Well, in a way, it was "empty". They wanted to create a world devoid of any hope or sanity and I think they did a pretty damn good job. If you go into detail with it of how everything happened there. For example, New Londo ruins (the flooded city), was flooded by three healers to stop the Darkwraith threat, to stop the darkness. They flooded an entire mothafuckin' city just to stop them. When you drain the water and go to the gates, you can see the bones of the former residents there, they were all trying to get out but weren't able to. And that is just the tip of the iceberg for the story in Dark Souls. Now, on to PvP. I didn't play PvP because I didn't have the original, unfortunately. I do focus on strength, you know, more damage and everything but it does have it's downsides (speed more primarily). My laptop died a few months ago and I'm not able to play any more requiring games on this one so I'm kind of saving money for a computer. Dark Souls 2 will have to wait until then. Have you played Dark Souls 2? If you have, what were your impressions of it?