Part of the reason why InReview has just now doled out a swathe of Dark Souls 2 content is the ongoing Return to Drangleic event which, at the time of writing, is set to end this upcoming Friday.

Return to _____ events are within older Soulsborne games, with the premise being a two week period opening up where people treat the games as if they’re new again. The idea is to make at least one new character and go through the game, encouraging multiplayer play as much as possible. These events happen in the beginning of the year, with a new older Soulsborne game occupying each month. In January/February, Return to Lordran saw Dark Souls 1 become populated with new players, just as Return to Drangleic did when it began on February 27th.

I’ve been a longtime player and have now experienced several Return to Drangleic events. Yet, this is not recency bias: the 2026 version of this event was by far the best. For a game that came out in 2014 to experience this kind of resurgence has been amazing to experience. This piece aims to briefly go over why 2026’s RTD has been so great, and what other “Return to _____” events need to match how great this one was

Random Summon Signs Were Far More Common Than Usual

It’s not terribly uncommon, even outside of Return to Drangleic events, to see random summon signs in the early game of a playthrough. However, random summon signs continued to appear throughout the entire game this year, even extending to fairly random areas such as the above’s Aldia’s Keep.

It may not seem like much, but before beginning an area, dropping a summon sign haphazardly at the area’s bonfire can facilitate multiplayer play very easily. Personally, I make it a point to summon any “randos” I find just for the hell of it, the opportunity to experience the game with someone new. For as cheesy as this sounds, this is the premise of Return to Drangleic, and it just seemed this year that the playerbase embraced this style of play more than in years’ past.

People Embraced Covenant PvP Play

People who are real jerks will tend to engage in one type of PvP called the Dragon Remnants where they get to pick on newer players, and this is something that happens year-round. However, even niche covenants with no reward other than exciting gameplay, like the Rat King Covenant, were far more active than usual. Dark Souls 2 in general has some covenants with really unique, fresh gameplay mechanics that have simply collected dust since newer games in the franchise came out. When properly engaged with though, these covenants can be an absolute blast.

In summary, this article wants to send one incredibly simple message- engage in random co-operative (and adversarial!) gameplay! During Return to Drangleic is the perfect time for this, but similar engagement during other Soulsborne games’ Return To events will lead to similar results. That said, engaging with the game like this even outside of RTD can lead to entertaining results.

Don’t be afraid to randomly drop your summon sign, not just in Dark Souls 2, but anywhere! Similarly, don’t be afraid to interact with someone else’s summon sign. You never know, you could end up bumping into a new long-term friendship with a mutually shared interest.

This will be the last Dark Souls 2 content published here on InReview. At the time of writing, Return to Drangleic is set to conclude on Friday. Many, many helpful articles for newer and experienced players alike have been published very recently about this game. If you haven’t already made a character, there is still time!