Dark Souls 2
Without a doubt, Dark Souls 2 remains the black sheep of FromSoft’s soulslike subgenre. Coming off of the game that helped ignite the series in the first place was always going to be tough, but man did Dark Souls 2 underwhelm players. Many, including myself admittedly, lamented that FromSoft had lost their spark with this sequel. Many of the complaints were pegged toward the game’s disjointed world design. Lothric lacked the wide interconnected areas that Dark Souls 1 did so well, going in a more linear hub-based direction. Duplicate enemy mobs also tarnished the game in players’ minds. But one thing Dark Souls 2 did phenomenally well was its multiplayer. To this day, the PvP in DS2 stands as a highlight of the series and FromSoft’s catalogue as a whole. Dark Souls 2 is one of those games whose quality stands out when comparing it to others outside its own series.
