We often come across media that become overnight sensations once it released, but then proceed to completely fall flat with a follow-up sequel. There are endless examples of this kind of outcome in media spanning across movies, anime/manga, books, and, to discuss our current topic at hand, even video games.
But more often than not, the reason for a sequel’s poor performance in these media can often be attributed to a misunderstanding by its target audience.
Or maybe a spiritual successor that tries to do things differently, in hopes of introducing new ideas, but ends up being a product for a different kind of audience.
Dark Souls 2 by FromSoftware is one such prime example of a misunderstood game, we believe. But before going into depth, talking about why it is important, let’s look into the history of the company that made the Souls franchise.
A New Breed of Action RPGs
In 1986, Notoshi Zin founded the software development company called ‘FromSoftware’ in Japan. Their venture into the video game world started with the development of a first-person dungeon crawler title called ‘King’s Field’, which gained quite a popularity after its release. This led to the company focusing on full-time video game development.
After more than a decade of experimenting with various genres of console generation games, such as mecha, horror, stealth action, and more. FromSoftware found a footing that would allow them to break into international fame.
The title was 2009’s Demon’s Souls, directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, whose name is brought up anytime there is discussion about topics surrounding ‘best games ever made’.
Demon’s Souls was not an instant success story, the game was designed to be overtly challenging and confusing. Former Sony Interactive Entertainment President Shuhei Yoshida thought that it was an “ unbelievably bad game.” He was stuck in the first few hours of the game for a good deal of time, as we all got playing our first-ever Souls games.
But upon release of the game, it gained immediate critical success across the globe with flying scores from every reviewer.
Shuhei Yoshida later even admitted to having severely underestimated the game’s quality, as Demon Souls kick-started FromSoftware’s journey into developing further on this new brand of action game, which would shake up the video game industry in the years to come.
The Inception of Souls-likes
The Success story of Demon Souls immediately called for a spiritual successor, so FromSoftware, with Hidetaka Miyazaki once again, started working on the next title. A game that would refine the mechanics introduced in Demon Souls Further, with a story even more grand and ambitious in nature.
Before going into the development history of Dark Souls, we should take a look at the history behind the man himself, Hidetaka Miyazaki, who is the driving force behind this genre. In the 2000s, FromSoftware wanted to develop a follow-up to their ‘King’s Field’ dungeon crawlers, but with a better budget and for the PlayStation 3 Console generation.
From Hidetaka Miyazaki’s current body of works, it’s pretty prevalent that he was naturally interested in the Fantasy genre and regularly consumed such media. But he didn’t decide to pursue a career in video game development until he played Fumito Ueda’s PlayStation 2 classic, Ico. He decided to switch careers and join the video game company, FromSoftware.
In the mid-2000s, the development of the first Souls-like was seemingly slow and rendered with issues, almost to the point of cancellation. Hidetaka Miyazaki, who was involved with the programming team for Armored Core games, was brought in to take charge of the project. It turned out to be one of the best decisions FromSoftware ever took.
Miyazaki wanted to bring back video game difficulties from the previous console era, when unfairness was a part of the learning curve, because games were becoming more and more cutscene-focused with a lot of hand-holding.
Dark Souls was released in 2011 to critical acclaim, with a lot of fans who enjoyed Demon’s Souls simultaneously agreeing that this was the game that perfected the formula. But Hidetaka Miyazaki did not return for the next entry in the series.
Dark Souls 2 releases
Dark Souls 2 released in 2014 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, even though it received praises from critics, it was marred with mixed reception owing to how different the game was in several aspects compared to the previous Souls games.
Adding to the fact that the game was gaining quite the notoriety among fans, since the marketing material differed quite a lot when compared to the release build. Still to this day, the game is regarded as the most disappointing entry in the franchise, garnering only a niche community of players who still love the game.
But to understand why the fate of this game turned out to be this way, we have to look at the development history of Dark Souls 2 and the people behind it.
Dark Souls 2 was directed by Yui Tanimura, with Hidetaka Miyazaki only acting in a supervisory position. The game later received an updated release titled ‘Scholar of the First Sin,’ which overhauled the game greatly, garnering mixed reception. Yui Tanimura, later went on to direct DLCs for the Souls series and even co-directed Elden Ring.
Fans often point to both Yui Tanimura and Tomohiro Shibuya being unfamiliar with the franchise as reasons to why the game was so different and unapproachable.
It’s easy to accuse, but fans completely miss out on the most important person behind Dark Souls 2, designer/supervisor Naotoshi Zin, and also one of the founders of FromSoftware, having worked in several franchises throughout the company’s history.
The relation between Dark Souls 2 and King’s Field games
As we mentioned earlier, FromSoftware’s Souls series was sort of a spiritual successor to the King’s Field dungeon crawler series, and the person who was involved in the development process of these games is none other than Naotoshi Zin, especially King’s Field IV, which he personally supervised.
Dark Souls 2 is more of a King’s Field game than it is a sequel to the first Dark Souls game, and that is where the main roots of misunderstanding stem from. Fans who have played Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls try to relate to Dark Souls 2, but the game is far different, and even as a sequel, it’s very detached from the storyline of the trilogy.
During the release of Dark Souls 2, the publisher mentioned that the game “will feature a new hero, a new storyline, and an unfamiliar world for players to survive in.” But people didn’t expect it to be too unique from the Souls series.
Meanwhile, fans of King’s Field, specifically the fourth game, have constantly pointed out that the game feels like it is a new King’s Field.
There are countless instances to reiterate the references between these games, which fans have already pointed out several times. A Reddit user by the name “u/atis1” had posted an image that clearly showed off the similarities between the two games.
Anyone who has played through Dark Souls 2 will remember memorable locations such as the hub, Majula, which has a massive well that one can jump down into.
King’s Field has similar areas at the beginning of the game, which lead to different locations if the player is strong enough to avoid dying from fall damage. Both games even have similar enemy types that start to reanimate once the player is in close proximity.
Rooms with face-masks on walls that trigger trap darts at the players, dead giant carcasses throughout both games, and interactable illusory walls that needed a specific button press instead of hitting or rolling into them like the rest of the Souls franchise.
There are countless instances that point to Dark Souls 2 being an unrelatable sequel to its own franchise, but it was like a walk down memory lane for the King’s Field fanbase.
A Detached but Beautiful Story
But just having references and similarities is not where the merits of Dark Souls 2 end. The game has its own qualities that make it stand up for itself. As mentioned before, the plot is attributed to Dark Souls 2’s detachment from the trilogy. Both Dark Souls and Dark Souls 3, being part of the same trilogy, have locations and references that correlate to each other.
For Dark Souls 2, other than the main conflict of the trilogy, a relatable boss, and a few items, the game stands on its own with a pretty much original story, which is very well written.
Instead of the chosen undead, Dark Souls 2 follows ‘the bearer of the curse’ who is traversing through the Drangleic Kingdom in search of a remedy for the curse. The player character comes across something sinister that has been brewing in the Kingdom of Drangleic.
As the story unfolds through cryptic descriptions in the usual FromSoftware fashion, players find out about the cruel fate of the people of Drangleic and how King Vendrick made a last-ditch effort to save the throne. For anyone reading who has not played Dark Souls 2 yet, that’s all you’ll get from us as a synopsis for the story.
Dark Souls 2’s a plot worth experiencing alone, even just for the atmosphere and the sound design itself. Understandably, fans of the Dark Souls trilogy find the separation from the world-building in the first Dark Souls game a bit too jarring. But in Dark Souls 2’s defense, it is unfair to the game not to even be given the chance to shine as its own pseudo-original game.
Dark Souls 2’s Influence on Future FromSoftware Games
Fans may dismiss Dark Souls 2 on several grounds, be it the overloaded boss fight count, slow combat animations, weird hitboxes, or something like not being invulnerable when opening large doors. But there are several gameplay and design choices that caught the eyes of FromSoftware developers, enough to carry forward the influences to newer projects.
Hidetaka Miyazaki, in an interview with IGN, praised the design ideas in Dark Souls 2 for influencing some of the decisions in Elden Ring.
Dark Souls 2 is a game with non-linear world design, straying away from the interconnected metroidvania-esque design in the first game. There are a lot of branching paths to different locations with several bosses.
While it may not have been to the taste of the fans, the same ideas of a non-linear open world progression system with a game that’s overloaded with bosses is what was praised in 2022 upon the release of Elden Ring. All clues point to Dark Souls 2 being the progenitor to one of the biggest game releases in FromSoftware’s recent history.
Hidetaka Miyazaki said, “There’s really no way of telling how or if the series would have continued the way it did without Dark Souls 2,” while also mentioning how it was a turning point for the future of FromSoftware’s game development.
Dark Souls 2 encouraged FromSoftware to allow other talents from the company to hold supervisory positions for future games.
“There is a high possibility that we would delegate the responsibility of director to those other Souls-ish games going forward.” Said Hidetaka Miyazaki, owing to Dark Souls 2.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, a completely original IP, was co-directed by Kazuhiro Hamatani, who went on to become the scenario writer for Armored Core VI. While the multiplayer rougelite spinoff of Elden Ring, subtitled ‘Nightreign’, is being helmed by Junya Ishizaki in his first directorial debut.
Beyond these merits, Dark Souls 2 might have had a mixed reception with its visual design on launch, but to credit where it’s due, the game even influenced scene direction and location transitions for FromSoftware games moving forward.
Walking into locations where players can be at a vantage point to oversee the overall grand design of what’s to come ahead, be it something like walking out into the warm sun-kissed view of Majula for the first time, or walking up the rain soaked stairs out in the open as the shining Drangleic Castle peeks out of the corner.
All design directions that influenced later games, like when Dark Souls 3 gives us our first taste of Irithyll of the Boreal Valley in full view, out of the Carthus Catacombs.
Mechanics that were unique to Dark Souls 2
Dark Souls 2 also tried some unique experimentation with the game’s systems that never returned in future FromSoftware games. The most common of these unique mechanics are the ones that the Dark Souls fanbase tries to point out in order to bash the game.
Some of these include things like the utilization of an adaptability stat, reduced weapon durability, invincibility frames missing in certain interactions, and things as such.
For each of these attempted experiments that failed to click with the audience, there also came some that were brilliant ideas. For example, the ability to sprint up ladders using stamina and tapping to jump off ladders instead of sliding down, something that never returned in newer games for some reason, but was actually very useful in situations.
Parrying regular enemies had a unique animation, leading them to fall flat on the ground, allowing the player to get a new type of execution animation. Bashing at an enemy’s raised shield led to a guard break animation, which put the enemy in a state of slow recovery animation, similar to the regular parry animations in other games.
Changes like these set apart the combat in Dark Souls 2 from the rest of Souls-likes, which generally re-utilize the same-looking animations for the same actions.
One of the biggest and most fun experiments FromSoftware tried with Dark Souls 2’s combat was power stancing. This can be triggered with the right distribution of stat points when the player dual-wields two weapons of the same class.
By wielding two weapons, players get access to what is known as ‘power stancing’, meaning unique combat movesets while in combat with both weapons of the same class. For some reason, this beautiful feature never returned in Dark Souls 3 but was thankfully brought back in Elden Ring.
The Survival Horror side of Dark Souls 2
Dark Souls 2, in some parts, leans more heavily on the horror side of the Souls series as compared to the rest of the trilogy, thus including some unique item uses like a completely new way to use torches.
Most of the modern souls games either give the player indestructible torches to use as weapons or small pouch lanterns to light up the dark.
In Dark Souls 2, the players can light up torches at bonfires for a limited amount of time to traverse through dark locations. This mechanic of attaching a timer to the player’s only available source of light in dark catacombs filled with enemies in every corner, until the timer ran out, created a sense of dread that is only found in survival games.
Speaking of Survival horrors, the Pursuer may be an enemy that a lot of the players avoided and absolutely hated coming across in Dark Souls 2, but they were also the only unique one to do that in this game.
The Pursuer to the Bearer of Curse is what Dahaka was to the Prince in Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, or what Nemesis was to Jill Valentine in Resident Evil 3
The Pursuer is not just any shallow boss chasing the player character around, it is an enemy specifically designed to hunt down the Bearer of the Curse and steal their souls to wear them on, as if to make each atone for their sins.
Just like how the players invade worlds to kill, the Pursuer actively invades the player’s world, presenting a mirrored executioner, which is signified by the Pursuer’s helmet, which looks similar to the player character’s.
The Brilliance of Bonfire Ascetics
Another important mechanic that was unique to Dark Souls 2 and a lot of players wished more FromSoftware games utilized was the use of Bonfire Ascetics. Dark Souls 2 may be shunned for various reasons on surface level by uninterested players, but it did a lot to revolutionize how new game plus systems worked, and Bonfire Ascetics was one of those.
Burning a Bonfire Ascetic in an area not only resets enemies, bosses, and increases health, as most people know. It actually upgrades the particular area by one new game plus level, which means a way lot more which including new items to find, new enemies to fight, and even new behavior from the bosses.
This increased interest in replayability of particular areas, as there were always new things to look forward to with every Bonfire Ascetic burned. Essentially changing how one would go about experiencing grinding in Souls-likes, always looking forward to collecting and encountering new changes.
If you have tried Dark Souls 2 before but were put off by it initially or went with the herd mentality of ‘it must be bad if people say it is,’ then we hope reading this would at least get you to try the game one more time.
We are at the end of the rope if you still think it isn’t for you, but if trying the game again made you actually stick around and changed your view, then we will consider ourselves accomplished in rekindling the age of fire.
