Release Date: 3/11/2014
I don't know about you but I am pumped for this game. It is easily my most anticipated title of 2014 and looks to be shaping up real nicely. A lot of new information regarding Dark Souls 2 has been outed since the TGS event, including some fundamental changes to the series:
-Summoned Phantoms have a limited life span. You also can't just summon 2 phantoms and let them complete an area for you, they have a time limit. In addition, when they kill enemies they shorten their life span. This should help deter gankers.
-Your health bar shrinks when you die. Not like in Demon's Souls where you lose half your health bar when you die in human form. You will lose a small amount of maximum health each time you die. This should help add to the challenge and reward careful players who die infrequently.
-Everyone is open to being invaded. Being in human or hollow form makes no difference when it comes to being invaded. There is no advantage completing the game as a hollow like in DKS1.
-Covenant will help protect those that are invaded. Since you will likely be invaded more often, adding to the challenge, From made a covenant that will be summoned to help ward off invaders.
-Stats will affect your character and weapons differently. Casting speed will be affected by attunement instead of dexterity. Magic and fire damage scales with intelligence. Lightning and dark scales with faith. Poison and bleed scales with dexterity. These changes will have an enormous impact on character builds. You can also spend points to improve roll speeds and possibly parrying and other animations.
-Enemy AI has been improved. Enemies are more aggressive and will follow you faster and farther.
...here are a couple of youtube vids with more in-depth discussion of the changes...
Collectors Edition (preorder)
http://www.gamestop.com/ps3/games/dark-souls-ii-collectors-edition/112001
