Thinking about how there's the bridge underside with the room with the 3 rats. A bit of depths-like flavor nearby to here in the Parish, remaining in the final game.
Yeah, it would have totally made sense for the Parish to have had a proper sewer system, but it would have been redundant with the Depths as a separate area
@@samuelhdiamond42would’ve been cool to even have a separate dead end which could hint at another path too. Maybe I’m reading too much into it but in this game they really were good about hinting locations
I think the most likely explanation was that lower undead burg was larger than just a few alleys and hallways and that was one of the earliest cuts. This would be closer to where Griggs is now. That would make sense to me. Lower Undead Burg has always seemed like one of the most "huh, I thought this lead somewhere but I guess not" maps.
Wow, the amount of geometry that changes when you cross that Taurus Demon Arena threshold is wild. I had to rewatch that several times just to absorb it all.
Fantastic detective work here. I always thought that the Sunlight Altar felt like there was more to it somehow, and this video helps confirm my suspicions that it was originally intended to be its own path. The area around it has very detailed brickwork and buildings, along with passive hollows that seemingly are just kinda there for no reason. Seeing that it was originally intended to drop down to a different area makes a lot more sense now.
My God... Dark Souls has generated so much content, so so much. Playhthroughs, lore videos, map videos, mods, it just never ends. Such a hugely influential video game. I'm still playing it. I play Dark Souls to relax nowadays...
I'm SO hyped I got the "was Laurentius's room added later?" part _because_ of the roof collision! I've used that roof for so many skips into the Depths for certain weapons (and pyro bros), that right there makes me _so_ happy!!
It makes sense for the sunlight altar to host a dining hall, the sunlight warriors were just that a warrior clan, for them to feast together in a dedicated area beneath their god's altar is the most logical conclusion. It's my speculation the first born was initially meant to be more than a simple plot point aimed at characterising Gwyn, in my opinion he was probably more central to the story and the original map reflected this state of things. In the end the dining hall was moved to the lower burg and smartly linked to the depths.
Honestly, it sounds wild for me as well, but map in "last hero of Nostalgaia" is better. Not in the visual design part of course, but the interconnectedness is insane. It is a pretty long game, but pulls of soulslike world without fasttravel and without geometrical inconsistencies
Super friggin interesting! I bet they thought 'no one will notice that stuff from so far away so save time by just leaving it in and change what is close up' but over 10 years later we are still looking into things about this game.
What a magical video. Illusory wall turned me onto this and I’m transfixed. It seems that Dark Souls, its bewitching and magical nature, stirs within its players a desire to know more and understand. With discoveries like these I think our collective knowledge of Dark Souls is more inchoate than we’d like, which is why we always want more. I’m glad that people like you and illusory wall and those who helped with this video exist. Thank you for this experience. I dig the text, the diagrams, the music, all of it. Big Ups!
This game's community still having interesting discussion around stuff that isn't even in the final game is part of why I love this community so much! There is just something about Dark Souls that gets my mind going and the design around its world is so lovingly handcrafted. Great video! Edit: I also appreciate the Evangelion homages but I do agree with some of the other comments saying the bugs were a bit too loud. Besides that, great audio selection.
I feel like this is related to the original (now removed) path from firelink to lower undead burg and there the depths is now (through the wall). I also feel like the dragon was supposed to be perched on the aqueduct to the undead berg because he is there in the trailer. I feel this way most strongly because most people arrive to Lordran and totally miss the path to the undead berg and head to the graveyard. in a way the dragon would be a much better "point of interest" and naturally you would avoid going there and avoid the deadly graveyard. logically you'd take the path to lower undead burg and then fight your way up into undead burg. I don't think it would make sense to get to the depths that way in the original version.
The Hellkite Drake was definitely perched on the aqueduct in-game at some point, as there is data related to its behaviour and flame breath left over in the game.
i seriously can't get enough of this content. thank you! truly Dark Souls is the gift that keeps on giving, and so are the modders and people that love uncovering the little details of this masterpiece
Really interesting. It's pretty remarkable how the nature of the cut content in these games feels so appropriate with the archeological nature of the storytelling and world design.
I always figured the undead city was supposed to be larger, more blight-towny, like favellas. so what you're seeing with all the expanded navmesh is probably just more ratty undead hovels as people where forced outside of the "city"
It would have been a nice shortcut to get into The Depths, but they ended up going with the firelink shrine shortcut sometime in development. It makes sense, but more map linking is never a bad idea in DS1.
Great video, I always had a feeling the dining hall/depths entrance felt off. Makes a lot of sense that it was originally supposed to connect to the Parish earlier. Speaking of that area, is there any mysterious unused/cut content in the Lower Burg, specifically the area with the metal gate that acts as a shortcut from the Undead Burg to the Lower Burg? It sticks out to me as a really unfinished and rushed part of the map.
Apart from the unused bridge between Firelink Shrine and the Lower Burg, and some unused map pieces/collision floating around the Depths, there's not a great deal. There is this, though: twitter.com/samuelhdiamond/status/1399360195332091905
The cheerful music background does not combine with Dark Souls' melancholic and gray universe 😂 Amazing info about this part of the map, though. Congrats
Watch the opening cutscene during the Age of Fire. We see a ringed city with one large wall covering the area. Originally, Dark Souls was going to take place in this environment. Due to time constraints, this project was scrapped and areas were rearranged to favor effective interconnection and delivering a playable product, whilst sacrificing the initially planned macro-environmental structure of the whole map. It was easier to lay out the maps without having to worry about them fitting and filling the initially planned ringed city. That's why the urban and fortificated layouts we see in the cutscene have so little in common with those we navigate through in-game. Some areas had their location changed, some were entirely cut from the game. Fortifications were relocated to accomodate for these changes at the last minute. (That's a theory)
The city glimpsed in the intro is supposed to be Lordran, as little relation as it bears geographically to what we see in game. That opening cutscene was probably from way early in development, and is likely concept art. But I don't think we can blame time constraints for the final version not matching the concept - we know from prototype maps that the large, long bridges spotted in that artwork were originally in the game, for example, but they were kind of featureless, and the Hellkite Bridge / Aqueduct had the same visual impact with actually interesting gameplay. It's more likely that the smaller puzzlebox environments they were creating were fun, and were close enough to the original concept art that it really didn't matter about matching it 100%.
My theory is that the sunlight altar was the original entrance to the depths, but maybe not enough playtesters found that out and so they moved it closer to where you get the key from the Capra demon?
I always find funny how there are lots and lots of unused things and incomplete works in the level design and the level design is still the best of the 3 dark souls
Nice video! For some hopefully constructive criticism if you continue, perhaps try fading out the music instead of a hard cut. I’d also recommend brightening game footage, as souls games tend to be super dark. Otherwise the information was presented in an easy to understand way. Hopefully you’ll do more content!
Thank you for the feedback! The hard music cut is part of the gag with the Evangelion title cards, and thought it was worth the risk of some people finding it jarring - but probably won't continue that in future. I did lighten some of the footage, but yeah I should have done more.
i always thought the Sunlight Alter area was odd for how you access it, but this helps make it seem a LITTLE less odd. cant get past the dragon? there is an alternate longer path to do so. meanwhile it looks like that room would have had a loop for getting in and out. like you come in from where ever you were supposed to and exit at the bottom, go up the stairs, bonfire and alter found, drop in through the roof hole to get back in safely above the enemies.
You've made a brilliant video, but I've noticed a few very sharp audio transitions between chapters. It's not a big problem, but it would be nice to have some fading for audio. Looking forward for upcoming videos!
Possibly! That whole section is very interesting to explore, but it's a bit difficult to show off in a video - especially with my current inexperience in making them. It's on the list, though.
Only thing I want to know is how much cut content is in the game? Being 12 year old game and giving people real mysteries is very hard and dark souls done it.
I remember seeing a massive piece of old nav mesh that appeared to be this old hall connecting to a different catacombs under the parish. Do you know anything about that?
Anything that suggests the Depths may have originally been somewhere else or encountered at a different point interests me, because as it stands it feels like you're supposed to go Lower Burg, Capra, Catacombs, then Depths in terms of NPCs an loot. But current level design doesnt make that feel logical.
The unused navmesh that extends down into the valley is for the stairs leading down from the dining area to the depths, though slightly altered from how we know it in the release version of Dark Souls. Made a quick video to show how it lines up: th-cam.com/video/2uQWJ5-X0Gk/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for your reply! Yeah, the navmesh is a bit of an oddity because it seems to be straddling two different points of development - where the dining hall is still beneath the Sunlight Altar, but is also creeping towards its final purpose of connecting to the Depths. Without knowing more about how the worldspace was originally laid out, it's difficult to determine the timeline in which these changes were made. Interestingly, the navmesh fits some unused map pieces / collision, but that was kind of outside the scope of the video.
I was thrown off at first by the direction of the entrance to the depths, because I had flipped it around 180 in my mind. Which would make more sense to me as then the depths would be hidden under the Undead Parish and not extending down into where the valley is now, and the large central tunnel with the giant rat would line up closer with the aqueduct and the large street above. The windows and toilets lining the entrance hallways to the depths also make me think of the inside of a city wall or aqueduct, but I'm just speculating about what the intention might have been if the depths entrance was ever even meant to be connected to the Sunlight Altar to begin with.
I much prefer the Dining Hall being part of the Parish. It makes the Large Ember placement make more sense as you're likely to pick it up before seeing Andre. Most of my DS1 runs I only go to the Depths for the ember then skip the rest of it. When the Dining Hall is placed next to the Sunlight Altar how far away is the Depths in the world map?
I'm not sure that the Large Ember would still have been placed in the Dining Hall if it were still part of the Parish, I think that would have really altered the game progression.
@@samuelhdiamond42 I don't believe so. You are still restricted by the availability of Large Titanite shards. If you want go out of your way to over level your weapon early then having the Large Ember under the Sunlight Altar or in the Depths doesn't actually change much since you're still going to further areas to source the Large Titanite.
In the future can you not have blaring bug noises? Or like, turn them down? The music is otherwise nice and soft, leading you to turn up the sound to hear it better. And then the bug noises blast your ear-drums. It sucks.
My theory is that they couldnt connect the sewers with the lower burg, so they decided to move this little area as a bridge between the two. Since this dining hall looked like just a little nook with some loot, they could move it to the depths without compromising the level design of the parish. The unused depths navmesh that would lead near the cluster of rats in the depths guarding the greataxe may disprove this (theres even a unique asset nearby, some entrance of sorts), but to me they found too awkward for the player to navigate there and decided to add the dining hall instead.
The Parish's complexity was greatly reduced from what we can infer from prototype maps, and part of this streamlining was likely finding a more suitable home for the Dining Hall. I think, perhaps, that the Dining Hall was a more interesting setpiece to introduce the Depths than whatever they originally had in mind.
![Oolacile is Darkroot in the past [Dark Souls DLC time-travel shown side-by-side]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0-DmxvELBE0/mqdefault.jpg)
Thinking about how there's the bridge underside with the room with the 3 rats. A bit of depths-like flavor nearby to here in the Parish, remaining in the final game.
Yeah, it would have totally made sense for the Parish to have had a proper sewer system, but it would have been redundant with the Depths as a separate area
@@samuelhdiamond42would’ve been cool to even have a separate dead end which could hint at another path too. Maybe I’m reading too much into it but in this game they really were good about hinting locations
I have a feeling they couldn’t flesh out another sewer section (which would have been amazing) due to technological and time constraints.
I think the most likely explanation was that lower undead burg was larger than just a few alleys and hallways and that was one of the earliest cuts. This would be closer to where Griggs is now.
That would make sense to me. Lower Undead Burg has always seemed like one of the most "huh, I thought this lead somewhere but I guess not" maps.
This unassuming place sure holds a lot of secrets...
Watching Souls cut-content videos is like therapy. Its so fascinating and almost mythical.
I will never stop loving this game and it's unending fascinating secrets and mysteries , thanks for the awesome video.
Wow, the amount of geometry that changes when you cross that Taurus Demon Arena threshold is wild. I had to rewatch that several times just to absorb it all.
Fantastic detective work here. I always thought that the Sunlight Altar felt like there was more to it somehow, and this video helps confirm my suspicions that it was originally intended to be its own path. The area around it has very detailed brickwork and buildings, along with passive hollows that seemingly are just kinda there for no reason. Seeing that it was originally intended to drop down to a different area makes a lot more sense now.
I wonder if the old valley extensions connected to the broken pathway under the flaming barrel stairs before the Taurus demons near the black Knight.
My God... Dark Souls has generated so much content, so so much. Playhthroughs, lore videos, map videos, mods, it just never ends.
Such a hugely influential video game.
I'm still playing it. I play Dark Souls to relax nowadays...
well damn. now i desperately want someone to work this into an overhaul mod.
The room with rats under the bridge always felt so out of place, but now it makes sense. Nice video, keep it up👍
Ive finally caught the virus and now im spending my sick days learning about unused content in Dark Souls, I couldnt be happier!
I'm SO hyped I got the "was Laurentius's room added later?" part _because_ of the roof collision! I've used that roof for so many skips into the Depths for certain weapons (and pyro bros), that right there makes me _so_ happy!!
It makes sense for the sunlight altar to host a dining hall, the sunlight warriors were just that a warrior clan, for them to feast together in a dedicated area beneath their god's altar is the most logical conclusion.
It's my speculation the first born was initially meant to be more than a simple plot point aimed at characterising Gwyn, in my opinion he was probably more central to the story and the original map reflected this state of things.
In the end the dining hall was moved to the lower burg and smartly linked to the depths.
I love how well designed this map is. I doubt well ever get one as brilliantly interconnected as DS1
Honestly, it sounds wild for me as well, but map in "last hero of Nostalgaia" is better. Not in the visual design part of course, but the interconnectedness is insane. It is a pretty long game, but pulls of soulslike world without fasttravel and without geometrical inconsistencies
Good one with that Evangelion typeset and those damn cicadas.
Super friggin interesting!
I bet they thought 'no one will notice that stuff from so far away so save time by just leaving it in and change what is close up'
but over 10 years later we are still looking into things about this game.
What a magical video. Illusory wall turned me onto this and I’m transfixed. It seems that Dark Souls, its bewitching and magical nature, stirs within its players a desire to know more and understand. With discoveries like these I think our collective knowledge of Dark Souls is more inchoate than we’d like, which is why we always want more.
I’m glad that people like you and illusory wall and those who helped with this video exist. Thank you for this experience. I dig the text, the diagrams, the music, all of it. Big Ups!
Thank you! I am deeply indebted to illusory wall for his promotion and support of this video
This game's community still having interesting discussion around stuff that isn't even in the final game is part of why I love this community so much! There is just something about Dark Souls that gets my mind going and the design around its world is so lovingly handcrafted. Great video! Edit: I also appreciate the Evangelion homages but I do agree with some of the other comments saying the bugs were a bit too loud. Besides that, great audio selection.
This is like finding a bottle of NukaCola in the wasteland. A super interesting, refreshing video!
2023 and this Game keeps on giving. Thanks for sharing.
I feel like this is related to the original (now removed) path from firelink to lower undead burg and there the depths is now (through the wall). I also feel like the dragon was supposed to be perched on the aqueduct to the undead berg because he is there in the trailer. I feel this way most strongly because most people arrive to Lordran and totally miss the path to the undead berg and head to the graveyard. in a way the dragon would be a much better "point of interest" and naturally you would avoid going there and avoid the deadly graveyard. logically you'd take the path to lower undead burg and then fight your way up into undead burg. I don't think it would make sense to get to the depths that way in the original version.
The Hellkite Drake was definitely perched on the aqueduct in-game at some point, as there is data related to its behaviour and flame breath left over in the game.
Thank you for the video. Quite intriguing. (I'm here because Illusory Wall recommended your video, and that was a great suggestion.)
i seriously can't get enough of this content. thank you! truly Dark Souls is the gift that keeps on giving, and so are the modders and people that love uncovering the little details of this masterpiece
Awesome video! It always amazes me when people uncover little things like this in older games!
Hey, good video, nice to see someone new popping up. I liked your presentation format and editing style, also nice selection of music
Really interesting. It's pretty remarkable how the nature of the cut content in these games feels so appropriate with the archeological nature of the storytelling and world design.
This is so cool! Thanks to all the people involved in unearthing this.
AMAZING :D!! the amount t of little details that line up is lovely
I always figured the undead city was supposed to be larger, more blight-towny, like favellas. so what you're seeing with all the expanded navmesh is probably just more ratty undead hovels as people where forced outside of the "city"
Thank you for making good souls content
Great video, love that so many years later there's still wonderful people like you sharing new things from Dark Souls
It would have been a nice shortcut to get into The Depths, but they ended up going with the firelink shrine shortcut sometime in development. It makes sense, but more map linking is never a bad idea in DS1.
Great video, I always had a feeling the dining hall/depths entrance felt off. Makes a lot of sense that it was originally supposed to connect to the Parish earlier.
Speaking of that area, is there any mysterious unused/cut content in the Lower Burg, specifically the area with the metal gate that acts as a shortcut from the Undead Burg to the Lower Burg? It sticks out to me as a really unfinished and rushed part of the map.
Apart from the unused bridge between Firelink Shrine and the Lower Burg, and some unused map pieces/collision floating around the Depths, there's not a great deal. There is this, though: twitter.com/samuelhdiamond/status/1399360195332091905
@@samuelhdiamond42 thats really interesting! thanks for sharing
Amazing finds. Thank you for bringing light into the dark.
The cheerful music background does not combine with Dark Souls' melancholic and gray universe 😂
Amazing info about this part of the map, though. Congrats
What a great video, I'm subbing for sure
l o v e this video. Great to see an explanation for those windows in the entrance of the Depths.
Watch the opening cutscene during the Age of Fire. We see a ringed city with one large wall covering the area. Originally, Dark Souls was going to take place in this environment. Due to time constraints, this project was scrapped and areas were rearranged to favor effective interconnection and delivering a playable product, whilst sacrificing the initially planned macro-environmental structure of the whole map.
It was easier to lay out the maps without having to worry about them fitting and filling the initially planned ringed city. That's why the urban and fortificated layouts we see in the cutscene have so little in common with those we navigate through in-game.
Some areas had their location changed, some were entirely cut from the game. Fortifications were relocated to accomodate for these changes at the last minute.
(That's a theory)
The city glimpsed in the intro is supposed to be Lordran, as little relation as it bears geographically to what we see in game. That opening cutscene was probably from way early in development, and is likely concept art. But I don't think we can blame time constraints for the final version not matching the concept - we know from prototype maps that the large, long bridges spotted in that artwork were originally in the game, for example, but they were kind of featureless, and the Hellkite Bridge / Aqueduct had the same visual impact with actually interesting gameplay. It's more likely that the smaller puzzlebox environments they were creating were fun, and were close enough to the original concept art that it really didn't matter about matching it 100%.
Love it!
Oh nice. This is gonna be a good channel I can tell. Fascinating stuff.
My theory is that the sunlight altar was the original entrance to the depths, but maybe not enough playtesters found that out and so they moved it closer to where you get the key from the Capra demon?
I always find funny how there are lots and lots of unused things and incomplete works in the level design and the level design is still the best of the 3 dark souls
Undead Burg 3.0: You can(not) dine in the halls
Wow, very interesting, thanks!
amazing video, really well done
Nice video! For some hopefully constructive criticism if you continue, perhaps try fading out the music instead of a hard cut. I’d also recommend brightening game footage, as souls games tend to be super dark.
Otherwise the information was presented in an easy to understand way.
Hopefully you’ll do more content!
Thank you for the feedback! The hard music cut is part of the gag with the Evangelion title cards, and thought it was worth the risk of some people finding it jarring - but probably won't continue that in future. I did lighten some of the footage, but yeah I should have done more.
Ohhhh see now the hard cut music makes sense 😁 as someone who hasn't seen Evangeleon, that went over my head too
@@samuelhdiamond42The hard cuts made me laugh each time. I didn't get the reference, but thought they were intentional
Time is convoluted.
It reminds me of the room in lothric castle where the cell key, and the estus shard
Give me the knowledge! YESSS
10/10 for the Eva title cards
Great video! A lot of things I didn't know somehow, the rooftop with the sunlight altar is very interesting!
You did a good job, sir
i always thought the Sunlight Alter area was odd for how you access it, but this helps make it seem a LITTLE less odd.
cant get past the dragon? there is an alternate longer path to do so.
meanwhile it looks like that room would have had a loop for getting in and out. like you come in from where ever you were supposed
to and exit at the bottom, go up the stairs, bonfire and alter found, drop in through the roof hole to get back in safely above the enemies.
Great video! One note - try fading the music instead of stopping it. I'm scared every time it happens 😅
The hard music cut is deliberate, as part of the Evangelion title card gag. But I've taken onboard feedback and won't be doing that in future.
thanks, hairless naked musclebound chosen undead, for braving the depths.
Fun fact: hairless naked musclebound chosen undead is the default debug John Darksouls (when you remove their mismatched, noisy armor)
Very cool finds!
Great video 👍
Thank you! Your videos were the first Soulsborne speedruns I ever watched.
I wish someone would mod in all of these could-be paths from early development.
You've made a brilliant video, but I've noticed a few very sharp audio transitions between chapters. It's not a big problem, but it would be nice to have some fading for audio.
Looking forward for upcoming videos!
This is so cool
Will you be making a video about the possible original catacombs placement as well?
Possibly! That whole section is very interesting to explore, but it's a bit difficult to show off in a video - especially with my current inexperience in making them. It's on the list, though.
Only thing I want to know is how much cut content is in the game? Being 12 year old game and giving people real mysteries is very hard and dark souls done it.
I remember seeing a massive piece of old nav mesh that appeared to be this old hall connecting to a different catacombs under the parish.
Do you know anything about that?
I do indeed! twitter.com/samuelhdiamond/status/1401526189878034433
Can't even view the rest of that thread without signing in. God I hate Twitter.
@@crestfallenneet2167 that sucks so much.
@@samuelhdiamond42 thanks* for the link. Glad you knew what I was talking about. It's a very interesting map. Hope to see a video on it in the future.
❤❤
Honestly, the sunlight alter was a better place for it.
Anything that suggests the Depths may have originally been somewhere else or encountered at a different point interests me, because as it stands it feels like you're supposed to go Lower Burg, Capra, Catacombs, then Depths in terms of NPCs an loot. But current level design doesnt make that feel logical.
Crazy interesting!
The unused navmesh that extends down into the valley is for the stairs leading down from the dining area to the depths, though slightly altered from how we know it in the release version of Dark Souls.
Made a quick video to show how it lines up: th-cam.com/video/2uQWJ5-X0Gk/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for your reply! Yeah, the navmesh is a bit of an oddity because it seems to be straddling two different points of development - where the dining hall is still beneath the Sunlight Altar, but is also creeping towards its final purpose of connecting to the Depths. Without knowing more about how the worldspace was originally laid out, it's difficult to determine the timeline in which these changes were made. Interestingly, the navmesh fits some unused map pieces / collision, but that was kind of outside the scope of the video.
I was thrown off at first by the direction of the entrance to the depths, because I had flipped it around 180 in my mind. Which would make more sense to me as then the depths would be hidden under the Undead Parish and not extending down into where the valley is now, and the large central tunnel with the giant rat would line up closer with the aqueduct and the large street above.
The windows and toilets lining the entrance hallways to the depths also make me think of the inside of a city wall or aqueduct, but I'm just speculating about what the intention might have been if the depths entrance was ever even meant to be connected to the Sunlight Altar to begin with.
1:25 so weird listening to stardew valley music in this game
I much prefer the Dining Hall being part of the Parish. It makes the Large Ember placement make more sense as you're likely to pick it up before seeing Andre. Most of my DS1 runs I only go to the Depths for the ember then skip the rest of it.
When the Dining Hall is placed next to the Sunlight Altar how far away is the Depths in the world map?
I'm not sure that the Large Ember would still have been placed in the Dining Hall if it were still part of the Parish, I think that would have really altered the game progression.
@@samuelhdiamond42 I don't believe so. You are still restricted by the availability of Large Titanite shards. If you want go out of your way to over level your weapon early then having the Large Ember under the Sunlight Altar or in the Depths doesn't actually change much since you're still going to further areas to source the Large Titanite.
What a cool discovery!
did somebody modded this in came already like they did with the firelink bridge leading to depths
Vereor Nox
Umbasa
Im good im smart im cool😮
In the future can you not have blaring bug noises? Or like, turn them down? The music is otherwise nice and soft, leading you to turn up the sound to hear it better. And then the bug noises blast your ear-drums. It sucks.
why the neon genesis cards
I mean why not
New video ever?
That transition was awfully jarring
It's deliberate, as part of the Evangelion title card gag. But I won't be doing it in future videos!
0.0
My theory is that they couldnt connect the sewers with the lower burg, so they decided to move this little area as a bridge between the two.
Since this dining hall looked like just a little nook with some loot, they could move it to the depths without compromising the level design of the parish.
The unused depths navmesh that would lead near the cluster of rats in the depths guarding the greataxe may disprove this (theres even a unique asset nearby, some entrance of sorts), but to me they found too awkward for the player to navigate there and decided to add the dining hall instead.
The Parish's complexity was greatly reduced from what we can infer from prototype maps, and part of this streamlining was likely finding a more suitable home for the Dining Hall. I think, perhaps, that the Dining Hall was a more interesting setpiece to introduce the Depths than whatever they originally had in mind.