Master Key

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This universal key opens any basic lock.

Tool of the trade for thieves.
But in the cursed land of the Undead, most doors are better left unopened.

Master Key is a Key in Dark Souls and Dark Souls Remastered.

 

Master Key Usage

  • Reusable key that can open any door with a simple lock.

 

 

 

Master Key Location

  • Thief class starting equipment.
  • Chosen as a gift upon character creation.
  • Sold by Domhnall of Zena for 5,000 souls, after he moves to the Bridge in Firelink Shrine. (Patch 1.04)
    • This purchase will carry over into NG+

(Choosing this gift as a thief will result in the player starting with two Master Keys, which is pointless.)

 

Area for use Replaces Unlocks
Undead Burg Residence Key* Residence, and a chest with 3 Gold Pine Resin, near the flaming boulder.
Undead Burg Watchtower Basement Key Shortcut to Darkroot Basin, guarded by Havel, below the Taurus Demon.
Undead Parish Mystery Key Knight Lautrec's cell.
Depths Sewer Chamber Key Bonfire room, at the end of the Slime hallway, close to the kitchen.
New Londo Ruins Key to New Londo Ruins Shortcut to Valley of Drakes, door next to elevator exit.
Sen's Fortress Cage Key* Cages in the hidden room behind sleeping guard, breakable by directing boulders. Free Logan and find a Hero Soul.

The keys marked with asterisk (*) has another use, for which the Master Key somehow does not work.

  • Will not replace the residence key in unlocking the door (in the Lower Undead Burg) behind which Griggs of Vinheim is trapped.
  • Will not replace the Cage key in unlocking the cage elevator on top of Sen's Fortress.

 

 




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    • Anonymous

      MK can be used to open some early game doors that most of the time work as shortcuts requiring keys obtained some time later.

      Since most locations it opens are too strong for new character anyway, MK is mainly used to do item collecting suicide runs to grab some gear, souls and upgrade materials. It surely helps a lot but still requires some decent skill and good knowledge about areas layout.

      So if you're new to game picking this won't help you that much and despite some opinions it's never mandatory. But on the other hand there aren't many decent gifts anyway. Old Witch Ring is okay if you are simping Fair Lady or just want to hear her dialogues. Black Firebombs are for easy killing first boss so you can grab his bonk that requires absurd amounts of Str to be wielded in one hand and you won't be using this quickly (you can still get this weapon by trading later). And Twin Humanities will boost your item discovery rate which can be nice if you're good enough to not loose the bloodstain after death. Rest are even more useless, so yeah... You can pick MK because there's simply nothing better to pick.

      In general starting gifts are not that important.

      • Anonymous

        I think this is a borderline worthless starting gift. It doesn't replace the mystery key, the basement key, the sens lift key, the duke's prison key, the depths key, the blighttown key, or the more important half of the residence key. Very disappointing.

        It does let you beeline for Havel without killing the butterfly, but you can kill the butterfly on auto pilot with help from the summon. You can immediately open the door to the valley of the drakes, but you can also just spend literally five more minutes to kill taurus demon and run through darkroot. The new londo/valley key is a 30 second walk into the blighttown exit from the door.

        I can only see this being attractive if you REALLY want to grab the great club, falchion, or astora's sword immediately.

        • Anonymous

          There's literally no reason to not pick this as your starting gift unless you pick Thief, one of the most useful items in the whole game.
          I always use it right after getting to Firelink to pick up some extra souls in Blightown and get 12 Estus swigs by killing Maneater Mildred before even hitting the Undead Burg.

          • Anonymous

            Why so many people saying this item allows you to skip Blighttown? It doesn't. It allows you to skip the Valley of Drakes. Anyways, Brightown is so easy, never understood the fuss about it. You just keeping going down till you get to the bonfire, then you run to Quelaag. What's so difficult about that?

            • Anonymous

              I don't recommend picking the master keys on your first playthrough.

              I'm only writing this because I've lived in Blighttown for awhile now. Terrible neighbors. I found the door at the end (actually the beginning), and realized I needed to backtrack. 8(
              After many hours playing through other areas and generally wandering around, I finally found my way to the depths, reached the gaping dragon (which was suspiciously easy, but maybe it's just that way), and discovered the door back to my old neighborhood.
              The game feeds you keys to areas like a Metroid game and if you get them in the right order you're less likely to get "lost" between zones.

              • Anonymous

                Unless you are doing some speedrun and intent to skip some locations never visiting them at all you can also use Master Key for early collecting doing suicide runs.

                After you arrive at Firelink Shrine don't use any humanity and dump all your souls to VIT or END. Then equip only your shield to right hand and hold it with both hands (better blocking and you can also ram with it to get mob out of the way). Otherwise be completely naked to get best movement speed. Put Estus Flask and Darksign oh intems bar. Then simply run and roll grabbing any item you can. If you die or use darksign you will not loose anything. Without killing any mob or boss or using any cheat or exploit you can sweep:
                - entire Firelink Shrine [no Master Key required]
                - entire Catacombs [no Master Key required] (don't forget about humanity from Patches for bridge sabotage)
                - upper (not sunken) part of New Londo [no Master Key required]
                - entire Undead Parish
                - most of Undead Burg (upper and lower, but to get all items you will need to grab the keys from Undead Parish and Undead Merchant)
                - entire Valley of the Drakes
                - most of Blighttown (you can't get Power Within without killing giant jelly-bacteria)
                - entire Great Hollow
                - entire Ash Lake
                - entire Darkroot Basin
                - most of Darkroot Forest (you must kill fake tree to get Wolf Ring and buy Crest of Artorias to get Hornet Ring - no need to fight Sif)

                After this whole run you will have nice load of weapons, armors, shields, rings, spells, humanity items and many, many soul items. Now you can use humanity to start with ~10 (better protection and drop rate) and soul items for early shopping (Undead Merchant, Petrus, Ricket, Andre and even Shiva if you want more running).

                Now you can start casually playing game like nothing happened.

                • Anonymous

                  Not taking the Master Key still lets you skip most of Blighttown. After beating the Taurus Demon and reaching the Undead Parish you can get to the Valley of the Drakes through the Darkroot Basin. Still allows for early pickups in those areas. Master Key lets you skip Taurus Demon and the Drake from spawning on the bridge in Undead Burg. Basically skipping the Undead Burg area. Plus also getting to those areas is faster. If that matters to you then yes its beneficial as a starting gift.

                  • Anonymous

                    My favorite item in the game. It's genuinely very satisfying and even a little funny just breaking any sense of progression the game has. Wanna fight Ceaseless Discharge Early? Fine! Wanna skip 90% of blighttown? Great! Want Havel to bonk you on the head early? Go right ahead!

                    • Anonymous

                      Regardless of what else it does or doesn't do, getting to skip most of Blighttown makes this key 100% worth taking as your starting gift.

                      • Anonymous

                        I'm at NG+ now, so I bought one, after hearing people say it completely breaks the game, and I just realised how little it can actually do, someone said they ended up in blighttown because of it, but I can't open the depths door, sure it's mildly handy, but not game breaking

                        • Anonymous

                          for something called the "master key" it only opens 6 doors in the whole game. and is useless for the other 95% of the game. the wiki says its worth having but i do not think so if all it does is open 6 doors that i could have just found the keys to my self the hard way

                          • Anonymous

                            In all playthroughs I've ever done and also in my main game which is actually in NG+4 I never choose the master key, cause I do want to play the game "the way it was meant to". Sounds strange, but thats just the way I feel about it xD

                            • Anonymous

                              If you get two can you drop one for someone else? Or is there absolutely no possible point to having more than one?

                              • Anonymous

                                With New Game Plus - Do you get to pick a Gift again? Or is it the same every time with that one character?

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