Yes, you can summon other people and a few NPCs before boss battles, if you've completed certain requirements, but how about optional NPC partners throughout the game? You can level and spec them however you want and they can bring an extra layer of strategy to the game. If the AI doesn't suck and you can order them to be defensive, distract certain enemies, or be heal/magic happy, it can make things more interesting. Plus, we can get way more wacky banter this way.

If someone at FromSoftware gets his/her hands on this, make it happen.

...Nah. I prefer my Dark Souls to be a terrifying experience. I want as little help as possible, so yeah, it can be optional, but I wouldn't use it. Ever.

Besides, the AI in video games is pretty bad- look at Bioshock Infinite and the Last of Us, the NPCs in those games have to cheat to not mess the game up for you. So nah.

I know that most people who like the raw experience, wouldn't be into this. That's why I'm suggesting making it optional. It can be their gateway to a bigger audience.

NO. Because this would lead to, "hey why isn't this a full co-op game, I want to play with my friend". NO. Keep that garbage out of my Souls games. We like them the way they are. Leave them alone.

They'd have to drastically redesign enemy AI for that to work, since even a summoned phantom significantly decreases the difficulty of most combat. The AI just isn't designed to deal with multiple players.

Granted, if they could make it work it could end up fixing the problem with the already existing co-op, which wouldn't be a bad thing. But I dunno, I feel like you'd have to fundamentally change how the game plays for that to happen.

Na I wouldn't want NPC help, I just think how so much easier the game would be with an extra partner... It takes away a lot of the experience in a Souls game, that's why I never like to summon other players to my world, that's why I basically stay hollow and adventure alone.

Although this suggestion is well-intentioned, I think making Dark Souls into a form of party-based RPG would change the essence of the game too much for many fans of the series. Among other things, the Souls games give a great sense of vulnerability, loneliness, and fear as you inch around corners with your shield up, which I feel would be undercut if you were rolling around with a posse.

If you haven't already played it, you should probably check out Dragon's Dogma. It's probably the closest thing to this.

Dragon's Dogma was the first thing to come to my mind.

Yeah, i don't know. I think an AI companion could be neat depending on how it's handled. I think people are being too immediately dismissive.

I can't see this working too well. Dark Souls isn't really a game where I feel like I benefit from having allies around (except for the boss fights, and this is already available). Sure, being able to have customizable companions would add strategy, but not a kind of strategy that can pleasantly co-exist with the current difficulties of the game.

In most situations you aren't fighting more than one, two, or three enemies at once. The game is designed for you to carefully pull a few enemies at a time and dismantle a room or pathway piece by piece. If you suddenly start having companion(s) following you around, either you easily outnumber that one enemy you pulled removing any difficulty or they have to consider removing the ability to fight enemies one at a time which changes the core game overall.

You're basically battling to find an opening in your opponents attack animation. That's when you strike as much as possible to deal as much damage as possible and then revert back into defending as soon as that window closes. With multiple people, that window is always open for someone. That is a problem. No longer do you have to be patient and pick your shots, but instead whenever the AI isn't focused on you, you go batshit crazy til its dead. Now of course with the companion being optional, how do they account for both styles? If the person with the AI is going to have any kind of challenge they need to change the AI and overall encounters. Which once again affects the experience of the solo player.

Lastly, I don't really feel like Dark Souls is a game that should have friendly/wacky banter. It's a depressing yet beautiful journey. Everyone's living on the verge of death (or undeath) and I feel like that atmosphere would be ruined by the two musketeers chatting their way through the area.

If you want partners I'd say you might as well just stick with summoning humans and boss battle npcs. It'd be basically the same experience aside from scripted conversations and events.

If I wanted competently inept AI controlled party members who never shut up, I would play Dragon's Dogma. Which, to be fair, I have and I think that game is pretty great.

That sounds almost like the friends I have to play the game with, except they aren't AI. They're just equally as dumb as bricks

How often do your friends say "There may be ought of use here"?