Dark Souls 2

Dark Souls 2 drops the Bearer of the Curse into Drangleic with no Estus Flask, no way to level up and a curse that shrinks your health bar every time you die. Almost everything that fixes those problems sits within a few minutes of the Majula bonfire, and our coverage starts there before spreading out to builds, the item hunts, the covenants and the two optional areas. Every heading below links to a full guide.

Your first hours in Drangleic

1. Speak to the woman standing to the right of the Majula bonfire. The Emerald Herald hands over the Estus Flask, and after roughly four conversations she opens the level-up screen.
2. Smash the rock hanging from the pulley outside the largest house, the one with the well, and the first Estus Shard rises out of the water. Cale’s House Key gets you into the mansion for another.
3. Buy Lenigrast’s Key from Merchant Hag Melentia to let the blacksmith out of his shop; exhaust her dialogue and she relocates to Majula for good.
4. Find Saulden at the head of the Majula stairs and keep talking until he offers the Way of Blue. Our covenants guide explains why: a Blue Sentinel gets summoned to help whenever you are invaded.
5. Read the combat page before you fight anything with a shield. Guarding only costs stamina when you are hit, running dry mid-block invites a Guard Break and a critical against you, and power stance needs 1.5 times the requirements of both weapons.
6. Pick up a Pharros Lockstone from Melentia for 4,000 souls and five Human Effigies from the same stall; an effigy anywhere reverses hollowing and lifts the cap on your maximum HP.

Build the Bearer of the Curse

Our character builds guide sketches Soul Level 130 targets rather than step-by-step paths: a Paladin with 50 Faith and 30 Strength, a Great Heavy Soul Arrow sorcerer with 50 Intelligence and 40 Attunement, and an All Conquering Melee spread with 40 Dexterity and 38 Adaptability that suits the Bandit, Wanderer, Knight, Warrior and Swordsman alike. To understand those numbers, the mechanics guide gathers the nine stats, the combat rules, reinforcement and infusion through Steady Hand McDuff, the four schools covered by the magic guide, and the Dragon Shrine soul farming loop that pays about 60,000 souls a run.

Items and gear

The items guide sorts every collectible by what it does for you: the twelve Estus Shards and five Sublime Bone Dust, effigies, Titanite sources and farming spots, the keys that gate each region, all nine Fragrant Branches of Yore and who to unpetrify with them, how many souls each boss soul is worth, and the rings you can wear four at a time. Three full equipment lists sit beside it: armor sets with their repair costs and stat-boosting pieces, shields from bucklers to Havel’s Greatshield, and the unique and rare weapons by class, including everything traded for boss souls.

Other players, allies and merchants

The locations guide covers the layer of Drangleic that involves other people: where to join all nine covenants and what each rank pays, where every NPC phantom sign and scripted invader appears, and all nineteen Pharros Lockstones. The merchants guide tracks twenty traders, from Maughlin the Armorer, whose stock grows as you spend, to Lonesome Gavlan, the only merchant who buys your items, and the boss-soul traders Straid of Olaphis and Weaponsmith Ornifex.

Optional areas

Two areas the critical path never sends you to get their own guide: the Dark Chasm of Old, entered through the Pilgrims of Dark at the cost of a Human Effigy and ending at the Darklurker, and the Old Iron King memory from the Crown of the Old Iron King DLC, which needs the Tower Key and the Ashen Mist Heart and hides the optional Sir Alonne.

Playing on PC

The PC fixes page collects the launch-era workarounds: GPU scaling and the display-cable trick for crashes on launch, the GraphicsConfig.xml fullscreen edit, disabling HID-compliant controllers for pads the game ignores, the Windows 8.1 N media pack for black screens, and what to do when a Steam download sits at 97 percent.

Frequently asked questions

Where do I level up?

At the Emerald Herald in Majula, and nowhere else. Talk to her about four times the first time to make the option appear; the soul cost climbs with every level.

Which covenant should I join first?

Way of Blue, because it costs nothing and brings help when you are invaded. Avoid the Company of Champions unless you want the game harder, since our covenants page warns it makes boss fights far tougher.

Do these guides cover the DLC?

Partly. The Old Iron King memory guide covers the Brume Tower side of Crown of the Old Iron King, and the armor and weapon lists mention drops from areas such as Brume Tower and Memory of Orro, but there is no full walkthrough for the three crowns.