Scholar of the First Sin, the current patch rolled out this week for From Soft's punishing action/ RPG Dark Souls 2, is acting as both a free expansion to the current game and a lead up to a rerelease for current-gen consoles and beefier PCs in April. What the differences will be with what we all downloaded a few days ago versus any additional changes seems to be a little murky, but what we've already gotten seems to be one thing and on the thing only: an apology.
Pack your bags, we're heading into spoiler territory.
Dark Souls 2 was not a perfect game. While still definitely one of the absolute best of last year, the fan reaction From Soft's third Souls game had taken issue with a few of the game's finer points, mainly the lack of compelling NPC characters, a final boss worthy of the death march it takes to get fight it, and a proper ending befitting the nature of the rest of the series. In one fell swoop, From decided to try and rectify all three.
First, as you no doubt have seen, an amorphous blob of a character named only The Scholar was placed in key locations through the game: first in the Black Gulch after fighting The Rotten, next in the entrance to the Undead Crypt, then at the bonfire at in the Dragon Shrine, and finally after defeating Nashandra at the Throne of Want where he becomes the game's final boss. It's a fun scavenger hunt to track him down (unless someone ruins it for you like I just did), but more so compelling for his cryptic dialog. I have to be honest in that I've only just noodled around with the content patch with one character and there is an opportunity for multiple choice in some of his dialog, The Scholar reveals himself to he Aldia, brother to King Vendrick and an enigmatic figure to the game's larger lore.
Smarter people than me will do extensive research into every syllable of Aldia's new dialog, but we can surmise up to the point the patch was released is that Vendrick and Aldia had sniffed out the evil of Queen Nashandra, and that the two of them worked tirelessly to either cure or at least circumvent the curse that was turning humans into insane, zombie-like husks; a process called hollowing. Aldia's presence in the main game had been that of a shadow looming over what's actually going on in that he never appears, but is mentioned in NPC dialog and a few choice item descriptions. Aldia was known for strange experimentation (as evidence in all of the surrounding context clues in the Aldia's Keep area), and many have inferred that he had created Shanalotte The Emerald Herald basically in a test tube as part of his attempt to stem the curse.
After revealing his identity to you at the Dragon Shrine, the new dialog implies that disparities caused by both life and death and, more importantly, light and Dark (capitalization intentional) is a lie and the curse isn't as important as trying to find something else in between, or maybe completely outside of it. A nebulous concept, sure, but compelling enough for Reddit users to fall over themselves trying to decipher. It's still answering questions with questions, as far as the lore is concerned, but this is just the Dark Souls way, and while Aldia himself is compelling enough just for the sake of being there, he still doesn't have much of a character arc that we can puzzle out at this point. So, while his inclusion as an NPC exposition dump is a little suspect for right now, he gets a temporary pass for being nothing but just that.
As a boss, though, he's a little less forgivable. The first Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 have both come under a little fire for having weak sauce final battles. While still difficult in their own right, compared to other enemies fought along the way (and, especially in Dark Souls 2's case, just beforehand) they're kind of a joke. Not to keep dumping on it, but over the course of its short life, Dark Souls 2 has done nothing but make the final conflict with Nashandra easier with items that can be obtained through the individual DLC expansions, and when all three DLCs are completed, gives you a massive safety net with the Crown of Vendrick item. Aldia as an enemy pops in just after this fight is complete following a brief bit of dialog. But it's a slog; Aldia retains his barely mobile blob-like form, essentially shooting things at you that can easily be avoided. While it takes a degree of patience to finish since he's usually wreathed in a shield of fire that will do more damage to you than you could to him, it's not a very satisfying battle, and when done with other players, is a bit of a joke.
If apologies have high points and crest like waves, though, it's in what happens after Aldia takes a dive. Another brief bit of dialog takes place, and a choice whether to sit on the Throne of Want or to leave it behind is clearly laid out to the player with two glowing beacons of light indicating which choice is which. While I think that how this is presented is a little too on-the-nose, the fact that you have a choice at all and the implications of which are fascinating. Not to sound lazy, but again, smarter folks than me will have much more to say on what these endings possible mean, but for a free patch, having an altered ending that nobody really expected to receive is certainly welcome.
I have my own theories in that some of this stuff may have been on the cutting room floor for the original release, but the fact that these three things are addressed after three DLC expansions (of which are seen as the best, most inventive parts of the game by many) is evidence that they probably weren't. There are still a lot of questions, too. First, I did this with a character that had already completed the game (but didn't start NG+) that had run through all three of the DLCs, so the path to the end with Aldia may be different without doing so. I haven't run into any replaced enemies in new locations, yet, either. I didn't take the Throne of Want at the end of the Aldia fight to see if it's any different than the original release, as well. But all of this stuff will probably be answered by the internet at large by the end of the day. What may be the best part of this patch is the re-written item descriptions, which the community is still parsing through. I noticed a significant change in Nashandra's Soul last night, and I can't wait to see what everybody else finds.
Plus, there's always the physical release for Scholar in April, and who knows what's going to be in that?
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