dark souls 2-2 is a massive joint project with scenario by yoko taro, open world covenant based pvp designed by from after both chromehounds and elden ring, with player systems by kojipro and platinum. the entire open world exists to support a The Dungeon, which is basically a VERY long procedurally generated coop raid after the fashion of baroque, etrian odyssey, and dungeon meshi. austin walker voices a friendly ghost who was in life a sorcerer who died studying The Dungeon and is now a helpful narrator slash navi type character and is only sometimes insane. the foot of The Dungeon is a sprawling village full of player and NPC housing to play animal crossing with.
The Dungeon takes like 24 hours total to clear in a group and checkpoints are few. getting to the end does things to the open world instead of starting a ng+. true dark souls is when a massive wandering open world boss is released until players take it down