14 DAY TRIAL // Most players who are attracted to Dark Souls 2 and its core mechanics say that the most interesting aspect of the game is the difficulty level, the way the team at From Software created a deep set of combat concepts that punish even the smallest player misstep.
I can understand the power that the feeling of challenge and the ability to overcome it in the end can have over a player, as the kind of obsessive player who has spent hours just trying to find a way to take out Kangaxx the Lich in the old Baldur’s Gate 2.
But as I am playing Dark Souls 2, the most interesting aspect of the game is not the difficulty, even if I am affected by it at every step, but the way the development team managed to create a world that’s never too generous with information and manages to maintain a palpable sense of mystery.
I did not understand why I awoke in the middle of a shrine and why no one around was willing to give me any sort of information about what was happening to me.
The two introductory sequences set up the basics of a plot but at the same time never give the player any sort of real context about what’s happening around him.
I began to pay more attention to the environment around me, hoping that it would offer some clues, and I repeatedly talked to all the characters that actually had a voice.
But From Software is very determined to make it hard to the player to piece together the story of the kingdom he is exploring or the reasons why he meets some of the creatures that aim to deliver yet another deadly hit.
This sense of mystery, coupled with the difficulty of actually progressing in Dark Souls 2, means that there’s a constant tension building, which makes the game world special.
After a few days spent with the game, I was eager enough to find out more, so I went online and accessed a wiki to learn more.
I was impressed once more by how quickly a dedicated community of players can piece together all the essential elements of such an opaque title.
But after reading a few entries, I felt a pang of guilt created by the feeling I was cheating Dark Souls 2 by reading about rather than playing it to find out what I wanted to know.