Monday, January 20, 2014

Darks Souls 2 Covenants Speculation




The achievements list for Dark Souls 2 has leaked and what it reveals is certainly intriguing. In this post, I will discuss and speculate about what the list tells us about the covenants we will find in the game.

Firstly, nine covenants are listed: Brilliant, Protector, Sanguinary, Meek, Gnawing, Clangerous,  Ancients, Fittest, and Abysmal. These are not necessarily the proper names of the covenants but  the achievement titles associated with them.

From the brief descriptions and images attached to the achievements, it is clear that the Brilliant covenant is the new Warriors of Sunlight covenant, Protector is the Blue Sentinels (defenders who come to the rescue of invaded players), Sanguinary is the new Darkwraith  covenant (invaders), and the Meek is the covenant that receives aid from the Protectors.These covenants have largely been confirmed since the beta.

The Clangerous covenant, though not in the beta, is very likely the bell guardian covenant revealed in past interviews (the achievement icon for it depicts a bell). Members of this covenant are said to be summoned to defend a bell against players needing to ring it.

What about the rest? We know of two more covenants that have been described. One is the Mirror Knight covenant, the members of which can be summoned to assist the Mirror Knight boss. The other, reported on in the January issue of Edge Magazine, is a covenant that targets players who have successfully invaded and killed several hosts consecutively.

So which is which? My guess is that the covenant of the Ancients is the Mirror Knight covenant. My reasoning here is that the Mirror Knight is a giant and the giants are known to be an ancient race in Dark Souls. I think the covenant of the Fittest is the avenger covenant. Why? Because they must be the fittest warriors if they are to take on the game's most talented invaders.

I think the Gnawing covenant is a likely successor to the Gravelord covenant for Dark Souls 1. In literature and film, rats are associated with entering graves and feeding on the dead, so gnawing is a fitting description for a covenant of necrophiliacs.

This leaves the Abysmal covenant. Here, your guess is as good as mine. I don't know what this could be.

What do you think? Post your own theories below in the comments.




3 comments:

  1. I'm going to have to disagree with you on the Ancient covenant, mate. I think it is most likely the new Path of the Dragon covenant. The icon looks just like a dragon eye (the PotD multiplayer item from DkS1), and the word "ancient" in this case is most likely referring to the Age of Ancients, during which the everlasting dragons ruled the roost.

    The fittest covenant has been revealed to be the "Covenant of Champions" mentioned by the lucky bastards who've already played a complete version of the game. Joining this covenant makes the game harder. 'Nuff said.

    So that leaves only the gnawing and abysmal covenants. The gnawing covenant, as is obvious from the image and name, clearly has something to do with rats. It's hard to guess anything about it beyond that, but as you mentioned it seems reasonable to guess it might be somehow similar to the gravelord covenant from the previous game. As for the abysmal covenant, it clearly has something to do with the abyss, but this only raises more questions than it answers. Before, the "abyss" covenant was the darkwraith covenant, and invasion was a major mechanic in it. But why is the invasion covenant (brotherhood of blood) now separate from the abyss covenant? And who is this god of war fellow?

    As for the Mirror Knight... the way I heard it, there isn't a mirror knight covenant per se, but it's more like the Old Monk from Demon's Souls who could summon other players in the area.

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  2. The Mirror Knight summoning's might not be an exclusive aspect of a covenant - The Blue Sentinels are said to be able to invade the worlds of the guilty as well as being summoned to the worlds of the needy. It could just be one part of a covenant.

    I think the Gnawing Covenant could be a successor to the Gravelord's, hopefully less broken and with more features, as the covenants in general are suppose to be much improved and refined, but these new covenants might not necessarily be directly comparable to Dark Souls covenants. There are the same number of covenants but the the Way of White and Princess Guard were virtually useless with awful rewards and so getting rid of them and just leaving the Warriors of Sunlight (even unrefined it did exactly what the other two were suppose to but much more effectively) for these features frees up two unique covenants to be implemented (Way of Blue and Champions), so these other covenants might not be directly comparable to DkS. Or, they might be, but with much more features.

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  3. Dark Souls 2 is amazing! i bought minet at Kinguin you have to check them, they have really low prices!

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