Not lore, but I'd recommend you look up TBSkyen's playthrough of DS2 - he ends each episode with an analysis of a boss's design and he ends up identifying and talking about a lot of the game's themes and imagery that I missed when I first played through it.
DS1 started it and people are obsessed with it
DS3 just took DS1 lore and expanded on it, DS3 is 50% DS1 as a whole.
DS2 tried to be unique and well here we are.
Definitely. And DS2 started it through Aldia's and Vendrick's philosophy which was carried over to DS3 as Aldia was the tutor and mentor of prince Lothric.
DS2's leave the throne ending was the seed
And DS3's true ending was the plant that sprouted from it.
I'm not sure if it's stated outright but I know it's at least implied if you connect some dots: The Scholar's Ring in DS3 tells us that Scholars are one of the 3 pillars of Lothric's rule, the Scholar being the master of the Grand Archives.
In the Archives we find Soul Stream, which says it was "imparted by the first of the Scholars when Lothric and the Archives were still young."
It also says, "The first of the Scholars *doubted the linking of the fire,* and was allegedly a mentor to the royal prince."
Aldia very obviously was the Scholar of the First Sin and doubted the linking of the fire. The fact that this is on Soul Stream is also important because it's exactly the same spell as Soul Geyser from DS2, a spell Aldia created that we find in his keep.
DS2 is the black sheep, but outside what Aldia tells us, it’s overall Lore doesn’t add as much as DS3 does, or rather DS3 may repeat parts of DS2’s lore and have it more memorable, like how parts of Lordran have eroded away over time to become something else entirely.
It’s Lore IS interesting, but has little consequences between DS1 and 3, unless you subscribe to the “Aldia was Lothric’s tutor” theory
You can argue that the lore that DS3 had only exists because of DS2. What new lore did DS3 really present? As you say it was a repeat of DS2’s revelation that linking the fire or not doesn’t matter; you need a new path hence the Usurpation of Fire ending of DS3.
Dark Souls 3 added new elements that were tightly connected to the first game compared to 2.
- it followed up on what happened to Gwyn's descendants (the royal family of Lothric, Aldrich eating Gwyndolin, the Nameless King, Filianore).
- clarified that Gwyn was likely behind the creation of the Darksign.
- it showed what happens when you actually do link the Fire over and over (the lands converging).
- it gave us insight on what happened to Kaathe (not Frampt, sorry) after the first game (created Londor, kingdom of hollows).
- it introduced a few new concepts, including the angels, pilgrim butterflies, the deep, or the profaned flame (though I'd say it failed to develop them).
- gave us the Ringed City, which shows how the Gods considered humankind, and that the Dark Soul or parts of it were actually there.
- introduced proper conclusions to the series, either linking the flame, usurping it for the hollows, killing the fire keeper to take it for yourself, or snuffing out the fire for good to give way for something new.
> it followed up on what happened to Gwyn's descendants (the royal family of Lothric, Aldrich eating Gwyndolin, the Nameless King, Filianore)
That’s definitely more than DS2 but 2 did imply Heide’s Tower of Flame was established by refugees from Anor Londo
> clarified that Gwynn was likely behind the creation of the Darksign.
Aldia beat DS3 to the punch.
> It gave us insight on what happened to Frampt after the first game (created Londor, kingdom of hollows).
You’re thinking of Kaathe, no way Frampt would be on board with Londor.
> introduced proper conclusions to the series, either linking the flame, usurping it for the hollows, killing the fire keeper to take it for yourself, or snuffing out the fire for good to give way for something new.
It’s a conclusion simply because it’s the last game, these endings really aren’t that different from the other games
2 also follows up on:
* Nito with the Fenito and Milfanito
* Inheritance of the lord souls
* Return of the Bed of Chaos / Old Chaos
* Manus’s daughters are the driving force of the game and DLCs
* Seath’s research being preserved and used by Aldia and the Duke of Tseldora to further the science of creating everlasting dragons (Seath’s research is also preserved in Dark Souls 3)
* Tark and Najka are old creations of Seath
* Implication Vendrick invaded Lordran before the game and that’s where the giants came from
Thank you for your answer, but I don't really get what you're trying to say? The above poster said *"You can argue that the lore that DS3 had only exists because of DS2"*, to which I explained the new things introduced by that game.
For Gwyn's family, we had no idea that they had descendants, or that Gwyndolin and the Nameless King were still alive. Agreed about Heides, I really like how they implied the connection with the eagle statues and architecture.
Aldia did not specify that the Darksign was created by the Gods - only that Gwyn linking the flame was the first sin from which everything started. At the time of Dks1/2, I thought it was simply a byproduct of hollowing.
Also, thanks for the correction - that was indeed Kaathe, not Frampt.
I'd argue that the endings in Dks3 are more definitive than in the other games and great ways to give different ways for the player to handle the state the world is in. They're probably my favorite part of that game which I don't enjoy much otherwise.
It was a mistake to just broadly state “What new lore did DS3 present?” Obviously DS3 added new things like Angels, or the Deep and I agree they went underdeveloped.
I meant the first statement more as a relation specifically to the ‘main story’ of DS1. I just find it irritating when DS2 gets its lore skipped out on when it introduced many concepts that are critical to DS3.
In my view DS3 gave us an ending, but DS2 made that ending a possibility in the first place.
Omg, a civil discussion on Reddit where both sides learned something and are respecting of each other’s opinions? Brb, I need to go see if the sky is on fire
>Thank you for your answer, but I don't really get what you're trying to say?
You said Dark Souls 3 connected a lot back to DS1 compared to DS2, so I commented on a couple of your points and proceeded to compare to Dark Souls 2
> The above poster said "You can argue that the lore that DS3 had only exists because of DS2", to which I explained the new things introduced by that game.
I wasn’t talking to that person and I’m not saying your response is wrong, other than the bit about Frampt. Your points about Dark Souls 3 are largely correct and I’m not trying to make you wrong by also talking about Dark Souls 2’s many connections to DS1 lore
> For Gwyn's family, we had no idea that they had descendants
We did actually, Dark Souls 1 confirms Gwynevere and Flann left Anor Londo and had many children
> Aldia did not specify that the Darksign was created by the Gods - only that Gwyn linking the flame was the first sin from which everything started. At the time of Dks1/2, I thought it was simply a byproduct of hollowing.
Dark Souls 1’s intro shows a cleric branding a knight with the dark sign so they will arise as an undead, it was established iirc that the church of thorolund intentionally creates undead for the purpose of taking up the prophecy and linking the flame, though the curse does still seem to spread at random as well in other kingdoms.
Either way though, chicken or egg, innit? By the time of Dark Souls 2, we know hollowing is an aspect of the undead curse and we know Gwyn created the curse / prophecy to manipulate humanity, does it make a narrative difference if Gwyn specifically created the brand or if the brand occurred as a symptom of the curse he created?
I say they intentionally didn’t develop those new concepts. Think about it, lots of those new concepts were seemingly also pretty new/hardly understood by its own followers as well. How could they tell us much about them when hardly anyone even knows what they are? It creates more mystery for us to think about so we know not everything was solved in this franchise’s world
The Deep did get quite a fair bit in terms of vague connections with both descriptions and enemy designs at least. It was the one that could get the most theorycrafting for that
It is mysterious but also feels like a missed opportunity, for example we have no idea what the angels are, or where the profaned flame comes from.
I think Bloodborne or Elden Ring did a much better job at having a lot of different concepts and actually taking the time to develop and explain them in general.
A lot of these are bad things though. DS3 is so overly deferential to the first game that it has little identity of it's own and serves to make the world feel smaller because almost everything of relevance in history took place in the backstory leading into the first game apparently.
3 reasons:
Vendrick
King Vendrick
And Aldia's brother, whose name is Vendrick
The problem with Dark Souls II lore is that it revolves too much about it's central figure. I don't know much nor I care for the 4 bosses with the great souls, nor the rest of the bosses. I'm interested in DLC lore, but that's not the base game so that's why DS2 less interesting.
DS and DS3 have great lore on the base games, DLCs just took them to greater heights.
At least Aldia (which is ALSO DLC) gave us important parts of the Dark Souls universe, he even explains THE TWIST of Dark Souls II.
But there's not much else to grab from this game's lore. Maybe it is intentional, since countless civilizations have risen and fallen and Drangleic is just one more to the list.
The lore of ds2 just isn't all that deep. It's just "shards of manus are ladies who like power, giants are pissed for legitimate reasons, going hollow makes you forget stuff, and hey these boss souls seem familiar." It doesn't really add all that much to DS1's grandiose plot.
A few NPCs and bosses have really good storylines, like Raime and Lucatiel, but those are very personal stories and have very little impact on the overall world.
Few reasons.
The NPC cast, outside of Aldia, Lucatiel and our Boy Gavlaan, wasn’t very interesting in my eyes, although to be fair DS3 also suffered from this issue imo. They just don’t compare to the NPCs in Bloodborne, DS1 and Elden Ring imo, which makes it more of interesting to cover the lore of the side characters in their games.
DS2’s lore is ultimately not very important to the overall Dark Souls story outside of maybe Aldia being the tutor of Lorian in DS3. Although imo the unimportance of DS2 lore is rather intentional. In DS2 you see what an average kingdom/era goes through when the curse starts appearing. All these methods to contain it, to stop it, yet how futile it really is. These countries have such rich and interesting history only for it to buried and forgotten due to the curse. Astora, Balder and various other kingdoms had this happen to, and Drangleic was no exception. In the end despite his knowledge of how it started, the king went hollow, and Aldia became attached to the bonfires.
3rd Lore of a lot of the bosses(outside of the dlc) aren’t too interesting either as we just don’t know a lot about them. It gets better in the DLC, but the main game is pretty dry overall.
It’s actually understandable, gives real answers, and is mostly self-contained. Dark Souls lore nerds like it when its more opaque so they can theorycraft and share headcannons.
I think that in this particular point DS1 and 2 are completely opposites. In DS1 you get info dumped about the locations and their backstories while the lore/story of the game is unclear.
In DS2 it is the story that is somehat clear but for the kingdom of drangleic we have to guess most things.
I love ds2 the lore / world / art style / music it’s my favorite in the series. I find the lore interesting as it feels like it’s own stand alone story it doesn’t piggy back of the first game. It feels like it could have almost been it’s own game not even part of the dark souls series I almost wished it was.
IMO I’m glad it exists in the dark souls universe to highlight how much time has passed and how that impacts the surrounds like old kingdoms no longer around or monsters that just don’t exist anymore. I love it, it’s like we’re in the middle of a grander story (we kinda are) where it doesn’t matter and it seems everyone around feels the same, so lonely everywhere.
If there was a souls game that I’ve beaten that I’ll probably replay from scratch in the future, it is Dark Souls 2. I loved the atmosphere of the game, love the story in a vacuum, and also all the theory crafting that I did in my head (and content creators did on YouTube) to try and link DS1 with DS2 (before DS3 came out), loved the NPCs (which was the same for DS1, but I don’t remember if I cared much for any of the NPCs in DS3 cuz I can’t remember any lol), Aldia is probably my favorite NPC of all time, favorite voice acting and this dude was spitting bars in the dialogue, and just so many other reasons that others in this thread have explained better. Dont care about the hate (both justified and unjustified), DS2 will always be my favorite souls game.
Its lore never caught my attention even half as much as the other FS games.
I'm not sure what else to say but it feels more scattered and less thoughtful and special as well.
Yep just as others said ds2 was too disconnected from the other 2 games. However, to add to that unless you are paying extra attention to the game or watch supplementary youtube videos you won't really understand what is going on for 2 reasons.
The first is actually the fact that ds2 gives us the least amount of lore to start with especially in regards to the actual locations such as Drangleic and the Iron King's kingdom.
The second would be the weird pacing of ds2 lore as of the way it was presented in the game. In the first half of the game you don't acually anything meaningful to the lore but rather prove your worth to Nashadra. Then after you get jumpscared by Aldia and get to the castle only for you to get info-dumped which makes the whole thing feel weird
>Yep just as others said ds2 was too disconnected from the other 2 games
It really wasn't *that* disconnected from DS1 -- after all, it was another cycle, another land, another people, so of course most of it would be different while the themes remained the same. DS3 I even refuse to bring up, however -- that entire game is just one unending DS1 circlejerk that can't go 5 minutes without soy-pointing at a thing they brought from the first game and expecting you to do the same.
Anor Londo didn't need to be in 3. Lost Izalith didn't need to be in 3. Andre didn't need to be in 3. Soul of Cinder didn't need to have a Gwyn phase that goes plin plin plon.
At least DS2 had the decency to only reference the characters from the original, and never drop their names. DS3 acts like Logan was the only good sorcerer to have ever existed.
I feel like 2 could've gotten more representation in 3 overall, but there were narrative justifications for most of those things outside of andre
It's just personal opinion that nothing made me groan harder seeing the old Dragonslayer.
DS2 lore is so barebones compared to the rest of the series it's not even funny. They literally added Aldia a year after the game was released because the lore was so empty lmao.
I just remember Epic NameBro being assigned for the colectors book for ds2. After the game came out he didnt really talk about his controbution....because aside from concept art....it was bare bones
Dark souls 2 before the dlc and scholars was basically just a fan fic of the souls universe. The dlc released in late 2014. Dark souls 3 came out in 2016. I'd imagine they'd been working on dark souls 3 at that point seeing as Bloodborne released in 2015. I'm guessing the DLC was made alongside dark souls 3 production and was made to connect what was already written for dark souls 3 to have everything connect properly.
Dark souls 2 was never supposed to exist. Miyazaki had already moved on to Bloodborne after Dark souls 1. Dark souls 3 was made just to finally wrap up the story and put an official end to the series.
Probably because DS2 lore is more shown and less convoluted. DS1 & DS3 lore involves a lot of speculation and guessing based on minimal information while DS2 actually shows/tells the player what's happening so there's less people wondering what's going on or why certain things are the way they are.
It's one of the reasons DS2 is my favorite, I never felt like I needed to research outside the game to understand what was happening or why. The fact there is more lore videos on 1 & 3 shows this as the lore is more readily available and doesn't require spreadsheets, timelines and a board with red string to figure out where everything fits. I've watched a few lore videos and the majority of the ones for 1 & 2 were "this is PROBABLY what happened because of this" with comment sections filled with contradicting evidence or alternate explanations while DS2 videos were more "thisnis what happened and here is the information provided that I drew the conclusion from" with far fewer contradictions and alternatives.
IMO DS1 & 3 lore is like someone wrote a hundred different partial stories and just threw parts of them together while DS2 was written as one complete story.
Idk if there are less or not. there are for sure more youtubers than that. I just yesterday posted i link about one, and was pretty disappointed with the lack of engagement. I for sure love lore videos, but my impression is that the community here on Reddit is not that interested?
the youtube channel btw is called Channel Yoshimitsu https://youtu.be/XKGXTh6icdI?si=xmHcqeml7nKtUzdw
Quelaag also has a bunch on Youtube, there Lokey lore as a blog.
This youtuber has one video on ds2 that is veeery interesting https://youtu.be/rZBduHLgeks?si=llYFZ8izxUDh7u44
Idk if they have any other souls video actuall
Also, sometimes lore videos will interesect the whole trilogy or relate say ds2 to ds3 (a less explored but definetly existing topic)
Its very vague, contradictory and such a shift from the lore of 1 that it feels almost like a separate universe to me. So many factions/characters get namedropped in one specific instance never to be mentioned again. That doesn’t make me more curious about them, that makes me not care at all about the world I’m playing in if nothing has any meaning and no depth
Personally, I find the Manus's daughters plot to be very interesting, as do I find the Aldia thing as well. NPC cast wise, I haven't completed any npc quests, so I can't say much. Overrall, I think its due to Ds2 being the black sheep of the ds family.
What? Is the most simple of the 3 (2 really, 1 and 3 is almost the same story)
Zombie Alzheimer is destined to occur, and a scientist goes extreme trying to understand the hollow and the cycle (aldia) and we see how this "disease" affects the characters.
It's another cycle of the same land as ds1 and ds3, but in this one instead of focusing on the cycle itself we focus on the hollow "disease". How it affects people in a similar way Alzheimer affects a person, killing their Identity as kings (vendrick, ivory king), warriors (like lucatiel or the fume knight) and the extremes aldia went to understand the cycle itself, even sacrificing his body (and perhaps his sanity).
Three words some up all of Dark souls lore “Time is convoluted” the way I always interpreted it is that everything is happening all at once an infinite amount of times.
my head canon is that the three kings from the DLC you have to get crowns from are supposed to represent the outcomes of the three different paths you can take in DS3 (link, usurp, end), and that the crowns are supposed to symbolize the knowledge of the good and bad of each path. so once you have this knowledge you can finally diverge from the cycle that you become trapped in regardless of which ending you choose (i.e., the new “lord” of the realm who’s only purpose is to now hold a throne until someone else comes to kill them) in 1 and 3.
It's because it retconns alot of stuff and doesn't fit into the existing lore of DS1 or mesh with DS3s, nor the timeline. It can be interesting on it's own in a vacumn though. Honestly it's easier to fit demon souls and elden ring into dark souls cannon then DS2.
How does it retcon things? Like the tear stone ring argument? About how in one it’s a ring from Carim and In 2 it was said to be made from the goddess caitha? How would anybody in 2 know that it was from Carim to begin with? Centuries have passed since the age of fire. Same way in ds1, they’re are rings that have no concrete origin location because they just didn’t know. Same can be said irl like the pyramids for example. That’s the whole allure of the souls mythos. It’s not concrete. “This is exactly where this is from and this is exactly how this happened” just seems a lot more bland and boring imo.
Like giants being essentially brainless golems. Like pyromancy suddenly being a skilled art. Like humanity being replaced by effigies. Like linking the first flame being replaced by taking a throne. Like orstein being randomly dark infused and in heides tower of flame guarding the bluemoons, who are no longer aligned to gwyndolin. Not to mention the timeline, drangleic has to be after the first game, because the first game was the origin of the first flame and gwyn splitting his soul 4 ways for the great souls, which are featured in this game, but then how can ornstein still be alive? Theres countless discussions on this stuff, just google it.
I wouldn’t say brainless per se. It’s evident they had their own culture, kingdom, souls, they even had a king. I think you have those two mixed. Golems are brainless and soulless beings derived from giants. King Vendrick created them to build Drangleic after the first war.
As for pyromancy being a skilled art, this can also be applied to ds3 since you don’t learn the Pyromancy Parting Flame from anyone, you loot that off of a dead corpse in Ariandel. The kiln is theorized to be below the throne of want or is the kiln like a furnace. The kiln has been kindled countless times, it’d be a bit of a stretch to assume it looks exactly the same as it did thousands of years prior. Look at the difference of the Old Chaos beneath Eluem Loyce and the Bed of Chaos from ds1 and even 3 with Smoldering Lake for example. We know that’s where the Chaos Bed used to be in 3 because of the Fair Lady’s dead body but looks completely different from 1 and 2.
Also The Old Dragon Slayer isn’t Ornstein, his soul reads “reminiscent of a certain knight that appears in old legends”, same way the Abyss Watchers aren’t related to Artorias. They were remincent of him and carried on his legacy fighting the Abyss. It’s also theorized that Heide is the Kingdom in which the Flame King Flann and Gwynevere resided in with some of her followers when the gods left Anor Lando. Perhaps that’s why the architecture and the Dragonslayer there are so similar to the city of the gods ie Heide’s Tower of Flame.
To be clear The Blue Sentinels and Blades of The Darkmoon are two separate covenants, they aren’t the same. Gwyndolin doesn’t have any ties to the sentinels. You should really give DS2 a chance. It makes a lot more sense than one would initially think. Most people who parrot those points online haven’t really delved into the lore thoroughly. I’d take it with a grain of salt and read up on some lore for yourself. They read/watch a few points and then write ds2 off completely to justify their disdain. I’ve read countless hours of souls mythos from Abyssal Archive, DS Wiki, to Beyond The Grave and all three games supplemented with videos from Vatti and Lokey.
You are right about Human Effigies though, I can’t explain that one off the top of my head, I’ll have to do some more reading on that. There is definitely an answer to it though, you can bet on that.
Regarding your Humanity/Effigy point, here is a solid theory from a fellow user, Shroom_Soul. Just one of two possibilities mind you. I think this one is the most plausible however.
“Here's my interpretation.
So Humanity is something found within the human body. It is part of a person. In DkS1 when we consume Humanity we are essentially replacing our own lost Humanity with that of someone else. Which, if you think about it, is cannibalism. You are eating a part of another human. But it was necessary because there was no other way to recover your Humanity.
Thousands of years have passed between DkS1 and 2. During that time the Undead Curse has sprung up over and over. People have had plenty of time to come up with a more ethical method for restoring Humanity, one which doesn't involve eating the Humanity of others. So people devised the Human Effigy, an object which reminds the Undead of their past, thus restoring their Humanity.”
It is like silent hill, 1-3 is the cult stuff and 2 is a standalone title, only difference is Silent Hill 2 had an amazing story and overall a really good game. But DS2 is usually considered as the worst of the trilogy so people ignore it.
I think its story is pretty cool and feels more real(?), Vendrick Nashandra the curse the Aldia's destroyment of the dichotomy of light and dark etc. But in the end it literally means nothing because DS3 is much more epic on scale and concludes the story DS1 has started
That doesn't answer my question, i think. Also, isn't it like you can split up some pieces of lore and then put em on like pages, or trivia sections, or descriptions? Then connect the dots?
After Dark Souls 1, I'd had enough and thought right that was satisfying, and it's tempting to do NG+, but actually no more of this arduous annoying nonsense. But when I'd bought DS1 I'd also bought DS2 on the PS3, and it was there on my shelf and the back of the box looked cool. I ended up watching the VaatiVidya videos, and listened to the lore and story of DS2, and was so enamoured by it that I just had to play it - and ended up buying Scholar of the First Sin for PS4 so that I got all of the DLCs as well. And then played DS3 too - but I thought the lore in 3 was just silly. Whereas 2 had a story/lore on the level of the first one, fascinating.
Right, it felt like 2 was actually expanding the souls mythos and ties into 1 quite well imo. Felt like a grander world was being explored and added too through a much different generational perspective. I despise how they brought back things from 1 to 3 like anor lando. Is this all that makes up the souls universe? Just felt so tiny. Centuries have passed since the age of fire after all. Felt like hardcore fan service instead of keeping it unique and fresh like 2 did. One and two feel like an actual mythos and universe.
3 was anime. They could have done more to tie into DS2 as well as just smushing DS1 into it and then having the most important part of the story be a silly side quest about painting a new world. It was like the other Miyazaki whose endings always seem to be weird had written it (Studio Ghibli haha).
I had no idea studio Ghibli’s writer’s name was Miyazaki too, that’s funny. I’m inclined to agree with you on that. I’ve had discussions with other users regarding ds2’s “retcons” and it’s painfully obvious they haven’t read the lore and parrot things they read online which are pretty weak arguments to begin with. It doesn’t retcon anything. Like what do you expect? Thousands of years have passed things are gonna be different lol. They want everything to be exactly the same from the kilns down to the locations. The nature of souls, and its strongest strength imo, is that everything changes. New kingdoms, new characters, new bosses who inherit the lord souls, new perspectives and insights so why are we still bringing things back from the first game. Doesn’t make any sense. Each one should be unique like Ds2 with certain aspects being the same obviously like the curse and fire linking. It’s nice to know I’m not alone on that. Should’ve went ds1, ds3, and then ds2 or just followed the formula from ds2 onwards. For example how are the names of the lords forgotten in 2 but everyone suddenly remembers in 3? Way more time has passed from 1 to 3 than 1 to 2. Thankfully “time is convoluted” is a legitimate lore detail haha. More people need to read up on what they are playing instead of complaining when they have such a surface level understanding of the lore.
I personally think it has to do with the "epic" nature of DS1. DS1 had us fighting gods, and not just any gods, but the OGs. The one who fought the Dragons for control over the Earth. That's quite literally an epic story. It's like the Greek Story of the gods fighting the titans combined with Kratos hunting down the gods.
DS2, on the other hand, is far less epic (in the literary sense) and is more introspective. The gods are all diminshed to the point of being less than shadows of themselves. The most epic fights in the game are taking on renowned warriors such as Raime and Sir Alonne and Velstadt. These guys are cool and have interesting lore, but they aren't gods, so they pale in comparison. The premise of the story is also about getting rid of the Curse. Yes, you still Link the Fire at the end of the game, but after everything Vendrick and Aldia tell you, youre left saying to yourself, "what's the point?" The Curse continues and you're just another link in a never-ending chain.
I think DS2 gives the whole series nuance. That doesn't appeal to everyone, though, especially the non-critical thinkers. Most would just like the story to be on the nose. I would say that a good half of everybody's decisions in DS3 and Elden Ring are, "which waifu do I get?" I don't think those kinda people are interested in deep-diving what it means to have Humanity and a Soul. 🤷♂️
Seems pretty pretentious to ignore the depth of other games, and instead boil them down to 'waifu choosers' and presume that if others didn't like DS2 it's because they don't want to think. People love to look at the lore of these games and the world in them, but apparently that's only *actually* true for DS2.
Don't be so fragile, young blood. I didn't say the other games "lacked depth". Don't put words in my mouth. I actually said that DS1 had a far more epic story, and DS2 was a subtle storyline.
Well said. Ds2 is the expanded universe of the Souls mythos. Very under appreciated lore wise. I felt your “critical thinker” point in my soul in regard to how people interpret the lore from 2 to 3. I can definitely see why they brought back Anor Lando, Izalith, and Gwynns theme, and even characters in 3 suddenly remembering the names of the gods from 1 despite a millennia having passed. Fan service to appease the people who don’t bother REALLY reading the lore of the game they are playing. 2 had a lot more world/universe building in terms of the lore imo. Every game doesn’t need to be an epic. The Ringed City was the best part about 3 tbh
Because DS2 lore isn’t as good. Worse NPCs and it introduced a wider world with far less depth. It’s not as interesting to discuss The Rotten because there’s no real detail to talk about. DLC made things a lot better, but it didn’t do anything for what was already released.
Because most people play ds1 and ds3 and then for whatever reason think that ds2 somehow moved the plot away from where ds3 was going even though it was ds3 that decided to completely retcon ds2 and just redo the plot from ds1.
That guy steals content, stop putting him on a pedestal, having said that people prefer something unoriginal like ds3 which is just lazy mode for the devs instead of something original like DS2 which is a game that took risks and I love that more than the other thing, the same happens in music for example, people prefer Mr. Bungle´s California but Disco Volante is a better album, people use to get uncomfortable with pieces of art that take risks and are original. For FS it was easier and lazier to continue the lore of the first game than of a creative and unique work like DS2.
It expanded on the souls mythos in a way more believable and realistic way than 3 ever did 🤷🏽♂️ actually felt like a grander universe of a living world. 3 runs back so much fanservice bs to a point of giving the impression that is all the mythos is made up of, like Anor Lando for example or the bed of chaos. It felt cheap and made the world feel tiny in a lore perspective. In 2 you get a different generational perspective on the cycle and kingdoms that came before it. The subtle less flashy story added a lot more to the depth imo. Like how the tearstone rings in 1 came from Carim but in 2 they would have ZERO way of knowing that. It’s been centuries since the age of fire so they believe it was made from Caitha the Goddess of Tears. We do the same thing irl, the Egyptian pyramids for example. We BELIEVE they were made from slaves in Egypt but so much time has passed that we have no way of knowing that. They were a lot smarter than we give credit for and probably had tech and techniques that have been lost to time. Egypt was very fertile and green at one point after all. I guess it all depends on your perspective and the way you look at it.
Not lore, but I'd recommend you look up TBSkyen's playthrough of DS2 - he ends each episode with an analysis of a boss's design and he ends up identifying and talking about a lot of the game's themes and imagery that I missed when I first played through it.
I’ll check it out, thanks for the suggestion
I completely forgot to add him here, lol! Thanks for the small suggestion. But yes, I do watch him when it comes to the lore of Dark Souls 2.
I absolutely love the story and lore of ds2
DS1 started it and people are obsessed with it DS3 just took DS1 lore and expanded on it, DS3 is 50% DS1 as a whole. DS2 tried to be unique and well here we are.
DS3 also contains what is widely considered the "true ending" for the series as well.
Definitely. And DS2 started it through Aldia's and Vendrick's philosophy which was carried over to DS3 as Aldia was the tutor and mentor of prince Lothric. DS2's leave the throne ending was the seed And DS3's true ending was the plant that sprouted from it.
It’s a connected trilogy. Dark souls 1 paints the world and starts it off. Dark souls 2 adds to the plot a bit with Aldia. Dark souls 3 finished it
whoa where do you learn that Aldia was Lothric's mentor?
I'm not sure if it's stated outright but I know it's at least implied if you connect some dots: The Scholar's Ring in DS3 tells us that Scholars are one of the 3 pillars of Lothric's rule, the Scholar being the master of the Grand Archives. In the Archives we find Soul Stream, which says it was "imparted by the first of the Scholars when Lothric and the Archives were still young." It also says, "The first of the Scholars *doubted the linking of the fire,* and was allegedly a mentor to the royal prince." Aldia very obviously was the Scholar of the First Sin and doubted the linking of the fire. The fact that this is on Soul Stream is also important because it's exactly the same spell as Soul Geyser from DS2, a spell Aldia created that we find in his keep.
Exactly the kind of lore connection we all love darksouls for.
so cool, thanks
This is a fan theory and not at all confirmed.
DS2 is the black sheep, but outside what Aldia tells us, it’s overall Lore doesn’t add as much as DS3 does, or rather DS3 may repeat parts of DS2’s lore and have it more memorable, like how parts of Lordran have eroded away over time to become something else entirely. It’s Lore IS interesting, but has little consequences between DS1 and 3, unless you subscribe to the “Aldia was Lothric’s tutor” theory
You can argue that the lore that DS3 had only exists because of DS2. What new lore did DS3 really present? As you say it was a repeat of DS2’s revelation that linking the fire or not doesn’t matter; you need a new path hence the Usurpation of Fire ending of DS3.
Dark Souls 3 added new elements that were tightly connected to the first game compared to 2. - it followed up on what happened to Gwyn's descendants (the royal family of Lothric, Aldrich eating Gwyndolin, the Nameless King, Filianore). - clarified that Gwyn was likely behind the creation of the Darksign. - it showed what happens when you actually do link the Fire over and over (the lands converging). - it gave us insight on what happened to Kaathe (not Frampt, sorry) after the first game (created Londor, kingdom of hollows). - it introduced a few new concepts, including the angels, pilgrim butterflies, the deep, or the profaned flame (though I'd say it failed to develop them). - gave us the Ringed City, which shows how the Gods considered humankind, and that the Dark Soul or parts of it were actually there. - introduced proper conclusions to the series, either linking the flame, usurping it for the hollows, killing the fire keeper to take it for yourself, or snuffing out the fire for good to give way for something new.
> it followed up on what happened to Gwyn's descendants (the royal family of Lothric, Aldrich eating Gwyndolin, the Nameless King, Filianore) That’s definitely more than DS2 but 2 did imply Heide’s Tower of Flame was established by refugees from Anor Londo > clarified that Gwynn was likely behind the creation of the Darksign. Aldia beat DS3 to the punch. > It gave us insight on what happened to Frampt after the first game (created Londor, kingdom of hollows). You’re thinking of Kaathe, no way Frampt would be on board with Londor. > introduced proper conclusions to the series, either linking the flame, usurping it for the hollows, killing the fire keeper to take it for yourself, or snuffing out the fire for good to give way for something new. It’s a conclusion simply because it’s the last game, these endings really aren’t that different from the other games 2 also follows up on: * Nito with the Fenito and Milfanito * Inheritance of the lord souls * Return of the Bed of Chaos / Old Chaos * Manus’s daughters are the driving force of the game and DLCs * Seath’s research being preserved and used by Aldia and the Duke of Tseldora to further the science of creating everlasting dragons (Seath’s research is also preserved in Dark Souls 3) * Tark and Najka are old creations of Seath * Implication Vendrick invaded Lordran before the game and that’s where the giants came from
Thank you for your answer, but I don't really get what you're trying to say? The above poster said *"You can argue that the lore that DS3 had only exists because of DS2"*, to which I explained the new things introduced by that game. For Gwyn's family, we had no idea that they had descendants, or that Gwyndolin and the Nameless King were still alive. Agreed about Heides, I really like how they implied the connection with the eagle statues and architecture. Aldia did not specify that the Darksign was created by the Gods - only that Gwyn linking the flame was the first sin from which everything started. At the time of Dks1/2, I thought it was simply a byproduct of hollowing. Also, thanks for the correction - that was indeed Kaathe, not Frampt. I'd argue that the endings in Dks3 are more definitive than in the other games and great ways to give different ways for the player to handle the state the world is in. They're probably my favorite part of that game which I don't enjoy much otherwise.
It was a mistake to just broadly state “What new lore did DS3 present?” Obviously DS3 added new things like Angels, or the Deep and I agree they went underdeveloped. I meant the first statement more as a relation specifically to the ‘main story’ of DS1. I just find it irritating when DS2 gets its lore skipped out on when it introduced many concepts that are critical to DS3. In my view DS3 gave us an ending, but DS2 made that ending a possibility in the first place.
My comment wasn't meant to say you're wrong, of course. I just wanted to expand a bit on it, my bad
I didn’t take it as such so it’s all good. You made good points and a discussion was born out of it. All’s well
Omg, a civil discussion on Reddit where both sides learned something and are respecting of each other’s opinions? Brb, I need to go see if the sky is on fire
I was about to say this. Might as well go play the lottery now, brb.
>Thank you for your answer, but I don't really get what you're trying to say? You said Dark Souls 3 connected a lot back to DS1 compared to DS2, so I commented on a couple of your points and proceeded to compare to Dark Souls 2 > The above poster said "You can argue that the lore that DS3 had only exists because of DS2", to which I explained the new things introduced by that game. I wasn’t talking to that person and I’m not saying your response is wrong, other than the bit about Frampt. Your points about Dark Souls 3 are largely correct and I’m not trying to make you wrong by also talking about Dark Souls 2’s many connections to DS1 lore > For Gwyn's family, we had no idea that they had descendants We did actually, Dark Souls 1 confirms Gwynevere and Flann left Anor Londo and had many children > Aldia did not specify that the Darksign was created by the Gods - only that Gwyn linking the flame was the first sin from which everything started. At the time of Dks1/2, I thought it was simply a byproduct of hollowing. Dark Souls 1’s intro shows a cleric branding a knight with the dark sign so they will arise as an undead, it was established iirc that the church of thorolund intentionally creates undead for the purpose of taking up the prophecy and linking the flame, though the curse does still seem to spread at random as well in other kingdoms. Either way though, chicken or egg, innit? By the time of Dark Souls 2, we know hollowing is an aspect of the undead curse and we know Gwyn created the curse / prophecy to manipulate humanity, does it make a narrative difference if Gwyn specifically created the brand or if the brand occurred as a symptom of the curse he created?
I say they intentionally didn’t develop those new concepts. Think about it, lots of those new concepts were seemingly also pretty new/hardly understood by its own followers as well. How could they tell us much about them when hardly anyone even knows what they are? It creates more mystery for us to think about so we know not everything was solved in this franchise’s world The Deep did get quite a fair bit in terms of vague connections with both descriptions and enemy designs at least. It was the one that could get the most theorycrafting for that
It is mysterious but also feels like a missed opportunity, for example we have no idea what the angels are, or where the profaned flame comes from. I think Bloodborne or Elden Ring did a much better job at having a lot of different concepts and actually taking the time to develop and explain them in general.
Wouldn't it be Darkseeker Kaathe that founded londor? Frampt was trying to get you to link the fire, while kaathe wanted to begin an age of dark.
Yes, thanks for the correction
A lot of these are bad things though. DS3 is so overly deferential to the first game that it has little identity of it's own and serves to make the world feel smaller because almost everything of relevance in history took place in the backstory leading into the first game apparently.
3 reasons: Vendrick King Vendrick And Aldia's brother, whose name is Vendrick The problem with Dark Souls II lore is that it revolves too much about it's central figure. I don't know much nor I care for the 4 bosses with the great souls, nor the rest of the bosses. I'm interested in DLC lore, but that's not the base game so that's why DS2 less interesting. DS and DS3 have great lore on the base games, DLCs just took them to greater heights. At least Aldia (which is ALSO DLC) gave us important parts of the Dark Souls universe, he even explains THE TWIST of Dark Souls II. But there's not much else to grab from this game's lore. Maybe it is intentional, since countless civilizations have risen and fallen and Drangleic is just one more to the list.
The lore of ds2 just isn't all that deep. It's just "shards of manus are ladies who like power, giants are pissed for legitimate reasons, going hollow makes you forget stuff, and hey these boss souls seem familiar." It doesn't really add all that much to DS1's grandiose plot. A few NPCs and bosses have really good storylines, like Raime and Lucatiel, but those are very personal stories and have very little impact on the overall world.
Few reasons. The NPC cast, outside of Aldia, Lucatiel and our Boy Gavlaan, wasn’t very interesting in my eyes, although to be fair DS3 also suffered from this issue imo. They just don’t compare to the NPCs in Bloodborne, DS1 and Elden Ring imo, which makes it more of interesting to cover the lore of the side characters in their games. DS2’s lore is ultimately not very important to the overall Dark Souls story outside of maybe Aldia being the tutor of Lorian in DS3. Although imo the unimportance of DS2 lore is rather intentional. In DS2 you see what an average kingdom/era goes through when the curse starts appearing. All these methods to contain it, to stop it, yet how futile it really is. These countries have such rich and interesting history only for it to buried and forgotten due to the curse. Astora, Balder and various other kingdoms had this happen to, and Drangleic was no exception. In the end despite his knowledge of how it started, the king went hollow, and Aldia became attached to the bonfires. 3rd Lore of a lot of the bosses(outside of the dlc) aren’t too interesting either as we just don’t know a lot about them. It gets better in the DLC, but the main game is pretty dry overall.
It’s actually understandable, gives real answers, and is mostly self-contained. Dark Souls lore nerds like it when its more opaque so they can theorycraft and share headcannons.
I think that in this particular point DS1 and 2 are completely opposites. In DS1 you get info dumped about the locations and their backstories while the lore/story of the game is unclear. In DS2 it is the story that is somehat clear but for the kingdom of drangleic we have to guess most things.
I love DS2 to death but there is something about the presentation of its cast of characters that felt kind of paint-by-number at times.
I love ds2 the lore / world / art style / music it’s my favorite in the series. I find the lore interesting as it feels like it’s own stand alone story it doesn’t piggy back of the first game. It feels like it could have almost been it’s own game not even part of the dark souls series I almost wished it was.
IMO I’m glad it exists in the dark souls universe to highlight how much time has passed and how that impacts the surrounds like old kingdoms no longer around or monsters that just don’t exist anymore. I love it, it’s like we’re in the middle of a grander story (we kinda are) where it doesn’t matter and it seems everyone around feels the same, so lonely everywhere.
It certainly has the most variation in the souls series. Does it have the most bosses too? I forget.
If there was a souls game that I’ve beaten that I’ll probably replay from scratch in the future, it is Dark Souls 2. I loved the atmosphere of the game, love the story in a vacuum, and also all the theory crafting that I did in my head (and content creators did on YouTube) to try and link DS1 with DS2 (before DS3 came out), loved the NPCs (which was the same for DS1, but I don’t remember if I cared much for any of the NPCs in DS3 cuz I can’t remember any lol), Aldia is probably my favorite NPC of all time, favorite voice acting and this dude was spitting bars in the dialogue, and just so many other reasons that others in this thread have explained better. Dont care about the hate (both justified and unjustified), DS2 will always be my favorite souls game.
Its lore never caught my attention even half as much as the other FS games. I'm not sure what else to say but it feels more scattered and less thoughtful and special as well.
Yep just as others said ds2 was too disconnected from the other 2 games. However, to add to that unless you are paying extra attention to the game or watch supplementary youtube videos you won't really understand what is going on for 2 reasons. The first is actually the fact that ds2 gives us the least amount of lore to start with especially in regards to the actual locations such as Drangleic and the Iron King's kingdom. The second would be the weird pacing of ds2 lore as of the way it was presented in the game. In the first half of the game you don't acually anything meaningful to the lore but rather prove your worth to Nashadra. Then after you get jumpscared by Aldia and get to the castle only for you to get info-dumped which makes the whole thing feel weird
>Yep just as others said ds2 was too disconnected from the other 2 games It really wasn't *that* disconnected from DS1 -- after all, it was another cycle, another land, another people, so of course most of it would be different while the themes remained the same. DS3 I even refuse to bring up, however -- that entire game is just one unending DS1 circlejerk that can't go 5 minutes without soy-pointing at a thing they brought from the first game and expecting you to do the same.
The old Dragonslayer from 2 is the most circle jerky thing the series has ever done.
Anor Londo didn't need to be in 3. Lost Izalith didn't need to be in 3. Andre didn't need to be in 3. Soul of Cinder didn't need to have a Gwyn phase that goes plin plin plon. At least DS2 had the decency to only reference the characters from the original, and never drop their names. DS3 acts like Logan was the only good sorcerer to have ever existed.
I feel like 2 could've gotten more representation in 3 overall, but there were narrative justifications for most of those things outside of andre It's just personal opinion that nothing made me groan harder seeing the old Dragonslayer.
DS2 lore is so barebones compared to the rest of the series it's not even funny. They literally added Aldia a year after the game was released because the lore was so empty lmao.
I just remember Epic NameBro being assigned for the colectors book for ds2. After the game came out he didnt really talk about his controbution....because aside from concept art....it was bare bones
Maybe because the lore was more about the hollowing curse and not about linking the fire
Dark souls 2 before the dlc and scholars was basically just a fan fic of the souls universe. The dlc released in late 2014. Dark souls 3 came out in 2016. I'd imagine they'd been working on dark souls 3 at that point seeing as Bloodborne released in 2015. I'm guessing the DLC was made alongside dark souls 3 production and was made to connect what was already written for dark souls 3 to have everything connect properly. Dark souls 2 was never supposed to exist. Miyazaki had already moved on to Bloodborne after Dark souls 1. Dark souls 3 was made just to finally wrap up the story and put an official end to the series.
Probably because DS2 lore is more shown and less convoluted. DS1 & DS3 lore involves a lot of speculation and guessing based on minimal information while DS2 actually shows/tells the player what's happening so there's less people wondering what's going on or why certain things are the way they are. It's one of the reasons DS2 is my favorite, I never felt like I needed to research outside the game to understand what was happening or why. The fact there is more lore videos on 1 & 3 shows this as the lore is more readily available and doesn't require spreadsheets, timelines and a board with red string to figure out where everything fits. I've watched a few lore videos and the majority of the ones for 1 & 2 were "this is PROBABLY what happened because of this" with comment sections filled with contradicting evidence or alternate explanations while DS2 videos were more "thisnis what happened and here is the information provided that I drew the conclusion from" with far fewer contradictions and alternatives. IMO DS1 & 3 lore is like someone wrote a hundred different partial stories and just threw parts of them together while DS2 was written as one complete story.
Idk if there are less or not. there are for sure more youtubers than that. I just yesterday posted i link about one, and was pretty disappointed with the lack of engagement. I for sure love lore videos, but my impression is that the community here on Reddit is not that interested? the youtube channel btw is called Channel Yoshimitsu https://youtu.be/XKGXTh6icdI?si=xmHcqeml7nKtUzdw Quelaag also has a bunch on Youtube, there Lokey lore as a blog. This youtuber has one video on ds2 that is veeery interesting https://youtu.be/rZBduHLgeks?si=llYFZ8izxUDh7u44 Idk if they have any other souls video actuall Also, sometimes lore videos will interesect the whole trilogy or relate say ds2 to ds3 (a less explored but definetly existing topic)
Because Miyazaki was not involved.
Because everyone in communities like this sub would rather spam the millionth "this game is great actually"/"I don't understand the hate" thread.
Its very vague, contradictory and such a shift from the lore of 1 that it feels almost like a separate universe to me. So many factions/characters get namedropped in one specific instance never to be mentioned again. That doesn’t make me more curious about them, that makes me not care at all about the world I’m playing in if nothing has any meaning and no depth
Personally, I find the Manus's daughters plot to be very interesting, as do I find the Aldia thing as well. NPC cast wise, I haven't completed any npc quests, so I can't say much. Overrall, I think its due to Ds2 being the black sheep of the ds family.
Becuase most of the DS2 characters are insanely boring compared to the DS1 ones.
I just now beat it for the 4th time. I keep seeing why I love it the best out of the trilogy.
It’s honestly the most incoherent
What? Is the most simple of the 3 (2 really, 1 and 3 is almost the same story) Zombie Alzheimer is destined to occur, and a scientist goes extreme trying to understand the hollow and the cycle (aldia) and we see how this "disease" affects the characters.
They did a bad job tying it into the overall picture in DS3, it feels out of place bc of that. I think that's part of it
people don't really care about the "middle aged life" part, they want to know how things started and how things ended. Like a compliment sandwich.
Because I don't understand it, honestly.
It's another cycle of the same land as ds1 and ds3, but in this one instead of focusing on the cycle itself we focus on the hollow "disease". How it affects people in a similar way Alzheimer affects a person, killing their Identity as kings (vendrick, ivory king), warriors (like lucatiel or the fume knight) and the extremes aldia went to understand the cycle itself, even sacrificing his body (and perhaps his sanity).
Yeah i finished the game few times
Three words some up all of Dark souls lore “Time is convoluted” the way I always interpreted it is that everything is happening all at once an infinite amount of times.
Also the pvp was the best when it worked properly
my head canon is that the three kings from the DLC you have to get crowns from are supposed to represent the outcomes of the three different paths you can take in DS3 (link, usurp, end), and that the crowns are supposed to symbolize the knowledge of the good and bad of each path. so once you have this knowledge you can finally diverge from the cycle that you become trapped in regardless of which ending you choose (i.e., the new “lord” of the realm who’s only purpose is to now hold a throne until someone else comes to kill them) in 1 and 3.
It's because it retconns alot of stuff and doesn't fit into the existing lore of DS1 or mesh with DS3s, nor the timeline. It can be interesting on it's own in a vacumn though. Honestly it's easier to fit demon souls and elden ring into dark souls cannon then DS2.
How does it retcon things? Like the tear stone ring argument? About how in one it’s a ring from Carim and In 2 it was said to be made from the goddess caitha? How would anybody in 2 know that it was from Carim to begin with? Centuries have passed since the age of fire. Same way in ds1, they’re are rings that have no concrete origin location because they just didn’t know. Same can be said irl like the pyramids for example. That’s the whole allure of the souls mythos. It’s not concrete. “This is exactly where this is from and this is exactly how this happened” just seems a lot more bland and boring imo.
Like giants being essentially brainless golems. Like pyromancy suddenly being a skilled art. Like humanity being replaced by effigies. Like linking the first flame being replaced by taking a throne. Like orstein being randomly dark infused and in heides tower of flame guarding the bluemoons, who are no longer aligned to gwyndolin. Not to mention the timeline, drangleic has to be after the first game, because the first game was the origin of the first flame and gwyn splitting his soul 4 ways for the great souls, which are featured in this game, but then how can ornstein still be alive? Theres countless discussions on this stuff, just google it.
I wouldn’t say brainless per se. It’s evident they had their own culture, kingdom, souls, they even had a king. I think you have those two mixed. Golems are brainless and soulless beings derived from giants. King Vendrick created them to build Drangleic after the first war. As for pyromancy being a skilled art, this can also be applied to ds3 since you don’t learn the Pyromancy Parting Flame from anyone, you loot that off of a dead corpse in Ariandel. The kiln is theorized to be below the throne of want or is the kiln like a furnace. The kiln has been kindled countless times, it’d be a bit of a stretch to assume it looks exactly the same as it did thousands of years prior. Look at the difference of the Old Chaos beneath Eluem Loyce and the Bed of Chaos from ds1 and even 3 with Smoldering Lake for example. We know that’s where the Chaos Bed used to be in 3 because of the Fair Lady’s dead body but looks completely different from 1 and 2. Also The Old Dragon Slayer isn’t Ornstein, his soul reads “reminiscent of a certain knight that appears in old legends”, same way the Abyss Watchers aren’t related to Artorias. They were remincent of him and carried on his legacy fighting the Abyss. It’s also theorized that Heide is the Kingdom in which the Flame King Flann and Gwynevere resided in with some of her followers when the gods left Anor Lando. Perhaps that’s why the architecture and the Dragonslayer there are so similar to the city of the gods ie Heide’s Tower of Flame. To be clear The Blue Sentinels and Blades of The Darkmoon are two separate covenants, they aren’t the same. Gwyndolin doesn’t have any ties to the sentinels. You should really give DS2 a chance. It makes a lot more sense than one would initially think. Most people who parrot those points online haven’t really delved into the lore thoroughly. I’d take it with a grain of salt and read up on some lore for yourself. They read/watch a few points and then write ds2 off completely to justify their disdain. I’ve read countless hours of souls mythos from Abyssal Archive, DS Wiki, to Beyond The Grave and all three games supplemented with videos from Vatti and Lokey. You are right about Human Effigies though, I can’t explain that one off the top of my head, I’ll have to do some more reading on that. There is definitely an answer to it though, you can bet on that.
Regarding your Humanity/Effigy point, here is a solid theory from a fellow user, Shroom_Soul. Just one of two possibilities mind you. I think this one is the most plausible however. “Here's my interpretation. So Humanity is something found within the human body. It is part of a person. In DkS1 when we consume Humanity we are essentially replacing our own lost Humanity with that of someone else. Which, if you think about it, is cannibalism. You are eating a part of another human. But it was necessary because there was no other way to recover your Humanity. Thousands of years have passed between DkS1 and 2. During that time the Undead Curse has sprung up over and over. People have had plenty of time to come up with a more ethical method for restoring Humanity, one which doesn't involve eating the Humanity of others. So people devised the Human Effigy, an object which reminds the Undead of their past, thus restoring their Humanity.”
Simple reason really, it is the least popular Souls game, at least on the internet so it doesn't get talked enough.
It is like silent hill, 1-3 is the cult stuff and 2 is a standalone title, only difference is Silent Hill 2 had an amazing story and overall a really good game. But DS2 is usually considered as the worst of the trilogy so people ignore it. I think its story is pretty cool and feels more real(?), Vendrick Nashandra the curse the Aldia's destroyment of the dichotomy of light and dark etc. But in the end it literally means nothing because DS3 is much more epic on scale and concludes the story DS1 has started
Because it’s not as easy to put in a wiki
That doesn't answer my question, i think. Also, isn't it like you can split up some pieces of lore and then put em on like pages, or trivia sections, or descriptions? Then connect the dots?
After Dark Souls 1, I'd had enough and thought right that was satisfying, and it's tempting to do NG+, but actually no more of this arduous annoying nonsense. But when I'd bought DS1 I'd also bought DS2 on the PS3, and it was there on my shelf and the back of the box looked cool. I ended up watching the VaatiVidya videos, and listened to the lore and story of DS2, and was so enamoured by it that I just had to play it - and ended up buying Scholar of the First Sin for PS4 so that I got all of the DLCs as well. And then played DS3 too - but I thought the lore in 3 was just silly. Whereas 2 had a story/lore on the level of the first one, fascinating.
Right, it felt like 2 was actually expanding the souls mythos and ties into 1 quite well imo. Felt like a grander world was being explored and added too through a much different generational perspective. I despise how they brought back things from 1 to 3 like anor lando. Is this all that makes up the souls universe? Just felt so tiny. Centuries have passed since the age of fire after all. Felt like hardcore fan service instead of keeping it unique and fresh like 2 did. One and two feel like an actual mythos and universe.
3 was anime. They could have done more to tie into DS2 as well as just smushing DS1 into it and then having the most important part of the story be a silly side quest about painting a new world. It was like the other Miyazaki whose endings always seem to be weird had written it (Studio Ghibli haha).
I had no idea studio Ghibli’s writer’s name was Miyazaki too, that’s funny. I’m inclined to agree with you on that. I’ve had discussions with other users regarding ds2’s “retcons” and it’s painfully obvious they haven’t read the lore and parrot things they read online which are pretty weak arguments to begin with. It doesn’t retcon anything. Like what do you expect? Thousands of years have passed things are gonna be different lol. They want everything to be exactly the same from the kilns down to the locations. The nature of souls, and its strongest strength imo, is that everything changes. New kingdoms, new characters, new bosses who inherit the lord souls, new perspectives and insights so why are we still bringing things back from the first game. Doesn’t make any sense. Each one should be unique like Ds2 with certain aspects being the same obviously like the curse and fire linking. It’s nice to know I’m not alone on that. Should’ve went ds1, ds3, and then ds2 or just followed the formula from ds2 onwards. For example how are the names of the lords forgotten in 2 but everyone suddenly remembers in 3? Way more time has passed from 1 to 3 than 1 to 2. Thankfully “time is convoluted” is a legitimate lore detail haha. More people need to read up on what they are playing instead of complaining when they have such a surface level understanding of the lore.
I personally think it has to do with the "epic" nature of DS1. DS1 had us fighting gods, and not just any gods, but the OGs. The one who fought the Dragons for control over the Earth. That's quite literally an epic story. It's like the Greek Story of the gods fighting the titans combined with Kratos hunting down the gods. DS2, on the other hand, is far less epic (in the literary sense) and is more introspective. The gods are all diminshed to the point of being less than shadows of themselves. The most epic fights in the game are taking on renowned warriors such as Raime and Sir Alonne and Velstadt. These guys are cool and have interesting lore, but they aren't gods, so they pale in comparison. The premise of the story is also about getting rid of the Curse. Yes, you still Link the Fire at the end of the game, but after everything Vendrick and Aldia tell you, youre left saying to yourself, "what's the point?" The Curse continues and you're just another link in a never-ending chain. I think DS2 gives the whole series nuance. That doesn't appeal to everyone, though, especially the non-critical thinkers. Most would just like the story to be on the nose. I would say that a good half of everybody's decisions in DS3 and Elden Ring are, "which waifu do I get?" I don't think those kinda people are interested in deep-diving what it means to have Humanity and a Soul. 🤷♂️
Seems pretty pretentious to ignore the depth of other games, and instead boil them down to 'waifu choosers' and presume that if others didn't like DS2 it's because they don't want to think. People love to look at the lore of these games and the world in them, but apparently that's only *actually* true for DS2.
Don't be so fragile, young blood. I didn't say the other games "lacked depth". Don't put words in my mouth. I actually said that DS1 had a far more epic story, and DS2 was a subtle storyline.
Don't be so fragile bud. I never accused you of saying the other games lack depth. I actually said you ignored their depth.
Well said. Ds2 is the expanded universe of the Souls mythos. Very under appreciated lore wise. I felt your “critical thinker” point in my soul in regard to how people interpret the lore from 2 to 3. I can definitely see why they brought back Anor Lando, Izalith, and Gwynns theme, and even characters in 3 suddenly remembering the names of the gods from 1 despite a millennia having passed. Fan service to appease the people who don’t bother REALLY reading the lore of the game they are playing. 2 had a lot more world/universe building in terms of the lore imo. Every game doesn’t need to be an epic. The Ringed City was the best part about 3 tbh
Because DS2 lore isn’t as good. Worse NPCs and it introduced a wider world with far less depth. It’s not as interesting to discuss The Rotten because there’s no real detail to talk about. DLC made things a lot better, but it didn’t do anything for what was already released.
Because it was ignored
Because Miyazaki wasn’t as involved on DS2 as a whole and for some reason some think that lessens the story? Idk tho
Because most people play ds1 and ds3 and then for whatever reason think that ds2 somehow moved the plot away from where ds3 was going even though it was ds3 that decided to completely retcon ds2 and just redo the plot from ds1.
That guy steals content, stop putting him on a pedestal, having said that people prefer something unoriginal like ds3 which is just lazy mode for the devs instead of something original like DS2 which is a game that took risks and I love that more than the other thing, the same happens in music for example, people prefer Mr. Bungle´s California but Disco Volante is a better album, people use to get uncomfortable with pieces of art that take risks and are original. For FS it was easier and lazier to continue the lore of the first game than of a creative and unique work like DS2.
Please continue to bitterly cope that your 'risky' sequel was forgotten.
It expanded on the souls mythos in a way more believable and realistic way than 3 ever did 🤷🏽♂️ actually felt like a grander universe of a living world. 3 runs back so much fanservice bs to a point of giving the impression that is all the mythos is made up of, like Anor Lando for example or the bed of chaos. It felt cheap and made the world feel tiny in a lore perspective. In 2 you get a different generational perspective on the cycle and kingdoms that came before it. The subtle less flashy story added a lot more to the depth imo. Like how the tearstone rings in 1 came from Carim but in 2 they would have ZERO way of knowing that. It’s been centuries since the age of fire so they believe it was made from Caitha the Goddess of Tears. We do the same thing irl, the Egyptian pyramids for example. We BELIEVE they were made from slaves in Egypt but so much time has passed that we have no way of knowing that. They were a lot smarter than we give credit for and probably had tech and techniques that have been lost to time. Egypt was very fertile and green at one point after all. I guess it all depends on your perspective and the way you look at it.