The Deathcam mechanic describes a top-down camera view in Dark Souls that is normally only supposed to be activated when the player is about to die from a fall, either by dying on impact or by hitting a killbox. Through exploits it is possible to trigger Deathcam in some places without dying in the process. While Deathcam is active, the currently loaded state of the map will not change anymore, preventing new parts of the map from being loaded, and old parts of the map from being unloaded. Assets that are not a direct part of the map layout (like ladders, doors, foggates, ...) are loaded at a later point than the rest of the map, allowing you to load ground and wall collision but keep assets unloaded, allowing you to skip past them.
External Resources
- [Example of a Deathcam abuse (//www.twitch.tv/capitainetoinon/v/105585571) by CapitaineToinon on Twitch