Never underestimate the insatiable appetite gamers have for giant robot battles. That appetite has propelled Armored Core 6 to the top spot on Steam’s global sales charts more than a decade after the last numbered entry in the series was released, knocking Baldur’s Gate 3 off the top spot.
In a summer filled with huge releases, few could have predicted that Armored Core 6 would be able to find such a large audience. The phenomenal success of last year’s Elden Ring certainly didn’t hurt. Speaking to GameIndustry.biz, Bandai Namco Europe CEO Arnaud Muller explained that Elden Ring has given FromSoftware a “guarantee of quality” among fans.
Dark souls 2 was their cyberpunk 2077.
People were expecting better graphics, level design, and boss design on release.
DS2 is also a fantastic example why just because something is by a certain studio doesn’t necessarily mean much as it was made almost entirely by the B-team while the core developers were busy making Bloodborne. So while it is by FromSoft, the people working on it were mostly the ones responsible for the A.C.E series IIRC.
The same thing is what happened with Mass Effect: Andromeda as the OG trilogy team was busy making up the mess called Anthem.
Unpopular opinion obviously but I loved ds2, except for the poison spitting goddam statues and the level that was so dark you couldn’t even see the goddam poison spitting statue before it spit goddam poison at you in the dark.