Dark Souls II – 10 Improvements That Must Be Made

After publishing a joke editorial on the title, WhatCulture followed up with a proper list of improvements that could be made for Dark Souls II without damaging the core that made the original (and its spiritual predecessor) successful in the first place.

Here’s a snip:

6. Joining/Leaving Covenants Should Carry More Weight

Covenants was an integral, if slightly hidden, feature in Dark Souls, where people could join different factions by swearing certain oaths to specific NPCs. The result of this was players were rewarded with diverse items and abilities. If you joined the Chaos Servant covenant, for example, you were rewarded with the Great Chaos Fireball pyromany spell. Certain covenants also affected online play and interactions.

Once a player became a member of a covenant, he or she could deepen their allegiance to it by offering humanity and/or other items. However, there seemed to be little or no consequence to joining or indeed leaving covenants. I for example was able to simply hop from covenant to covenant while on a playthrough, and was not punished in any obvious, tangible way (or if I was, the game did not make it clear to me). Shibuya himself has already said that he felt covenants were a little bit difficult to fully absorb and experience in the original game, and that he intends to make it more accessible to the player in the sequel.

Expect a bit of an overhaul in the covenant system in Dark Souls II, then.