As of yesterday's Rocket League patch, you can now play basketball with rocket propelled cars. The patch also adds the ability to save replays mid-match, as well as a “Cosmic” Rocket Labs map and some bug fixes—but let’s talk about basketball.

I just jumped in for a couple of games and can confirm it’s as much fun as you already know it is. The ball is bouncier, the court is smaller and scoring requires aerial precision that rather obsoletes my favoured tactic of gently nudging the ball along the floor.

As you’d expect from the Rocket League devs, the mode is full of neat little touches. The ball changes colour as it swaps between the two sides of the court. Cars make the sound of sneakers squeaking on polished wood as they turn. A man shouts ‘SLAAAAM DUUUNK’ whenever a team scores.

The mode is called ‘Hoops’ and is 2v2 only for the moment. It’s free, though you can pay a small amount for some extra cosmetic items via the NBA flag pack released alongside the update. Happy dunking.

Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Desilets' history with Ubisoft hasn't been entirely smooth and happy. In 2010, he left Ubisoft Montreal “to take a creative break from the industry,” as Ubi told GameInformer, and when he returned it was not to the warm embrace of his former employer but rather to THQ. When THQ collapsed, Ubisoft bought out its Montreal studio—Désilets included—and acquired control of 1666 Amsterdam, the project he was working on the time. Then it fired him.

In response, Désilets sued Ubisoft, and based on the statement he linked to on Twitter earlier today, he's come out on top. Technically, he's withdrawn his complaint, but it's hard not to see it as a victory, as he's been given full rights to the game, as he wanted, and will “have all creative and business control over the project.”

Friends, Ubi and I agreed, I got it back! :) https://t.co/lKqj5enJth #1666Amsterdam pic.twitter.com/Z19MLwdgEYApril 25, 2016

“This agreement is good news for everyone,” Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat said. “Ubisoft's creative teams are currently working on innovative projects that will mark our industry for years to come. This is precisely where we want to focus our energy, on our teams, to continue what we have been building in Quebec for nearly 20 years.”

Maybe I'm reading too much into it but I think I detect a slight whiff of sour grapes in that statement, specifically the implication that Ubi is only giving up the property because it doesn't have the resources to do anything with it in the foreseeable future. In any case, each side wished the other well, as you do, and that's the end of that. But those of you expecting a quick revival of the game might want to dial back your expectations, because Désilets' hands are apparently full right now too.

“I will now devote myself entirely to the development of Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, my next game with Panache Digital Games,” he said. “This is what matters most to me today: Making the best games and showing the world the creative talent of Quebecers.”

Ancestors, according to the description at the Panache Games website, is a third-person action-adventure survival game that will let players “relive the greatest moments of mankind with a documentary twist.” There's not much more than that to see, though, and the site is hurting for updates, too: It currently promises “much more to come in 2015.”

Dota 2 is about to undergo significant changes in the form of the 6.87 gameplay update revealed by Valve earlier today. Foremost among them is a change to Ranked All Pick that incorporates the addition of a 15-second “voting phase” which will take place ahead of the picking phase. Each player will vote for a different hero, half of whom will be selected at random and banned.

"Two players cannot vote for the same hero. The game displays heroes as they are voted on, but not who voted. The number of bans is equal to half the total number of votes. If there is an odd number of votes, the number of bans is randomly rounded up or down," the Dota team explained. "The random ban selection will choose at most 3 heroes from one specific team's votes, so it's more evenly split."

The update also adds a new Scan function to the minimap, which scans a selected area for eight seconds and indicates whether or not it contains any heroes. The scan “does not consider units inside the Roshan Pit, but does consider Smoked units,” and the results are a straight-up yes/no: No indication of how many enemies are present is given. On the plus side, enemy teams won't know when you've performed a scan, so your surveillance efforts won't raise any alarm bells.

Other notable points include an increase of starting HP from 180 to 200, HP per strength being boosted from 19 to 20, an increase in Hero base mana from 0 to 50, and mana per intelligence reduced—whoa, quick change of pace there—from 13 to 12. Of course, there are quite a few other changes and balance tweaks on the menu, and a small handful of new items.

The Dota 2 6.87 update will be rolled out to the main client within a couple of days, barring unforeseen disaster, but if you want an advance look at what's coming, you can take it for a spin with the Dota 2 Test client right now. Our resident Dotaphile Christ Thursten is preparing his thoughts on the patch from the penthouse of his mind palace, and will post those on PC Gamer Pro tomorrow.

The most common observation about the Dark Souls games is also the most boring: that they’re difficult. I’ve grown so weary of this lazy characterisation of Dark Souls over the past five years that it’s started to provoke a reflexive eye-twitch whenever I see it. Dark Souls (and its sequels) are some of the most interesting games ever made. To me, they feel almost bottomless. Even writing a book about Dark Souls couldn’t get it out of my system. Is “it’s hard” really the most interesting thing you can say about them? Thematically, the Dark Souls series is all about contrasts and allusions: fire and dark, life and death, suffering and jubilation. Everything in these games has two sides to it—not least the thing that I personally find most rewarding and interesting about Dark Souls: the multiplayer.

Returning to human form (or, as is Dark Souls 3’s equivalent, restoring your ember) allows you to invite other people into your world to help you, but also opens you up to invasions from less well-wishing fellow players. This double-edged form of multiplayer was extraordinarily forward-thinking when it debuted in Demon’s Souls in 2009, and it remains the thing that makes Dark Souls worth playing for me. Over time the nuances of multiplayer have changed—and Dark Souls 3 has the best variation on the theme yet, with its mad phantoms and four-player posses—but the core idea has remained the same, and it’s that core idea that makes Dark Souls’ brutal trials bearable.

Here’s why: Dark Souls’ multiplayer injects much-needed levity into a game that can otherwise feel quite oppressive. It can turn a nerve-shredding trudge through an awful swamp or a hideous dungeon into a companionable romp, or a boss fight that makes you want to cry into something that feels like a fairer fight. The other night, I spent a full hour as a phantom on the Road of Sacrifices with someone who had just arrived there, and we absolutely rinsed the place, defeating about five successive invaders together. Whenever someone invaded, I’d run and hide nearby whilst my companion tempted them into range—then I’d suddenly appear out of the trees whirling twin fire-scimitars and carve them to bits. I took great delight in imagining the interloper throwing their controller at the floor in incredulous anger.

Wordlessly—because voice chat totally isn’t in the spirit of Dark Souls, despite FromSoftware’s eventual concession in enabling it for Dark Souls 3—we developed a language; I was as new to the area as my companion, unable to confidently lead them through, so I’d have to scout ahead to check for danger and, often, run screaming when I found it. There is nothing like the gratitude you feel towards a confident tour-guide who shepherds you towards a bonfire after four hours of flailing alone in the depths of, say, the Catacombs, or towards the valiant helper who sacrifices themselves so you can finally, finally knock those last few health points off a boss. But there’s also enormous pleasure in exploring together, in acting as a companion rather than a leader.

Another enormously important thing about co-op play in Dark Souls 3 is that it’s comparatively risk-free. If you die, you appear back in your world with all the souls you earned intact. It’s a great way to get confident with a new pair of daggers you found or experiment with spellcasting without risking everything in your own game. It also completely eliminates the need to grind souls: I have no idea why anyone would trudge through the same areas over and over again, risking losing all their souls to some unseen skeleton or misstep on a roof, when they could be playing hero to another player who just can’t find their way through Farron Keep.

I’ve always been a SunBro at heart, but Dark Souls 3 is a lot more generous with invasions, meaning that I’ve been getting to know PvP play much better over the past few weeks. I’ve had a couple of extremely tense one-on-one battles, including one where it really did come down to the final blow. With both me and my invader out of restorative Estus and down to a single hit’s worth of health bar, we danced around each other for minutes before an ill-timed forward-slash with my scimitars left me vulnerable. My opponent knelt in respect as I fell. I couldn’t even be angry; it was a fantastic fight.

I’ve also had several hilarious games of cat and mouse, as invaders waltz into Irithyll of the Boreal Valley only to find their target protected by two summoned helpers. Once, in the Cathedral of the Deep, I hid around corners behind my invader, following them around, watching them get more and more frustrated trying to find me until they were murdered by the level’s enemies. Last night, in a group of three, we chased some poor red phantom around and around Irithyll in a glorious reversal of the usual predator-prey dynamic of Dark Souls invasions. We ended up trapping him between two of us a corridor and hacking him to death.

I wonder, sometimes, if my love for Dark Souls multiplayer is a reaction to my experiences reviewing the original game back in 2011, with no day-one patch and no servers. It was not pleasant at all. In fact, it was so painful that despite the fact that I loved Dark Souls, I didn’t play it again until a year later, when the Prepare to Die edition came out. As soon as I reached Ornstein and Smough—the point at which my review playthrough had stalled (along with everyone else’s; to my knowledge, exactly one person in the world made it past that bastardly pair in the pre-release code)—I spent hours hanging around in Anor Londo, putting my summon sign down and helping a succession of people to acquire the Lordvessel.

I knew how special that moment was for me, when I finally defeated them. I loved the idea of being part of that moment for someone else. It’s still my favourite thing to do in Dark Souls, hanging out in Anor Londo, playing the hero. Dark Souls doesn’t let you feel like a hero when you’re on your own.

There are people who insist on playing through Dark Souls games alone, and more power to those people—anyone who wants to suffer for hours at the hands of Ornstein and Smough or Pontiff Suleyvahn unaided has my respect, if not my understanding (I’ve been there, and I’ll never go back). For me, multiplayer is the soul of the game. Touching the lives of others—however briefly—helps restore my enthusiasm whenever Dark Souls starts to feel like a gruelling gauntlet.

Hidetaka Miyazaki got the idea for Demon’s Souls’ multiplayer whilst stuck in a snowstorm, spinning the wheels of his car on a hillside. “The car following me also got stuck,” he told me in an interview back in 2010, “and then spontaneously the one behind it bumped into it and started pushing it up the hill. That's it! That's how everyone can get home! And then it was my turn, and everyone started pushing my car up the hill and I managed to get home safely. I couldn't stop the car to say thanks to the people who gave me a shove, though. I'd have just got stuck again if I'd stopped the car.

“On the way back home I wondered whether the last person in the line had made it home, and pondered that I would probably never meet the people who had helped me. I thought that maybe if we'd met in another place we'd have become friends, or maybe we'd have fought. That incident will probably linger in my heart for a long time. Precisely because it's fleeting, I think it stays with you a lot longer. Like the cherry blossoms we Japanese love so much.”

I love those fleeting connections. Humanity is at the heart of Dark Souls, after all, and the idea that every person you might meet to be a friend or a foe is such an essential part of being human. These games were inspired by the everyday coincidences that arise from chance encounters, the serendipity of fleeting contact with others. It makes sense to embrace it.

A couple of interesting bits of news have emerged from GOG today, the first being the kickoff of the Bundleopolis sale, which for the next week will offer a variety of game bundles at up to 80 percent off. The first three bundles on the block are Bit.Trip.Street, the Academy of LucasArts, and Nightmare Avenue, and new deals will be rolled out every six hours.

Games in the bundles can also be picked up individually, although at a lesser discount: The titles in the Nightmare Avenue bundle, for instance, are 60 percent off when purchased separately, but going the bundle route, either by taking them all or putting five or more together in a “build-your-own” package, will increase the discount to 80 percent. GOG also teased a “dark secret, which will be revealed just before the city lights go out.” My guess? All the past bundles in the sale will be brought back for one big “everything's on sale” blowout over the final 24 hours. We'll see.

Sales are great, but even more exciting is the GOG debut of Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines, one of the deepest and most unforgettable RPGs ever made. It's been available on Steam for awhile now, but the GOG release includes third-party fixes created by Werner “Wesp5” Spahl, the man behind the Unofficial Patches that have dramatically improved the game over the past decade-plus. GOG also includes a link to the latest full Unofficial Patch release, which on top of fixing bugs restores quite a bit of cut content to the game, at Patches Scrolls.

The only downside to the GOG release is that the only thing in the “included goodies” is the manual; the brilliant, period-perfect soundtrack is nowhere to be seen (or heard, I guess). Licensing issues likely account for some of that (Ministry built the theme song, for instance) but the original music is really good in its own right and it's a shame those tracks aren't included with the package.

Even so, it's great to see Bloodlines available from another site—the more, the merrier, after all. Alas, it's not currently part of the Bundleopolis sale, so you'll have to pony up $20 for it, although I'll go out on a limb here and say that you're not likely to find too many better ways to drop twenty bucks. As for the sale itself, the action is live now and will run until May 1.

In every war there are profiteers who stand to gain from misery and mass mobilisation. Space war is no different, and as mighty alliances come to blows in EVE Online, there’s one side that is guaranteed to come out a winner: developer CCP.

Andy recently got to talk to CCP’s top economic boffin, Edvard Gislason, also known as CCP Quant. As EVE’s monthly economic report suggests, metrics and big data are of immense importance in a realm of sci-fi megacorps. Perhaps more importantly, however, those metrics tell CCP how long it can keep the lights on, because real subscription time can be traded for in-game PLEX.

“If there were hyperinflation or something like that,” Gislason says, “then that’s a huge risk to our business model. Suddenly people won’t be able to afford their subscription through PLEX. We were starting to get pretty worried when PLEX prices were going through the roof—through 1.3 billion [ISK] back in October, if I recall correctly. There weren’t any interventions that we had to take, because usually the market just follows supply and demand. A lot of it was due maybe to features we were developing—adding skill trading—so the demand for PLEX increased a lot, and a lot of players sitting on their PLEX actually sold it on the market to get skill points they needed.

“We saw a lot more PLEX in circulation than ever before, but we never saw a point when we feared for the economy. It’s amazing how well this economic machine runs just by itself. We are of course ready if we need to intervene, but it’s never happened.”

The link between PLEX and the real world economy is how the cost of massive battles causing hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of damage is estimated. Then there are instances of foolhardy players transporting mass amounts of PLEX themselves, resulting in four-figure losses. The real risk to EVE’s economy isn’t wild fluctuation, however—quite the opposite. The absence of widespread conflict (or extremely concentrated stupidity) has caused some of CCP’s hairiest moments, such as the stalemate that followed the last round of all-out war.

“You could say that almost the entire universe was at peace, in a way. There was no conflict. There was a huge entity and no one capable of bringing them down, so there’s this huge stalemate in the entire economy.

“You could see from all the economic numbers, like velocity of money, how much money is in circulation and so forth, that the economic engine was slowing down. This is really bad for us. When it slows down, activity goes down and people get bored. If there isn’t anything to do in the game, they’ll just go to other, more interesting games.”

Now, a spat of epic proportions has engulfed the galaxy, and the master of metrics can see the war ramping up numerically. It’s like reading tea leaves 21,000 years in the future.

“If you trace the whole thing,” Gislason says, “the war starts, and a really popular ship that’s used in ship doctrines with one of the alliances, Interceptors—they’re used a lot, and they blow up a lot, so there’s a huge demand on the market and a huge under-supply. And then you can immediately see how people are buying up supplies for them and overpricing them, cutting out the market. And you can see production increasing drastically as people rush to take advantage of these high margins, and you can also see a high boost in mining, because the materials needed for all this production are also in demand.”

It must be hard not to let that power go to your head. For instance, Gislason can see all the economic and military propaganda being slung by rival factions and know who’s telling the truth from the comfort of his command chair. It’s for that reason that he doesn’t engage in trading when playing himself—great power, responsibility and all that. The completeness of CCP’s data—each ship made, trade deal brokered and raw material consumed is recorded—puts it leagues ahead of the information you can glean from actual wars.

“Seeing a war like this brew now, and seeing so many entities come together to bring down a superpower—and just in time for our Citadel expansion that brings a lot of new gameplay to these areas—it’s just an absolutely perfect storm for us. If I wasn’t working at CCP I’d be putting my tinfoil hat on and speculating that this was all engineered by CCP!”

A short, live-action film promoting Tomb Raider 3, thought lost, has recently been rediscovered. It was only shown once, at Tomb Raider 3's launch party in London's Natural History Museum. Having uncovered the original Digibeta tape (tape!), producer Janey de Nordwall passed it to Square Enix which has uploaded it for all to see.

It's quite, quite bizarre—all the '90s cheese without the exploding heads of Strafe. In that regard, I suppose it captures the early Lara Croft craze quite well. Full marks for effort, certainly, because there's eight minutes of the thing. I'll take this over a 20-second teaser trailer any day.

Screaming, panicking slasher flick victims are always making bad decisions, but who can be trusted to make good decisions while being chased through the woods by a murderer? I tried to avoid being put on a meat hook at PAX East yesterday, and practically ran backwards into a meat hook.

Dead by Daylight, which has been playable on the PAX show floor all weekend, pits four survivors against a murderer in procedurally-generated levels. The survivors play in third-person, running and creeping around the woods in search of generators (it's always generators) to repair. Fix up enough and an escape route opens. The killer, meanwhile, plays in first-person and earns points by injuring survivors and hanging them on meat hooks. The round ends when all survivors escape, are hung up or dead, or some mix of both.

Playing as a survivor is pretty rough. The killer is usually easy to spot when he's close, but even if I saw him before he saw me I panicked. My instinct was to run, but that gives me away with a red streak on the killer's screen, so taking it slow is usually better. If I did have to run, though, I had to zigzag and vault over obstacles and double-back a couple times to get away.

What's most interesting to me is the victims' relationship to each other. Ostensibly you're all on the same team, working together to win, but it doesn't quite play out that way. If someone's been put on a hook, finding and saving them helps the team, but you also risk walking into a trap. And if you see the killer, how often are you going to encourage him to chase you and not the player next to you?

Yesterday, I spoke to producer Mathieu Côté about all of the above and more, which you can watch at the top of this article. I'm not sure if I like it yet, but I didn't get well acquainted with Dead by Daylight's nuances through one session with all new players. We should be playing more pretty soon, though, as it's scheduled to release on Steam on June 14.

This week on the Mod Roundup, modders tackle a ton of bugs in Fallout 4 with an unofficial patch that is sure to continue growing over the coming months. We've also got a hefty mod for Doom 3 that overhauls sound, lighting, UI, textures, meshes, and more, without making any changes to gameplay. Finally, some modders bring dinosaur bones—dangerously mobile dinosaur bones—to the surface of the moon in a full conversion mod for Ark: Survival Evolved.

Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.

Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch

Nexusmods link

Well, this was certainly due to appear. This mod intends to become a massive, comprehensive collection of bug fixes for Bethesda's RPG. Currently there are fixes for object placements, audio bugs, item issues, meshes and textures, quests and NPCs, perks and stats, and much more. It will continue to grow as more items are added. Here's the complete changelog.

Doom 3: Redux

Moddb link

Before the new Doom arrives, why not revisit the last one? This mod makes no gameplay changes to Doom 3 but adds over 600 HD textures, overhauls lighting and sounds, restores cut content, and adds hi-res UI and fonts. It also comes with graphical options like FXAA, FOV, and anisotropic filtering, and includes support for widescreen resolutions up to 4K.

Ark: Moon Survival

Steam Workshop link

In this full conversion mod for Ark: Survival Evolved, dinosaur bones have been found on the moon, and astronauts are sent to investigate. From the cinematic trailer above, it appears the bones aren't simply the remains of lunar dinos, because enormous skeletal dinosaurs are actually roaming the barren satellite. The mod is still in the works, but there's already a server if you want to check it out.

Spoiler warning: we'll be covering late game mechanics and items. Turn back now if you've yet to finish Dark Souls 3 and don't want to read names of a few items on this page and covenants and locations on the second page.

The Dark Souls series’ multiplayer is built to enable griefing—in an already unrelenting dark fantasy world, a player can invade your game and hunt you down at nearly any point. No matter how predictable enemy AI is, human behavior is erratic and conniving, but by enabling evil, Dark Souls has also generated a culture of nobility among the chaos. It’s arguably one of the more interesting multiplayer scenes around. Don't skip it, even if you're a newcomer and the prospect of facing off invaders is intimidating.

Granted, a series known for oblique, punishing mechanics doesn't make PvP super easy to get into, so we’ve assembled this guide to help you learn how to survive and thrive.

On the first page, we cover key online play items, a few suggested PvP play styles, and key PvP items.

And over on page two, we look at every covenant (PvP and co-op) in the game, detail where to find them, and the rewards they dole out.

Before you take off after any unsuspecting players, keep a few basic tips in mind:

• If you’re invaded and the odds are against you, book it to the nearest bonfire so reclaiming your souls isn’t a risky endeavor.
• If an invading phantom bows, bow back—they’re likely looking for a respectable duel. That probably means no Estus Flask use either (but being more honorable than your opponent is a good way to end up dead, so beware).
• Don’t expect every invading phantom to bow. Some might hide in wait or even assume the shape of an environmental object using a spell. Only slash at the moving gravestones.
• If you see a ton of red summon signs on the ground, you’re likely in a popular dueling arena. Join in on the friendly competition, but don’t go looking for cheap kills, jerk.
• And remember, if PvP isn’t your thing, you can always summon for co-op help or avoid using Embers unless absolutely necessary.

Key online play items

Dark Souls 3 starts you with a few of the key items used to play online, but you'll need to buy or find a few more to start helping other players as a phantom (or invading them to steal their souls). Here are the key items for playing online and how to get them.

Ember: Use to enter Ember Mode, which allows summoning of phantoms. Found throughout Lothric and awarded to you for helping another player defeat a boss as a phantom.

White Sign Soapstone: Place a sign that allows you to be summoned as a phantom to another world for cooperative play. Defeating the boss of an area or the death of the host will return a phantom to their world. Phantoms only receive half of their Estus Flasks (both types) while in a host’s world. Purchase from the Shrine Handmaid for 500 souls.

Black Separation Crystal: Allows a host to return a summoned phantom to their homeworld.

Way of White Circlet: Restores the link between worlds. If a host repeatedly disconnects when phantoms invade, they will no longer be able to see summon signs. This item restores the link and allows the host to see summon signs once again.

Dried Finger: Allows a host to summon a 3rd phantom, but also increases the frequency of invading phantoms. Purchase from the Shrine Handmaid for 2000 souls.

Cracked Red Eye Orb: Consumable item that allows for the invasion of a player in Ember form. A player can only invade hosts of a higher level.

Red Eye Orb: A non-consumable item that functions identically to the Cracked Red Eye Orb.

Red Sign Soapstone: Summon a Red Phantom to your world to do battle. Time to duel!

Roster of Knights: A Roster of Knights of the Darkmoon.

Covenant Insignias: Covenants can be changed on the fly by equipping a covenant insignia in the player equipment screen, to the right of the armor and rings section.

PvP play styles

Savvy invaders aren't as easy to take down as your average Dark Souls enemy. They may taunt you with a sword, only to switch to a pyromancy flame and roast you without warning. They may send you into a panic with a fast-hitting knife edged with poison. Just as there are many, many tactics to survive your run through Lothric, there are many ways to face off against human opponents.

Here are some play styles that may help you vanquish your foes—find the one that's best for you, and study them so you know what you're up against before you go in swinging.

Critical damage

This play style is very popular with invaders, and is recognizable when a phantom has a weapon with high critical damage and a parry shield. One counter to this play style is that most of the ultra-weapons' two-handed strong attacks cannot be parried. There are four ways to gain critical damage:

• Parry/Riposte: The most common critical hit involves a player using a shield to parry a strike from an opponent and performing a riposte while they are stunned.
• Shield kick: Many weapons have a shield kick when pressing forward and basic attack at the same time. If an opponent is blocking when the kick lands, they will be stunned in a similar fashion to a parry.
• Poise break: If an opponent has no stamina left and is hit with an attack while blocking, they will be stunned with the same animation as the shield kick. The animation time is much shorter, making it a smaller window of opportunity to land a riposte.
• Back stab: The Dark Souls bread and butter of many, many PvP players. Landing a back stab online was easy in previous Dark Souls games due to lag, but has been refined in Dark Souls 3 to be more forgiving to the victim.

Caster

A successful caster has some points in Dexterity or the Sage Ring to reduce casting time. The Sage Ring is the equivalent of adding 30 levels onto Dexterity, but there is a hard cap for casting speed around 50 Dexterity. To compete against most play styles, a caster must also have a good variety of spells attuned:

• Long range: These spells are usually high in damage, but often relegated to the beginning of a battle when the enemy is further away.
• Medium range: Probably the most used in battle as these spells are much faster to cast and do not use as many Focus Points.
• Homing attack: Casting a homing attack can cause an opponent to focus on the homing attack over other attacks, which is a nice diversion.
• Weapon buff: A good strategy is to buff a light weapon and cast a homing or AoE spell. The opponent focuses on the homing attack allowing the caster to run in and land a series of blows.
• Short range: Spells like Soul Greatsword do damage in an arc around the caster that can be a very good counter to players who are trying to attack with physical damage.

Ultra weapons

This style is a good counter to the critical damage play style, but usually does not afford much in the way of forgiveness. It relies heavily on landing a few two-handed strong attacks in a row to finish an opponent off quickly while they are stun-locked. Some key notes on this play style:

• High vigor: High HP allows the player to take a hit in order to land one, especially when each hit can be upwards of 500 damage.
• Moderate endurance: The ability to swing an ultra-weapon more than once or twice in a row is a big benefit.
• Consumable items: Always carry throwing knives in order to alleviate the weakness of lacking long distance attacks.
• Unpredictability: Drop a rope bomb while running or toss a quick throwing knife. Don’t use the same attacks over and over. If the last dodge roll was followed up by an attack, keep the enemy on their toes by swapping the attack for another roll or even nothing. If your attacks deal a ton of damage, then a slip up from your opponent is costlier than it would be for you.

Stun lock

Speed of both player and weapon strikes help to continuously damage an enemy and keep them stun locked. Straight swords, curved swords, and katanas are best suited to this play style. Additionally, weapon buffs can greatly help to increase the damage of each strike. Important notes for this style:

• Lightweight: Successful players close the gap quickly in order to begin attacking an opponent.
• High endurance: The ability to string attacks together is a necessity. The idea is to continuously hit an opponent (blocking or not) until they are either dead or their poise is broken and a riposte can be performed.
• Weapon buffs: There are a fair number of shields that block 100% physical damage, but damage from other types still whittle away at an enemy’s life bar.
• Low level: This build is suited to being a low level and using a weapon like the Astora Straight Sword. Swords like these have low stat requirements, but can do a lot of damage when reinforced to Raw +10 (in this case 322 damage) and buffed with either magic or pine resin.

Key PvP items

Winning in PvP isn't all about your weapons. There are some key items that can turn the tables on your opponent. Confuse them, interrupt their attacks, and stop them from healing to gain the upper hand.

Seed of a Giant Tree: Turns the PvE enemies in a host world hostile toward an invading phantom. These drop from the Giant Tree outside Firelink Shrine near the locked Tower Gate. Frequent invasions by phantoms expedites the creation of a Seed from the Giant Tree.

Undead Hunter Charm: These are thrown like fire bombs, but they create a cloud of smoke. When a player passes through the smoke they cannot use Estus for the next 25 seconds.

Throwing Knife: Using throwing knives can really mess with a player, especially casters. They are very effective as they have a short throwing animation and can be thrown in quick succession.

Poison Throwing Knife: Best used against players who are constantly blocking as they still cause poison buildup when they hit a shield.

Kukri: Another type of throwing knife that inflicts bleed damage. If using a bleed weapon, these are very good at helping to keep the bleed status bar close to full on your opponent or for finishing off the bar to inflict blood loss.

Rope (Black) Firebomb: Similar to firebombs, but instead of being thrown, these are left behind the player. Very good at scaring away or damaging opponents that are chasing the player. The Rope Black Firebomb works identically to the Rope Firebomb, but yields higher damage.

Carvings: Everyone likes carvings and the goofy voice they emit. They are equipped just like items and are not consumed when used. Carvings in Dark Souls 3 are all obtained by trading with Picklepum the Crow, located above Firelink Shrine.

On the next page: the covenants to join if you're all about that PvP life.

Covenants

A covenant is an allegiance you make in Dark Souls 3’s campaign (designated by an equippable tablet in your inventory) that reward specific items and encourage certain online play mechanics. For example, Rosaria’s Fingers reward the player with a tongue for every successful invasion they perform. On the other hand, the Mound-Makers are rewarded for successfully killing the host of a world or other phantoms in that world. Their allegiance is inherently ambiguous: do they help the host and take out incoming invaders for a hefty reward or do they just go straight for the host?

Because player intentions and goals can be so divergent and unclear, drama is a given for even the most routine online encounter.

Way of Blue

Style: CooperativeSummon sign: WhitePhantom color: White

Initiation:

In the last area of the High Wall of Lothric is a Chapel with an old woman, named Emma, sitting on a chair. Speaking with her a second time grants the player the Way of Blue covenant insignia.

Summoning range: Host +20 or -20 levels of Phantom

Notes: There are no ranks in the Way of Blue. When a Way of Blue member is invaded, a Blue Sentinel will be summoned to help defeat the invader.

Warriors of Sunlight

Style: CooperativeSummon sign: GoldPhantom color: Gold Awarded items: Sunlight Medal – Awarded by aiding a host in defeating the area boss.

Initiation:

In the Undead Settlement there are a large number of enemies praying to a bonfire. Just after this section is a dark room with a bunch of wrapped up bodies hanging from the ceiling. Dropping through the hole in the floor leads to a secret room, with the Covenant Insignia on the table.

The Alter of Sunlight is located in Lothric Castle near the Dragonslayer Armour Bonfire. Head across the bridge and climb the ladder near the building to the right. Climb down the ladder on the other side of the building and there is a room at the end of the bridge that holds a broken statue, where the player can offer Sunlight Medals.

Rank rewards:

• 10 Sunlight Medals – Sacred Oath Miracle
• 30 Sunlight Medals – Great Lightning Spear

Summoning Range: Host +20 or -20 levels of Phantom

Notes: A host also earns a Sunlight Medal when they have defeated the area boss with a Warrior of Sunlight summoned, regardless of covenant affiliation.

Mound-Makers

Style: Cooperative/InvasionSummon sign: Purple (White Sign Soapstone) / Reddish-Purple (Red Sign Soapstone)Phantom color: Purple (White Sign Soapstone) / Reddish-Purple (Red Sign Soapstone) Awarded items: Vertebra Shackle – Earned by defeating the host or another phantom.

Initiation:

Option 1: Before battling the Curse-Rotted Greatwood, head right from the large fire in the middle of town across the bridge. Climb up on the rooftops and drop down on the other side, where you will find a caged hollows NPC (normally an enemy). After the creepiest dialogue in the Souls series, head back around the buildings to find a Hollow Manservant with a cage on his back. Carefully approach him from behind and “examine” the cage on his back. Option 2: After battling the Curse-Rotted Greatwood, summon Sirris of the Sunless Realms at the entrance of the boss room for Aldrich of the Deep (must have already defeated Aldrich and followed Sirris’ questline to the end).

Covenant location:

A shrine surrounded by candles near the Pit of Hollows bonfire beneath the Curse-Rotted Greatwood.

Rank rewards:

• 10 Vertebra Shackles – Bloodlust Katana
• 30 Vertebra Shackles – Warmth Pyromancy Spell

Invasion range: Host +30 or -10 levels of Phantom

Notes: If summoned via the White Sign Soapstone, the enemies of the host’s world will be hostile to the phantom, but the Mound-maker cannot assist in defeating the area boss.

If summoned via the Red Sign Soapstone, the enemies of the host’s world are not hostile.

Blue Sentinels

Style: CooperativeSummon sign: WhitePhantom color: Light Blue Awarded items: Proof of a Concord Kept – Defeat an enemy phantom or escort host to the area boss

Initiation:

Speak with Horace the Hushed at the Halfway Fortress bonfire in the Road of Sacrifices

Covenant location:

Speak with Company Captain Yorshka in Anor Londo.

Rank rewards:

• 10 Proof of a Concord Kept – Darkmoon Ring
• 30 Proof of a Concord Kept – Darkmoon Blade

Summoning Range: Host +30 or -10 levels of Phantom

Notes: The Proof of a Concord Kept award is earned by both Blue Sentinels and Blades of the Darkmoon. They can be used to rank up in either covenant regardless of which covenant a player was in when the award was earned.

Watchdogs of Farron

Style: Area InvasionSummon sign: WhitePhantom color: Reddish-Blue Awarded items: Wolf’s Blood Swordgrass – Awarded upon defeating a host or host-allied phantom.

INITIATION:

Pray to the Old Wolf of Farron near the Farron Keep bonfire, which can be accessed up a long ladder in the middle of the swamp.

COVENANT LOCATION:

The Old Wolf of Farron.

RANK REWARDS:

• 10 Wolf’s Blood Swordgrass – Old Wolf Curved Sword
• 30 Wolf’s Blood Swordgrass – Wolf Knight’s Greatshield and Wolf Ring

Summoning range: Host +30 or -10 levels of Phantom

Notes: Beast men in the swamp area can also drop Wolf’s Blood Swordgrass.

Rosaria s Fingers

Style: InvasionSummon sign: WhitePhantom color: Red Awarded items: Pale Tongue – Awarded by invading and defeating a host

INITIATION:

Speak with Rosaria in the Cathedral of the Deep (Rosaria’s Bed Chamber bonfire)

COVENANT LOCATION:

Speak with Rosaria, Mother of Rebirth

RANK REWARDS:

• 10 Pale Tongues – Obscuring Ring
• 30 Pale Tongues – Man Grub’s Staff

Summoning range: Host +30 or -10 levels of Phantom

Notes: Pale Tongues can be used to re-allocate stats a maximum of 5 times per playthrough or to change character appearance. Pale Tongues can also drop from Darkwraiths in the Road of Sacrifices. Forked Pale Tongues can be earned by defeating Blue Phantoms and Blades of the Darkmoon. Consuming a Forked Pale Tongue grants the player 2 Pale Tongues.

Aldrich Faithful

Style: Area Invasion – Anor LondoSummon sign: WhitePhantom color: Reddish-Blue Awarded items: Human Dregs

INITIATION:

Speak with Archdeacon McDonnell in Irithyll of the Boreal Valley (Pontiff Sulyvahn Bonfire)

COVENANT LOCATION:

Speak with Archdeacon McDonell

RANK REWARDS:

• 10 Human Dregs – Great Deep Soul
• 30 Human Dregs – Archdeacon’s Great Staff

Summoning range: Host +30 or -10 levels of Phantom

Notes: Deacons in Anor Londo can also drop Human Dregs.

Blades of the Darkmoon

Style: CooperativeSummon sign: WhitePhantom color: Dark Blue Awarded Items: Proof of a Concord Kept – Defeat an enemy phantom or escort host to the area boss

INITIATION:

Company Captain Yorshka in Anor Londo (must have completed Sirris of the Sunless Realm quest to the point of learning the “Darkmoon Loyalty” Gesture). Or, just stab her.

COVENANT LOCATION:

Speak with Company Captain Yorshka

RANK REWARDS:

• 10 Proof of a Concord Kept – Darkmoon Ring
• 30 Proof of a Concord Kept – Darkmoon Blade

Summoning range: Host +30 or -10 levels of Phantom

Notes: Proof of a Concord Kept items can also drop from Silver Knights. Defeating an Aldrich Faithful member earns a Proof of a Concord Well Kept. Consuming a Proof of a Concord Well Kept grants the player 2 Proof of a Concord Kept items.