls 3. He doesn't have the typical profile of a challenge runner, but he perceives the impossibility claim as simply a challenge to overcome.

He's the first person in the world to have completed Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne in BNH, which makes him capable of identifying the scope of this new task before him.

Dark Souls 2 has 41 bosses with DLC, far more than Dark Souls 3 with its 25 bosses, and more than Demon's Souls and Bloodborne combined. The player must traverse 35 zones among the most difficult levels ever designed by FromSoftware.

• The Black Chasm: statues that spew poison, oil pools harboring creatures, worms emerging from crevices. • The Shadowed Woods: forest shrouded in mist with transparent specters impossible to see. • The Forsaken: ghosts that can appear at 19 different locations in the game, turning levels into unpredictable chases.

Memory of the King is a massive labyrinthine city where the player must explore fully to find four knights preceding the final battle. It's one of the most challenging feats ever invented by FromSoftware.

• Count every enemy in each zone and plot routes. • Decide which items are essential and how to obtain them. • Analyze each boss attack and their behavior changes. • Determine parry windows for each attack.

After two months of training, Otzdarva completes an entire run for the first time with a time of 12 hours and 8 minutes 60 centiseconds. It's incredible for an ordinary player, but terribly far from the goal.

• At the Lake of the Forsaken, Otzdarva realizes the lake is visible from upper levels and positions himself on a bridge to map creature routes. • To defeat Giant Kinky, he must jump onto a pillar above lava while balancing and cast a poison spell that moves slowly to infect it. • In the Fog, he must draw Johan's attention with an arrow to get around him, then activate a lever before lava engulfs him.

Attempts gradually accelerate. After reaching a 5.8 run, Otzdarva moves to the phase where he chases the record, restarting at each error.

His Twitch channel begins to experience a magical dynamic where streamer and viewers unite. The audience grows from 200 viewers to 1000, then 6000 spectators during the best attempts.

On September 7, 2018, after nearly four months of training, Otzdarva reaches the Ivory King, the final boss, without making a single mistake. Before more than 5000 viewers, he advances toward his ultimate trial.

The Ivory King is preceded by a long and exhausting battle against his minions. His attacks are ridiculously fast. After months of effort, Otzdarva fights mostly against his nerves. The controller slips from his hands due to perspiration.

With the king two hits from death, Otzdarva takes a single step backward, triggering the boss's charge. This single error seconds away from victory costs him the run and success.

Otzdarva doesn't retry the next day. He compiles his attempts, publishes a montage on YouTube, and stops talking about the run. He lives five months away from the game, repeating that he's content to have gotten so far. However, he has shown the world that BNH is possible.

In February 2019, another runner finishes Dark Souls 2 with four hits. It's not BNH, but it reminds Otzdarva that glory is within reach. He decides to return with a new objective and new strategy.

• Life hygiene: eat healthily and sleep at least eight hours per night. • Chat management: set precise boundaries for when he can speak and when only the game exists. • Daily training: every evening, replay imperfect passages in loops to understand errors.

Even with perfect mastery of each passage, there exists a tiny 0.1% chance that something will go wrong at each step. Dark Souls is a game that wants your death. This 0.1% is replayed at each step and grows with each second.

Elden Ring releases on March 22. Twitch will have eyes only for the new game. To keep his viewers and income, Otzdarva must stream Elden Ring, which means abandoning Dark Souls 2 for weeks or months, forgetting routes and losing reflexes.

• March 12: falls into the sea. • March 15: a second too long spent near a basilisk. • March 18: an arrow shot from afar manages to hit him. • March 19: a giant insect blocks the path, he is devoured. • Each day: the fatal error waits somewhere in ambush.

March 21 arrives, 24 hours remain to complete the run. It's the ultimate moment when everything hangs in the balance.

During March, runs fail every day and discouragement spreads to everyone. No one knows if Otzdarva had reached the Ivory King once in a hundred or once in a million. Everyone wonders if this attempt is just a waste of time.

On March 6, after seeing friends in the morning, Otzdarva returns in good spirits and starts a stream. He traverses the entire game and for the second time manages to reach the Ivory King with the run still alive. Six thousand people crowd the live.

During this famous March 21 run, Otzdarva comes close to disaster every hour. Facing the Duo boss, he must run in circles pursued by the soldier and tomb raider while dodging the scout's arrows and casting poison. It's the hardest battle after the Ivory King.

When he must face the tomb raider, Otzdarva realizes from the sound that the boss is no longer behind him but will reach him from an improbable angle. He has played Dark Souls 2 so much at this point that even in the middle of chaos, he can tell something is wrong just by the sound of footsteps.

Entering the castle of Brume, Otzdarva knows that one of the 19 spawn points for the Forsaken is here. During all the months of training, he never saw it. So it's one of the few spots for which he has no plan. It would be deeply unlucky if the spawn point activates now.

Despite this stress level for ten hours, the fatal error doesn't seem to want to arrive. Otzdarva continues to progress, knowing that every minute that passes brings him closer to his goal.

When the Ivory King enters the arena, Otzdarva draws a new weapon. For the first time, he faces the king with dual blades: the legendary Spanish Rapier in his right hand and an ordinary rapier in his left. Changing weapons completely changes combat animations and timing.

His previous two defeats stemmed from lack of damage. Otzdarva never managed to defeat the boss before he reached phase two, where his sword becomes enchanted and his parry windows become ridiculous. Wielding two weapons costs terribly in stamina, but in this fight, rapid demolition of the king is what matters.

Otzdarva launches into the battle of last chance with a weapon never seen before in his roughly 400 stream attempts. Despite the panicked chat's criticism, this strategy has been worked and refined during training.

On the night of March 21, just hours before Elden Ring's release, Otzdarva becomes the first person in the world to complete Dark Souls 2 in BNH at level 698. It's a historic achievement.

The first thing Otzdarva does after his victory is grab chalk and write a message where the king fell. It's an emblematic mechanic of the Souls series, allowing players to communicate across their respective worlds.

After writing his message, his health instantly vanishes. Dozens of knights, thieves, sorcerers, and other players descend simultaneously to the Ivory King's throne to pay homage to the one who pushed the limits of possibility.

Otzdarva's health bar continues to fill like a hundred accolades given across the world. These praises from the entire community symbolize respect and admiration for this extraordinary achievement.

During these months of training, streamers around the world used Otzdarva's routes and strategies to attempt BNH on Dark Souls 2. This victory inspires the runner community and pushes the boundaries of what's possible.