[This is a repost of this post I originally made on Cohost on 4 October 2022.]

Assembled with the assistance of Zandra and Val. These swamps will be judged on two axes:

• Fun: How enjoyable it is to play through the swamp as a zone in a video game.

• Swampiness: How effectively the swamps invoke a feeling of depression and despair.

Of these, Swampiness is of course the most important, but fun is certainly not a negligible factor. So we begin, in order from least to greatest.

#8: Harvest Valley (Dark Souls 2)

Fun: C+
Swampiness: F

A decent area to walk around in. Full of sexy ladies and big strong men who will suplex you given half a chance. Neat to explore, not too difficult to survive, kind of bullshit in a couple ways but not too bad. However, it's not a fucking swamp. It's just a bunch of poison gas in a mine! It's only even in here because Dark Souls 2 doesn't have any better candidates. Poor show, DS2, poor show.

#7: Bodhisattva Valley Floor (Sekiro)

Fun: C-
Swampiness: C-

This poison swamp is too damn small. It's just a skinny little slip of muck that's both totally optional for finishing the game and easy to grapple across even if you do want to grab the stuff inside. It gets a few extra swampiness points for how demoralizing the elder monkeys are, but they're not even really an intrinsic feature of the swamp. Sekiro may be my favorite FromSoft game, but it's got a crummy swamp.

#6: Nightmare Frontier (Bloodborne)

Fun: C
Swampiness: B

I really hate how this place looks, all yellow and gray and impossible to navigate because everything looks the god damn same. That said, it's easily the swampiest swamp so far, with good and proper mandatory sequences of wading through gruk while trying not to get wrecked by enemies. It's even got some nice goodies hidden within its swampiest nooks. But the real triumph of this area is the presence of the swampiest character in the series: Patches the Spider! His presence alone bumps this up half a letter grade.

#5: Swamp of Sorrow (Demon's Souls)

Fun: D
Swampiness: S

Now we're getting to the good stuff. This swamp absolutely reeks, but in the best way. The all-encompassing misery of trying to navigate this area and getting the shit ripped out of you over and over by goblins and phantoms lowers its fun score and thus overall ranking, but its sheer griminess demands a terrified awe.

#4: Farron Keep (Dark Souls 3)

Fun: C+
Swampiness: B

There's nothing tremendously remarkable about Farron Keep, but it ticks all the boxes. It's got the nasty juice we love to hate, and plenty of it. It's got tasks to keep you moving, enemies to fuck you up, and treats to…