The Dark Souls franchise is currently 50% off until May 16th.
Dark Souls Franchise
store.steampowered.com
If you've never played the games, they're definitely worth picking up.
yes even DS2, it's still fun even if I don't like it very much
DS2 is the best one damn it, I'll go to my grave fighting for that game.
-has the best PVP and combat of any souls game to date because practically every weapon and build is viable with the right buffs, sorcery is great but balanced, POWERSTANCING IS A THING
-most varied environments in a souls series until Elden Ring came out (3 is ugly as sin until you get out of the catacombs, the entire color pallette is very slightly varying shades of greasy grey and orange)
-turns DS1's gravelording into an entire New Game + exclusive experience, gives the game an immense amount of replayability
-Has interesting covenants and multiplayer mechanics(unlike DS3), you can literally force other players into an over the top comedic villain dungeon complete with spike walls and buzzsaws shooting out of walls, you can get summoned to help a boss, you can do arena fights in a half dozen different locations with varying rules, etc.
-Has way more in-depth NPC questlines and trees compared to every souls game that isn't Elden Ring
-levels that actually punish you for trying to run through everything and ignoring all non-boss interactions
-story progression that isn't railroaded into particular routes, making player interactions much more consistent across the entire game
Soul Memory's existence is a valid problem, but the overall gameplay and ambience of 2 is so much fucking better than 3 that I don't care. 3 has some great bosses, but almost every actual (non-dlc) level is bland and forgettable. Meanwhile 1 is amazing but has a much smaller sandbox to play with as well as a bunch of jank (bed of chaos, for example). Elden Ring is a magical experience in single player, but it has balance issues and no real covenant gameplay, so multiplayer is dead unless the DLC fixes something.