14 DAY TRIAL // Although Dark Souls 2 was far from being the revelatory experience that Dark Souls was hailed to be, it still managed to perform extraordinarily well on the PC platform, in spite of all the reported issues with the client and the horrible way its keyboard and mouse controls handle.
The game's unique take on multiplayer, a "loose connection" experience, as the devs put it, allows you to see the signs of various other players who ventured through the same area, in the form of bloodstains and various notes, ranging from useful tips to completely inane comments and other such scribblings.
Since statistics show that Dark Souls 2 vastly outperformed its predecessor in terms of sales and player activity right after launch, odds are that you might think Drangleic is being systematically littered and that there should also be a Forest Ranger Covenant to take care of the issue.
The original Dark Souls peaked at over 10k concurrent players during its month of release, in August 2012, and then reached a similar level of activity earlier this year, as fans were preparing for the second installment in From Software's series.
Dark Souls 2 came out for PC on April 25, and Steam statistics show that the number of concurrent players quickly jumped to just under 80k, with some other peaks coming along at the 63k level and 45k level, before dropping down to more manageable levels, but still greatly surpassing its predecessor's degree of activity.
One of the deciding factors is that this time around developer From Software developed the game with the PC version in mind from the get-go, instead of making the port as an after-thought and largely due to fan demand, which led to a much superior experience.
In spite of the numerous issues plaguing the PC version of Dark Souls 2, it still manages to offer the best looking and smoothest running experience in the Souls series, with increased resolution and improved controls.
Another important factor to take into consideration when comparing the two games' degree of activity is the fact that Dark Souls 2 also banked heavily on all the hype created by its predecessor, apart from being a generally solid game, of course.