BLACK SOULS Walkthrough — Step-by-Step Route, Missables & Boss Order

Two jobs, two pages:

• This page is the step-by-step route: where you stand, what you must do, what you should do, who to talk to, what closes, and when to leave.
• Boss Order is the numbered boss list with Steam rarity. Do not treat rarity as a trigger — it is only how far the playerbase got.

Two routes:

• Main Story Route — Holy Forest → princesses → Cinderella fog → B End. Talk to Leaf. Do not chase A, C, D or rare bosses.
• 100% / All Missables Route — same spine, plus the recruit windows in the character pages and the Before NG+ checklist before every lock-line.

Steam percentages below still mark how many players reached a fight. They do not prove ending prerequisites or NPC failure conditions.

Official opening-route media

Area template — Holy Forest (starting checkpoint)

1. Starting checkpoint — Holy Forest bonfire. Light it. This is home for the whole cycle.
2. Required — Walk north and recruit Leaf. Open Fort Ivern when you are ready; the opening quest is “reach Fort Ivern.”
3. Optional but important — Chaplain Ezwald (north forest) for Sin. Prayer Master. The boat to Red Hood appears only after Knight in Boots.
4. NPC conversations — Leaf after every fog boss. Elisabeth after your first fog boss. Catherine at progression 3.
5. Missable warning — Goose at Behemoth Ranch needs a Master Key before progression 4. A third talk with Leaf at the Lost Empire gate hands you her ring and darkens companion endings.
6. Important items — Master Key (Goose). Jeanne’s Ashes (Fort Ivern, for later). Do not take Leaf’s Ring unless you want the dark variant.
7. Recommended level/build — BLACK SOULS is an RPG first. A few levels change any Phase 1 fight. Don’t sit in the forest grinding for Saint Catherine.
8. Bosses in this hub’s reach — Drake Helkaiser, Iron King, Hyena of Hunger, Bremen musicians sit on the first spokes out of the forest. Order is flexible; see Boss Order.
9. Exits — Fort Ivern (north-east / main), Behemoth Ranch (east), Sewers / Graveyard Town (south).
10. Checklist before leaving for the princesses — Leaf recruited. Goose freed if you want her. Knight in Armor and Pied Piper dead if you want Elma. Red Hood hired if you want her this cycle. Sin plan for A vs D vs Miranda.

How to use the phases below

BLACK SOULS is deliberately open in stretches, so treat each block below as a phase, not a strict corridor. Within a phase, fight the bosses in whatever order the world lets you. If a boss is walling you, the next-listed one is usually reachable and worth doing first.

Two rules matter more than any routing:

1. Talk to every named character, every time you pass them. Heroine routes advance through repeated conversations, and they are the doorway to 10 of the game’s 14 endings.
2. Don’t force rare content on cycle one. The deepest fights (Saint Catherine, Holy Beast Jeanne d’Arc) have kill rates around 11–12% — they’re built for developed New Game+ characters.

Phase 1 — The Opening (over 45% of players clear these)

Your on-ramp. These fights teach the game’s rhythm and almost every player clears them:

Boss	Defeated by
Drake Helkaiser	56.4%
Iron King	53.8%
Hyena of Hunger	51.7%
Town Musicians of Bremen (Silent Donkey, Murderous Dog & co.)	51.7%
Pied Piper of Elixir	49.6%
Knight in Armor	49.1%
Hansel and Gretel	49.0%
Devourer Patrasche	47.8%
Trashlord Kraken	46.6%
Ugly Duckling	46.4%
Monster Behemoth	46.1%
The Beanstalk Jack	45.5%

Level as you go — BLACK SOULS is an RPG first, and a few levels change any fight. This is also the window to open your first heroine conversations: Leaf and Red Hood both begin here.

Phase 2 — The Middle Acts (33–45%)

The difficulty tightens and the fairy tales turn stranger. Expect the story to start asking questions about the mist:

• One Who Observes (44.8%), Petern Pan (44.6%), Singing Bone (44.2%)
• Rotting Drake Helkaiser (43.3%) — your first rematch; the fundamentals from Phase 1 carry you
• The princess cluster: Princess Frog (38.3%), Beauty and the Beast (37.7%), Ash-clad Princess Cinderella (37.6%), Little Mermaid (36.7%), Pumpkin Carriage (36.7%), Snow White (36.1%), Rapunzel (35.0%)
• Mage Aladdin (37.9%), the twin knights Apollo & Boreas (37.5%), Lust Demon Satyr (36.1%), Nameless Demon (34.5%), Iron Hans (34.2%), Clock Crok (33.7%), Donkey King (33.4%)

Keep at least one heroine route active through this whole stretch. Mid-game is where routes quietly fail if ignored.

Phase 3 — The Descent (26–33%)

• Undead Drake Helkaiser (33.3%) — the final form of the game’s recurring dragon
• King Sinbad (33.2%), Black Drake Caramille (32.3%)
• Divine Mistake Lilith (31.0%), Bandersnatch (30.6%) — the first open nod to Through the Looking-Glass, which the sequel runs with
• Beloved White Dragon Shirasu (28.8%), Vampire (27.6%), Demonbeast Vilt (27.4%), Black Vanguard Lindamea (26.7%)

Around here your first cycle reaches its decision point. The B End (32.6% of players) is the natural first conclusion — take it, roll credits, and let New Game+ open the rest.

Phase 4 — Deep Routes and New Game+ (under 27%)

Everything below is either optional, route-locked, or tuned for later cycles:

Boss	Defeated by	Notes
??? (“IT ENDED THE STORY”)	27.0%	The game’s hidden pivot — meet it blind
Black Judge Baphomet	21.0%	Deep route
Demon of Desire Victoria	20.0%	Tied to Victoria’s route
Torture Queen Elisabeth Bathory	18.3%	Tied to Elisabeth End
Red Hood, Poro	17.8%	Depends on your Red Hood choices
Jabberwock	17.5%	Looking-Glass beast, endgame hunt
Cursed Brother Hansel / Cursed Sister Gretel	15.2% / 14.1%	The siblings, revisited
Golden Goose	14.0%	Tied to Goose End
Little Match Girl	13.7%	One of the saddest fights in the game
Holy Beast Jeanne d’Arc	12.1%	Second-rarest kill; Jeanne’s route
Saint Catherine	11.4%	The rarest fight in BLACK SOULS

Work through the remaining lettered endings (C at 26.9%, D at 27.4%, then A at 21.1%) while pairing each cycle with one or two character endings. The full matrix is in the endings guide, and the Route Planner will sequence it for you.

What to do next

• New to the game? Start with the beginner guide.
• Planning routes? Open the endings guide and the boss order list.
• Moving on? The story continues in BLACK SOULS II — play it second, it assumes you know this game.