Dark Souls 2 sold millions of copies, won major awards, and received high critical acclaim. Despite this, the game has a bad reputation compared to others in the series. The game was the first mainline title in the series that wasn’t directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki. There are several things critics complained about, but here are the main reasons why Dark Souls 2 is considered bad.
Level Design
The original Dark Souls game is known for its level design, with areas being connected through shortcuts, elevators, and unique routes. This made the entire world feel like a well-designed location. Dark Souls 2 makes Majula the central hub, with paths diverging from there and fast travel being available from the start. This makes the world feel like a collection of individual areas rather than an interconnected location.
This element is a major point critics use when explaining why they don’t like the game. While the levels themselves may not be bad, and some end-game locations are even considered excellent, the journey between the areas feels less satisfying. Simply put, Dark Souls 2 does a decent job with the individual level design, but fails at connecting them all.
Enemy Placement
This is a major issue with Dark Souls 2, as the game places enemies around corners, above the player, or behind objects. Players can find themselves unexpectedly fighting enemies and becoming overwhelmed by groups of opponents rather than having the opportunity to learn an enemy’s pattern to better counter it. Critics have even gone as far as to claim that the game relies on group fights and the environment rather than intricately designed fights.
The Dark Souls series is known for being challenging but having deliberate encounters. Dark Souls 2 deviates from this, and the gameplay loop feels like memorizing where the enemies will appear rather than countering their moves during combat. Players essentially run through the same areas, fight enemies in the same locations, and eventually reach the bosses.
Adaptability
Dark Souls 2 introduces a new stat, Adaptability, which affects Agility-related elements, such as rolling invincibility frames and item-use speed. This is a major element for veterans of the series, as their dodge timing didn’t carry over into the game. Critics claim Adaptability makes combat slower and more complicated than the previous game.
The argument isn’t that Adaptability is a useless stat. Instead, it changes combat too much, and players have to understand the difference before they can fight properly. A player could work on other stats and still not get perfect rolls. They would have to work on Adaptability, as that will increase their Agility and the number of invincibility frames during rolls.
Lack of Boss Variety
This is an interesting reason, as Dark Souls 2 does not lack bosses, but this is, in fact, the issue. Dark Souls 2’s roster has a larger number of bosses, and the criticism arises from the fact that many of the bosses are humanoid, groups of enemies, or too similar to each other. This makes the bosses less memorable compared to the previous game, and they can also be defeated using similar strategies.
The criticism isn’t that Dark Souls 2 doesn’t have good bosses, as Fume Knight and Burnt Ivory King are two of the most memorable encounters in the game. However, the game fails to add variety to its boss roster, making them too bland and similar. This is also why many of Dark Souls’ bosses are still remembered by players, but the sequel’s didn’t have a similar impact.
Unpredictable Hitboxes
This is a key criticism that several players have reported, as Dark Souls 2’s hitbox accuracy is worse than the previous game. Attacks connect even when the enemy’s weapon or body is seemingly far away from the player’s reach. This is particularly true for larger enemies and bosses, which makes combat frustrating.
Souls games typically have a combat format where players can learn from timing and other elements to get better. However, with an inconsistent hitbox, learning to time attacks or deciding the distance from enemies is challenging. If an attack misses visibly but still connects, this makes death feel arbitrary.
Soul Memory Multiplayer
Dark Souls 2 changes how matchmaking works in multiplayer, swapping level-based queues with a souls-based setup. Matchmaking tracks the total number of souls a character has obtained, matching them with similar players rather than simply looking at a character’s current level. This was intended to create a matchmaking system that accounted better for player progression.
However, critics claim the system harmed co-op play, as players could game the system by staying in matchmaking ranges. The main issue that arises with this matchmaking system is that players on similar levels could have collected different numbers of souls, essentially treating players differently based on how they played the game. The Soul Memory system makes multiplayer less intuitive compared to a level-based matchmaking system.
