The community behind Dark Souls II is preparing to hold its annual Return to Drangelic event earlier than expected. Newcomers will be able to team up with long-time fans of the series during the second half of January 2022.
For those who aren't deep into the Dark Souls II community, the Return to Drangelic is an annual event where long-time players start up new playthroughs of Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin in order to jump into co-op sessions with newer players or to engage in early-game PvP. The event would have originally run from February 27th to March 13th, but the date has been moved up to January 16-30 because of the impending release of Elden Ring, which was pushed back slightly from its planned January release.
If you are planning on joining the event, whether as a veteran or as a newcomer, it's highly suggested that you pick up the Blue Acolyte mod to use with your game. Available on Nexus Mods, Blue Acolyte is a collection of community patches and quality of life improvements for Dark Souls II, but there are a couple of features that are particularly useful for the Return to Drangelic event and multiplayer in general. One of these is a community-created anti-cheat system that lets users use Steam's block function to keep malicious players out of their game, a feature that was only present in the original console version. The other prevents the cracked red eye orb and blue eye orb (used to start multiplayer sessions) from being used up, allowing players to play multiplayer as much as they want.
The Return to Drangelic event runs from January 16-30, 2022. You'll need the Scholar of the First Sin edition of Dark Souls II in order to use the mod. Both versions of the game are available on Steam and are currently 75% off as part of the Steam Winter Sale until January 5