


I'm not exactly sure how accurate it is to say you can't rank up offline.I hit Lvl3 offline in Bellkeeper's off the Mad Warrior NPC spawn alone (which is EXACTLY why that NPC exists) & in NG+ it's a fact you can get Sunlight Medals off the Falconer enemies that start showing up in NG+ & beyond. In the end, what I mean to say is that you need to limit co-oping to truly experience the greatness of the Dark Souls. Generally, by playing offline, you will be able to truly appreciate the Dark Souls series for its difficulty and feelings of hopelessness, despair, and desolation. By co-oping with other people, you are able to net experience by traversing throughout another person's area as a white phantom (there is no consequence upon death), reverse the consequences of death in your own world by helping other people as a white phantom, get help with your own area bosses, and are able to level up extremely fast by farming bosses. In Dark Souls II, the pvp is generally concentrated in certain areas and thus, you are mostly able to co-op with other people without consequence. The reason being is that the game is MUCH harder if you play offline. However, although your in-game experience will be different and you will be losing out on multiplayer related activities, playing offline should give you a much greater sense of satisfaction and instill into you a greater sense of excitement. The answer above basically sums up the consequences of offline play. The sole exception to this may be any covenant NPC dialog or events that are only accessible after you've ranked up in one of the aforementioned co-op or PvP-oriented covenants.

This is also how it worked in both previous Souls games. All of the story/NPC elements are almost certainly still accessible, as NPC progress is solely based on your solo exploration and interactions, which are mechanically unchanged in offline mode.Certain boss fights or protected areas that are designed to bring in other human players as opponents will probably use AI-controlled NPCs in those players' place.You can't meaningfully participate in (or earn rewards from) any convenants that require PvP or co-op interaction to do so.You can't participate in any kind of co-op or PvP, obviously.I haven't discovered every last secret in the game, so I can't claim to be authoritative, but based on what I've experienced in this game so far and from my experience with prior games in the series:
