Dark souls world map 3d series#
Dark souls world map 3d free#

I hated Blighttown, to be sure, and Lost Izalith was tedious, and the Catacombs were annoying, but none gave me the aversion of Black Gulch.ДЄ difficult game should do the exact opposite of what IвЂ™ve just described.

I didnвЂ™t nope any less, but I sighed and ground my teeth, becuase, unlike almost any location in Dark Souls 1, I truly did not want to ever have to come back there. At the same time, I knew I would probably have to go through it to progress the game. Nope nope nope.вЂќ I warped out shortly thereafter. On a personal note, I remember making it through the Gutter and arriving at Black Gulch, then saying вЂњNope, not doing this. Black Gulch, for example, is essentially a giant poison pit, and the deadliness of poison in DS2 is scary enough without making it nigh inevitable. This is not, of course, saying that entire areas of the map are prohibitive in their design. Time.вЂќ What incentive other than that treasure exists to go looking? None, really, and even with GilliganвЂ™s dialogue saying there might be something down there, the early frustration might make some players simply put the game down altogether. вЂњThat pitвЂ™s got treasure in it,вЂќ you say. As far as the player is concerned, the Pit in Majula might simply be a giant troll by the developers. If players donвЂ™t have a sense of where they need to go, theyвЂ™ll never learn why they need to go there. Go look at it.вЂќ Uncertain paths, uncertain players Even the NPCs give little in the way of guidance, saying only, вЂњSeek the KingвЂќ or вЂњThereвЂ™s a forest there. Dark Souls 2, by contrast, has no clear markings of where you need to go. If you ended up at Darkroot Basin out of the Undead Burg and found yourself outclassed, it was clear why. You might not know exactly where youвЂ™re going or why, but you could rely on the environment to at least give you an idea of where you needed to be. Not just given by the map design, but also by the subtle direction every area gave players. That these needs be the case is a sad state, as one of the key selling points of the original Dark Souls was that sense of cohesion. It ceases to be a world at all, becoming merely a set of roadways that, again likely enough, end in a boss fight or two and nothing else.

Dark souls world map 3d series#

Sure, you can teleport through bonfires from the start, but when the world is, essentially, a series of spider-leg paths that have a single sunlit vertex, thereвЂ™s no sense of cohesion to it. However, instead of simply walking to your next destination, you more than likely have to head back to Majula, as every path simply ends, lacking any connection to another. Instead, you start at Majula and expand outwards, upwards, sidewards, and downwards. In short, everywhereВ linked to everywhereВ else, and the world felt real, connected.Дark Souls 2 does away with that connectivity, for the most part. Indeed, unless you wanted to take a look at the stock of those merchants that flocked to it, you neednвЂ™t have come back to Firelink even once to progress the game. Starting from Firelink Shrine, you rarely, if ever, had to visit the same location more than twice. One of the original Dark SoulsвЂ™s best qualities was the cyclical nature of its world map. To that end, letвЂ™s look at why the map design of Dark Souls 2 is utter trash, and how it affects the flow of the game (trashily). Last time we discussed why the bosses make Dark Souls 2 suck, and while one aspect of a game does not a failure make, multiples certainly might.

Dark souls world map 3d free#

Rebuttals to the arguments presented here will come in future articles, but feel free to disagree in the comments below.В These opinions are my own, and are informed by others as little as possible. Note: This is anВ article in a series dissecting the good, bad, and horrid of Dark Souls 2.