The Lore of Dark Souls II

Dark Souls is one of the best action role-playing video game series about the adventures of Ashen One and dungeon crawling. Each of Souls games has an element that differentiates it from other souls-like games e.g. Dark Souls I has the best world design, Dark Souls II is considered to have the best PvP, and Dark Souls III is regarded to have the best boss fights and so on. Dark Souls II is the third entry in the Souls series and one of the most underrated but there are few things which make it unique and special.

Story

In the world of Dark Souls II, Undead are cursed to live forever and doomed to become hopeless and hollow. The player reaches Majula by passing through a dark cave and begins the journey. The player meets Emerald Herald who gives guidance for reaching the fallen kingdom of Drangleic and acquiring the great souls of the Old Ones to break the curse of the Undead. Afterwards, Player encounters Nashandra, Queen of Drangleic, who revealed that the kingdom fell long ago due to the failure of Vendrick, King of Drangleic, and asked the player to slay him.



Near the end, the player gets to know about the betrayal of the Queen and the fact that Queen has actually ruined the kingdom. She betrayed the King into pillaging the lands of Giants where she intended to steal the power of Giants. King’s invasion was a success in acquiring the Great Soul. Using this soul, King created the Golems, and Golems helped the King to construct the Drangleic Castle to show his love and gratitude to Queen. However, Giant Lord retaliated with its army and eventually destroyed the kingdom. Later, King discovered the true intentions of Queen and felt heartbroken and locked himself inside the Undead Crypt forever.



Following, Player travels to the keep of Aldia, Brother of King, to obtain an artifact that allows time travel in the form of accessing the memories of dead ones. The player enters the memories of a deceased Giant and defeats the Lord Giant and claims its power before Nashandra. The player meets Emerald Herald for the last time who asks to put Nashandra to rest and link the fire which will lift the curse of Undead at the cost of the player’s life.

Gameplay

Dark Souls II has some similar mechanics from its predecessors like parrying and rolling. The player can customize character and choose classes with different stats and attributes. Dark Souls II has more freedom and exploration than its previous titles. Boss fights are hard and environmental situations are very tough as death is the central theme of Souls series. The player obtains souls by defeating enemies and bosses which can be used as a game currency to upgrade stats and attributes. The game has PvP mode which allows the player to invade different worlds and fight other players around the world. The game also has RPG elements which makes it very compelling to play. The player can use shields, rings, and items accordingly but several items in the game require upgraded stats i.e. Strength, Faith, and Dexterity to use them.

Ending

The fire was meant to be originally linked by the King, but he never did. It is to be mentioned that the King had no idea about the curse of the Undead which spreads due to the stolen power of the Giants and mistook it as an infection. In the end, the player encounters Nashandra and claims the Throne of Want by defeating her and links the fire, for a short period, which removes the curse of the Undead and this cycle continues forever. There is an updated version of the game known as Scholar of the First Sin which includes all DLC campaigns i.e. Crown of the Ivory King, Crown of the Sunken King, and Crown of the Old Iron King.