Dark Souls II is an action role-playing game set in the kingdom of Drangleic. Players control the Bearer of the Curse, navigating a dark, interconnected world filled with challenging enemies and complex boss encounters. Combat emphasizes precise timing, stamina management, and adaptability, with options for dual-wielding, varied weapon types, and a flexible character progression system.
The online servers were shut down on March 31st, 2024.
Dark Souls II lives up to the series' reputation for being unrelentingly difficult- but it's worth digging in your heels and spending a lot of time with it. The PC port is just as good, if not better than it's console counterpart, but you're going to want to use a gamepad. Using a keyboard is possible, and there's even a few mods out there to make it...
It's a testament to the series brand as a whole to make an otherwise solid title feel disappointing, but I've come to expect more and I hope they find the right path through the dark in the next sequel.
A carefully considered sequel that avoids upsetting existing fans and offers an olive branch to newcomers – but although the PC version is the best it's by a slimmer margin than many would've hoped.
For those willing to invest time into the New Game +, into the covenants and the raiding of other players' worlds, there's far more to uncover than I'll probably ever see. As I said at the beginning, Dark Souls II is a very good game. These have been some of the reasons why as well as some of the reasons why I don't think it's quite as great a game...
Dark Souls II is an absolute feast of a game, and it will be a long, long time before I'm sated by it.
