It's easy to place Dark Souls 2 in your crosshairs and take aim at its differences. Its map doesn't intertwine like Dark Souls 1 or 3. Lots of bosses do that thing where they summon in some mates and it's quite annoying. The atmosphere lacked that magic glaze. And yet, its quirks and frustrations make it one of my favourites.
]]>Praise the sun! Dark Souls II's online features for the Scholar Of The First Sin edition are back up and working after months of being down. Back in January, FromSoftware deactivated online features for the Dark Souls trilogy on PC due to the prominence of hackers and security concerns. Recently, Dark Souls III servers were reactivated (before being deactivated and reactivated again) and now it's Dark Souls II’s turn. The base version of Dark Souls II will have these features “made available at a later date," but for now, Scholar Of The First Sin players can continue to invade the fallen kingdom of Drangleic and scribble down messages for others.
]]>Last time, you decided that physics freakouts are better than beautiful food. As much as I admire delicious dishes, I am very glad that something that's wholly unintentional (and often unwanted by developers) is still in the running. Games are weird and daft magic tracks, and that's great. This week, you must choose between oddity and serendipity. What's better: impossible geometry, or games playing the music CD left in your drive?
]]>The house cat. Felis destructus. Humankind's absolute best mate and undisputed master. Some upcoming video games are planning to examine the motives behind these enigmatic creatures, whose origins remain unknown. Stray will put you in the paws of a street cat finding their way home in a cyberpunk city. Little Kitty Big City will see you wearing the whiskers of a cat less concerned with going home than it is with wreaking urban havoc. But what if you don't want to wait for these games? Well, you have options. Here are 10 of the best cats in PC games.
]]>Welcome back to the third edition of The RPS Time Capsule, a monthly feature in which the RPS Treehouse puts their hivemind together to pick their favourite, bestest best games from a specific year to be preserved until the end of time. In the spirit of keeping you on your toes, this time we've set our sights on the best games from 2014. Which games will make the cut and ascend to the realms of the PC gaming elite? Find out below.
]]>The serious security hole affecting PvP in the whole Dark Souls series on PC should not be a problem with Elden Ring, Bandai Namco have announced. In January, they took all Dark Souls PvP servers offline following the publicisation of an remote code execution exploit which let wrong'uns run commands on other players' computers. Some feared this hole might be present in Elden Ring too. Bamco now say that Elden Ring is fine, but those Dark Souls servers won't come back down until after FromSoftware's new game launches.
]]>As if Dark Souls wasn't dangerous enough already, Bandai Namco have temporarily taken every Dark Souls PC server offline following the discovery of a Dark Souls 3 security vulnerability that could harm anyone playing in online mode. A malevolent string of code threatens the many kingdoms of ash, so to speak.
]]>Beating the final boss of a Dark Souls game can be an overwhelming experience. You reflect on your journey, the countless hours and failed attempts that led you to this moment, and a wave of emotion rolls over you.
The Twitch channel of Eric “McRaptor” Harper was host to a litany of these moments during the recent “Souls-4-Souls” (SFS) charity tournament that ran in late April. When you think of competitive gaming tournaments, Dark Souls probably doesn’t spring to mind. However, SFS featured 25 challenge runners racing through Soulsborne games as quickly as possible whilst trying to take zero hits. Thousands tuned in to watch.
]]>Dark Souls modders are forged in the flames of adversity. While mostly limited to technical improvements (such as Durante's fixes for the wonky original PC port) and small texture packs, the past few years have brought about a whole new genre of Souls mods for all three games. While limited in what can be added to the trilogy (though breakthroughs are being made on that front, too), it turns out that by creatively rearranging what's already there, you can get what feels almost like a new game. Today, we take a peek at a bundle of B-Side adventures across the entire series.
]]>You might have heard of Berserk already. A few people have pointed out the similarities between Hidetaka Miyazaki’s Souls series and the manga Berserk. Perhaps you’ve even gotten curious, toyed with the idea of getting into it, but without a clear idea of where to start. Or perhaps you got the impression that Berserk is not for you.
You may have heard Berserk is filled with violence, sexual assault, gore, grim characters and questionable content. And for the most part, you would be right. But at its core, Berserk is about love.
]]>Leave no rodent behind – that’s the motto of the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. With the release of Warhammer: Vermintide 2, we decided to celebrate the lovable dirtbag of videogames. The lowly, filthy, wonderful rat. Whether you are murdering five of them in cold blood for an RPG hotel owner, or pledging your sword to a disgusting subterranean monarch, there’s room in your heart for the humble rat.
And your intestine. And lung. Basically, shove over, organs. Make room for the rats.
]]>I finally completed Dark Souls III [official site] last week, a world that I have been dipping in and out of between bouts of listlessness since its release in April last year. It didn’t grip me like the first revered Dark Souls, but it still made me sad to know it was all over. Where could I go now for my Souls fix? The answer, it turns out, is loads of places. The games industry is quietly reverberating with the series’ influence. From small games boasting “souls-like” combat, to bigger games doing weird things with death and player messages. Meanwhile, our PlayStation brethren got Nioh, which took the “pocket full o’ souls” idea and simply renamed them “Amrita”. There is a popular complaint that everything in the industry is now being compared to Dark Souls, and it's easy to forget that games embraced difficulty and strangeness long before the Bed of Chaos made you weep with frustration. Nevertheless, the mechanics and the tone of Miyazaki’s magnum opus is leaking into games everywhere.
That there's an influx of Soulsian disciples out there isn’t a problem to me. My problem is that they are learning all the wrong lessons. At least, they are neglecting the most important one. But first let’s look at what sly tricks are being lifted from the series, and who is lifting them.
]]>If you fancy going back through all Dark Souls before the series wraps up with the final DLC in March, now's a great time to return to Dark Souls 2 [official site]. Today sees the start of Return to Drangleic, an unofficial community-run event to draw players back and revitalise multiplayer. Souls just isn't the same without online invasions, summonings, ghosts, and messages bringing life to the world, so players are returning en masse to rekindle that spark. Fancy joining them?
]]>If I have learned anything from reading other people's opinions about Dark Souls it's that Dark Souls is probably a metaphor for something. But what? WHAT? There are so many conflicting opinions out there.
Well, that's where your pal, Pip (that is me), can help. I have come up with a definitive list of ways to interpret Dark Souls correctly:
]]>I must confess, since finishing Siege of Dragonspear the other week, I've not actually fired up any RPGs. It's not for want of them to play. I'm particularly looking forward to finally trying Final Fantasy IX, which I missed back in the day, and Beamdog's recently announced interquel, Planescape Torment: The Nameless One And A Half. (It's very similar to the original, only now whenever someone asks "What can change the nature of a man?" a furious little goblin pops onto the screen to yell "#notallmen!")
The problem has simply been timing - not having a nice satisfying chunk of time to really settle down for an epic experience. So instead, I thought I'd take a look at a few speed-runs, and see how fifty hours suddenly becomes a minute and a half... provided you don't include the hundreds of hours to get to that point. Here's a few of them I dug up to make your completion times look like crap, from RPGs old and new.
]]>Ever had one of those games that you just long to get into, but can't? There haven't been many I've wanted to get into more than the Dark Souls series. To sink into the world I see people talking about on my Twitter feed. To have that sense of discovery in ash and ember. For that crumbling world to feel like something more than just a succession of traps and gauntlets. I want to like Dark Souls. I really hope Dark Souls 3 is the clicking point. But... so far, (whispers) I've never managed to like Dark Souls.
]]>It'll take a great deal of analysis to figure out how exactly Dark Souls III [official site] fits into the wider mythology of the series in terms of its tremendous, cryptic lore, and it might take even longer for critical opinion to decide where it ranks in the pantheon of Souls games. But we can all agree on one thing, right? Dark Souls is superior to its first sequel in almost every way.
Not Michael Johnson. Here, he argues that Dark Souls II changes and improves on the formula set by its predecessor and that it has the greatest expansions in all of gaming.
]]>Dark Souls III [official site] is already out in Japan but the rest of the world has to wait until April 12th. I received review code late last week and have spent a few hours kindling bonfires and carving my way through the early stages of the game. I've also, as you might imagine, died quite a lot.
Our full review will be closer to the international release but I wanted to share some thoughts about the opening areas, the PC version and the overall quality of what I've seen so far. No spoilers regarding bosses or locations.
]]>Dark Souls is the famously easy and brightly-coloured walking simulator beloved of casual gamers, and scorned by the hardcore. If you've long desired to frolic in its pastel fields but been unwilling to scrape together the requisite pennies, the good news is that, if you live in the EU (including UK), you can currently grab a Steam code for it for free. I know it says 'Prepare To Die' in the subtitle, but that's just a typo - it's actually 'Prepare To Dye', in reference to its acclaimed dressmaking minigame.
]]>"Sometimes we attempt things to prove we can't do them," I wankily declared when folks started trying to play Dark Souls [official site] in the viewer-controlled style of Twitch Plays Pokémon. Embrace futility and inevitability and that, yeah? After days, they'd made two minutes' progress. I was fascinated that hundreds of people were trying to do something that clearly would never work. So they cheated. People, yeah?
After changing to a system with generous pauses to think and act, the stream and its viewers have beaten Dark Souls, and now started on Dark Souls II.
]]>I first noticed the feeling when I stopped at an inn. They had a roaring fire, plenty of food and wine, and there was a dog lying at my feet. Skyrim had never felt more welcoming. I was replaying the game with some mods installed. One mod took away all the dragonborn stuff and left me starting as a simple bandit schmuck. Another mod made the world of Skyrim cold and harsh to survive in, so I had to light fires to keep myself warm and make sure I didn’t fall into any water lest I catch my literal hypothermic death. But one of these mods had a side option, which was to turn fast travel off. On a whim, I did. It was only days later, in the warm glow of this inn that the feeling began to come over me. And I realised something. Something that all my gaming life I’d never even thought about.
I HATE fast travel. Let me tell you why.
]]>Fail Forward is a series of videos all about the bits of games which don’t quite work and why. In this episode, Marsh Davies discusses Dark Souls 2 [official site], but ends up mostly talking about the preceding Dark Souls, the legend of King Arthur and wanking onto goblins.
]]>The leaked information about Dark Souls III [official site] is looking more legit now. The game was officially announced during Microsoft's E3 press conference today and, while some of the more granular specifics are yet to be announced, one thing has been confirmed. Legendary director Hidetaka Miyazaki is back in the driving seat for this one when it launches in early 2016. I guess that's actually two things.
]]>Dark Souls 3 is apparently well underway in the workpits of From Software, according to leaked materials bearded NerdBro YouTube news channel The Know have seen. Screenshots, concept art and gameplay info are detailed in a new video from the crew, but it's all vague enough that the fate of the PC version is thrown into confusion by one little word.
]]>Once an obvious bug has been in a game long enough, one comes to accept it'll always be there. You learn to play around the bug, knowing when it'll strike and what you can do to avoid it. It's one of those quirks that makes a game more personal, a little more human. "Oh sweet little Jimmy Buggletons," I imagine you sigh when you find a weapon cracking in Dark Souls II [official site] thanks to the durability bug, "we meet again!" You insufferably twee git.
Well, dear reader, I'm afraid Jimmy is going away to a farm where he'll be very happy playing with the other glitches. The durability bug's finally being, ah, sent to a better place.
]]>Praise the sun, very good, and other quotes you might recognise from a video game you once played: Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin [official site] launched yesterday. It's essentially the 'game of the year edition' of From Software's die 'em up sequel, coming with all the DLC included as well as a few tweaks to the game and its graphics.
Publishers Namco Bandai are offering discounts for folks who own the original Dark Souls II, but in the cold light of day, the changes seem quite slight and perhaps not worth upgrading for. If you can figure out the upgrades. Come marvel at the longest on-topic RPS Treehouse discussion ever as we puzzled over it.
]]>Dark Souls II [official site] being upgraded with fancier DirectX 11-y graphics, reworked enemy and item placement, a few new items, and whatnot sounded great. Then it became clear that the 'Scholar of the First Sin' edition won't come as an update but as a separate version of the game, and one folks will need to pay for, which sounds less great. At least it'll offer discounts to upgrade.
Upgrading from plain old Dark Souls II to the new version will cost you $20 (£13.50-ish, though we'll see how generous regional pricing is) if you own already all the DLC or $30 (£20) if you don't, publishers Bandai Namco announced yesterday as the launch rapidly nears.
]]>Bandai Namco have announced a free update to the divisive yet celebrated Dark Souls II in advance of The Scholar of the First Sin (the latter being a DLC-inclusive revamp and re-release).
Those still plugging away with Dark Souls II as it stands may or may not be enticed by the changes that From Software will bring to the game on February 5th. The focus appears to be promoting online play, as well as introducing us to the Scholar.
]]>Dark Souls II may not be the greatest Souls game ever made but despite its flaws, it's still one of the year's finest. Behind the hideous enemies and the stern challenge lies a world unlike any other - the combat systems and RPG elements may be at the heart of From's series, but it's the world of Drangleic that lingers in the memory.
Adam: An exercise in archaeology.
]]>Gawd bless the new generation of consoles and the revamped re-releases of recent games publishers are putting together to take advantage of them. This gives us the nice knock-on effect of our games getting better, prettier, and generally fancier. Dark Souls II is the latest getting the revamp-o-release treatment in Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin, a bundle including the DLC.
More than that, it'll also improve graphics, add new NPCs, improve matchmaking, boost performance, raise the playercount, and other fine things. Some of those features will come in a free update, but others I'm a little hazier on.
]]>Some things were never meant to be seen up close and personal. Take the Mona Lisa - Da Vinci's elaborate smiley isn't kept behind bulletproof glass for its own safety, it's locked up to maintain a secure distance from onlookers. Get within a few inches and the familiar smile ceases to draw the eye - instead, you'll be unable to ignore the painter's self-insertion, an image of himself mooning the model, reflected in the sparkle of her eye.
With the release of a Dark Souls 2 first-person mod, it's now possible to see the buildings and beasties of Drangleic up close and personal, but do you really want to? Take a look.
]]>We should have posted more about Dark Souls II, and our mistake was partially my fault. I had planned another big Dark Souls Nites livestream bonanza with music, guests, phone-ins, and other chilled-out late-night radio fun. Then my Internet connection took a nose-dive and I felt too tired and here we are, five months later, now Dark Souls II has three DLC packs we've barely mentioned. Sorry about that. The final chapter of its DLC trilogy 'The Lost Crowns' launched yesterday and please, do tell me about it.
]]>Hats are a core part of the gamer experience. Team Fortress 2 knows how strong the craving for sweet skull-socks truly is. Dark Souls takes itself a bit too seriously to join in with the hat hunting though. Like the sneering monarch that it is, From's not-quite-as-much-of-a-masterpiece-as-the-previous-two is usually seen wearing a helmet in place of a hat. It anticipates an assault. Occasionally it'll upgrade to a crown, which is essentially a very expensive hat that is too heavy to lob onto a hatstand. A DLC trilogy covers the retrieval of Dark Souls' favourite posh hats and the first part is out today.
]]>Once upon a time, Dark Souls 2 wasn't going to have any DLC whatsoever. Its developers were all like - and I (do not) quote - "DLC? More like thing-that-arbitrarily-keeps-games-from-being-complete-so-publishers-can-score-a-quick-buck-later... LC." Dark Souls 2 did in fact release as a complete game, however, so no huge worries there. The path is clear for even more darkness and souls - and maybe, just maybe, we'll learn a thing or two about ourselves along the way. Like how easily our bacteria-riddled bodies pop like grapes under the slightest pressure from something three times our size. It'll be great fun! Trailer for Dark Souls 2's episodic Lost Crowns DLC trilogy below.
]]>Dark Souls is a tough act to follow. While it was the second game in the dark fantasy Souls series, it had a wider audience and fell under closer scrutiny. As well as solidifying the mechanics that Demon's Souls had laid out it made some major changes and built a more cohesive world. Dark Souls II tweaks the formula again and the results aren't entirely satisfying. Here's wot I think.
]]>Dark Souls II unlocked at midnight and I haven’t stopped playing since then. The hour between 4 and 5 am was distressing, as I found myself caught in a bleary-eyed Groundhog Day loop of blood-seeking and blood-letting. That central rhythm, of loss and learning as each death becomes a lesson for the next life, is intact and as compelling as ever in the first terrible and glorious hours of this third Souls title. Here are my early impressions and a couple of niggling doubts.
]]>I've fiddled around a bit with the PC port of Dark Souls II, and I must say, I'm decently pleased. It's far from a bastion of portly perfection, but it's a stomping step up from the first Dark Souls' wibbly wobbly mess. Ever the malcontent, however, I decided to dig into what's not there - namely, things like full-blown mod support (the first Dark Souls was basically saved by mods on PC) and a concrete plan for dealing with cheaters. I asked global producer Tak Miyazoe about both those omissions and more.
]]>When I started playing Dark Souls on PC, I decided to keep track of my many deaths. Ten minutes in, I'd run out of fingers to cont on and after a couple of hours, I'd filled a notebook with tally marks. Ten hours passed before my calculator fizzed, smoke and sparked, 'I DIED' flickering across the liquid display. Needless to say, I didn't manage to keep score. Now, thanks to a small group of bright sparks at darksoulsdeaths.com, it's possible to extract the death data from a save game file so that the world can know your shame. More below, including the entirely reasonable Dark Souls II system specs.
]]>Dark Souls II is driving its brutally tough nails into the hands of consolekin next week, but what about the One True Platform that birthed the very notion of difficulty, games, and, indeed, souls? PC gamers, it turns out, are facing the sternest test of all: a wait. Our version won't release until late April, but we do get some added perks this time around (instead of, you know, one of the most lackluster ports in recent memory). It's not much, but better textures and an improved frame rate will be much appreciated, methinks. New trailer below.
]]>There's a video containing nine minutes of Dark Souls II action just below the break, but if you're anything like me you'll be waiting to play the blasted thing rather than watching every piece of footage that emerges. I skimmed through and can confidently state that ragged cloaks are this season's must have accessory, whether you're beast or barbarian. If you skip to the end of the video, or stick with it for the duration, you'll be able to hear the thoughtful tones of Peter Serafinowicz, a surprise addition to the cast. Surprising to me, at least, since I'll always think of him as plum-gobbed Duane Benzie, who you can also see below.
]]>After 45 seconds of slow build, the new Dark Souls II trailer delivers exactly what I'd hoped for. Vaguely poetic death threats and glimpses of the hideous creatures that will be performing the executions. There's a particularly unpleasant fellow who seems to have the screaming, writhing corpses of the damned instead of a waist. It looks good on him, I have to say, and I fully expect the look to feature on the catwalk this summer. Whether or not you consider the Souls games to be horror-RPGs, it's hard to argue that the creature designs in this trailer aren't more horrific and imaginative than anything we've seen of The Evil Within so far.
]]>The Dark Souls series is known for throwing as many obstacles as possible in the way of your happiness and physical well-being, but apparently DLC won't be one of them. While most games slather themselves with the stuff like Hedonism Bot on holiday, Dark Souls II will walk the path of the spartan. It will bring with it only what's necessary for a complete game. And nothing more.
]]>In my opinion - and let's leave all those arguments about the poor PC port out of this - Dark Souls is the greatest game ever made. Precise and deep combat systems, an astounding lore woven throughout its tonally perfect dark fantasy world, and a sense of 3D architecture nothing else even comes close to. With all of that said, I wasn't whooping at the announcement of Dark Souls II. Call it what you will – a Gollum-like protectionism over My Precious, a sense that nothing could ever quite match up to that original, or something worse - but the truth is I was anxious at the idea of a sequel. Nevertheless, when the opportunity arose to get hands-on, I braved the bleak halls find out for myself. And, for my sins, I found out.
You'll want to read on for that stuff, terrible soul-searching, and to find out how many times I died.
]]>If it's anything like its predecessor (and all indications seem to suggest as much), then Dark Souls II deals in tough love. Brutal bosses, grisly traps, excruciating punishments for even the most absent-minded of mistakes. By that line of thinking, Dark Souls II actually loves PC the most. It is, after all, forcing us to endure just a little bit more suffering than everyone else by releasing "shortly after" console versions early next year. Obviously, it knows we're made of stern enough stuff to take it. Or at least, that's what I'm telling myself. Over and over and over and over and over. Until it becomes the truth!
]]>Courtesy of a Famitsu feature and the universal translator that is Reddit, the internet is currently awash with new information about the combat systems in Dark Souls II. Apart from the addition of QTEs to simplify the dastardly boss fights, the changes are tweaks to the Souls formula rather than massive overhauls. The cover system could be awkward but the inclusion of a Dutiful Commando class probably makes it necessary. Thank the gaming gods that From have finally seen the light and included a recharging health system though because, damn, if you played the previous games, you'll surely agree that they were unnecessarily difficult.
Obviously, that's a barrel-load of bilge. Click for knowledge and videos.
]]>There are lots of loud videos of computer games being shown in a large room in LA. You may be watching live streams of the bizarre occurrence online but if you have other things to do, such as actually playing games or sitting in the sun and drinking lemonade, then fear not, because all of the ones relevant to our non-console interests will find their way here eventually. Take Dark Souls 2 - the next entry in the superb action-RPG series is coming to PC and we won't even have to organise a petition to make it happen. With that in mind, I spent the last couple of hours paddling to America and have retrieved the new trailer below. It has terrible music.
]]>A word of warning: I have never played Dark Souls, and this information is coming from French website GameKult's interview with a Yui Tanimura, the Japanese game director of Dark Souls II. I am merely an information conduit. A nexus from them to you, with news that the complaints of the horrible, nasty port job of the previous game was noticed and taken into account. Dark Souls II is being developed as a PC game. Hooray!
]]>When a franchise is resurrected years after its previous instalment, it's only natural to worry that there may be unnecessary changes to a once successful formula. Changes often make me sad, staring at the flickering screen like a melancholy ghost who realises that he no longer belongs in the world. The very term 'reboot' sometimes makes me head for the nearest tunnel of light, my only 'goodbye' a sigh and a shrug. Dark Souls 2 isn't a reboot though and not enough time has lapsed for a paradigm shift to have taken place that means there must be regenerating health and Facebook integration. The new trailer shows some environments and they look suitably dingy and suited to vertical exploration.
]]>The incredibly unfortunate heir to E3's Mountain-Dew-and-Dorito-stained throne just happened, so onward to the inevitable barrage of substance-free announcements. First up, Dark Souls II is a thing. It's official, it's real, etc. Presumably, it's also a videogame, but Namco and From didn't even go that far. So, is it coming to PC? I haven't the foggiest. But given Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition's strong reception 'round these parts, it seems likely [Update: And also confirmed. Hooray!]. Until we know, well, anything, though, here's an appropriately death-ridden CG trailer. If you pay close attention, you might also notice DRAGONS EVERYWHERE.
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