But it's no different with Dark 3. They could have made it happen in the Age of Dark, but at the end, they chose to place it still in the age of fire, because you still have a goal (either age of fire and dark).
Because they're not ignoring Dark Souls II, which would be way worse. No matter how bad it is, it absolutely is Dark Souls canon, they can't pretend it didn't exist. If Dark Souls II says it's a cycle, then they need to explain it very thoroughly now if they want to put the Age of Dark in, with a point of no return.
And that could very well be what they're doing with the lords abandoning their thrones. If their existance and rising when the flames are at risk is what keeps the cycle going, if they're not there anymore, this time it can end for good.
Thing is, dark isn't inevitable, is the natural course, yeah, but you can keep avoiding it. Hell, they even go as far in Dark 3 as making the auto bell lord awakening when the fire is about to fade, something that is completely new, and is another panic button to avoid the age of dark (not that I dislike it).
Yes, this is true. As long as they keep linking the fire, the age of fire will continue. I fail to see a reason after the gods are no more, but Dark Souls III might also be addressing that point, as we can see with the figure of Ludleth of Courland, "a self proclaimed Lord of Cinder". If being a Lord of Cinder is something that can be considered desirable, it might explain why they kept linking it.
I agree the original dark 2 ending was shit, like REALLY SHIT. And also that the lore is inferior.
Btw, I don't understand SOTFS ending about looking for a solution of the curse. Aldia says "there's no path. Beyond the scope of light and beyond the reach of dark, what could await us?" I think it's another way to say to go for the age of dark. And yes,I agree it was a retcon lol As I said the ending of 2 was terrible.
And I mean, don't get me wrong, when I say retcon, I don't mean anything bad by it, not on principle, at least, the issue is that it makes no sense. It's like they didn't know people cared about this, and then patched it because someone told them we kinda do care about it. It can't be their vision, because they actually went against the tradition, they went out of their way changing the formula and giving us a single ending.
BUT, that being said, it could be a result of its very troubled development. On the other hand, Demon's had a similar troubled development, and was redone from scratch by Miyazaki after being considered a failure. I personally don't like Demon's nearly as much as Dark, so the troubled development is still just as good of an argument to me, but there are many people who still think Demon's is the best Souls game, so it might not be enough reason to justify its shortcomings.
Not if you have a way to go back to 2016 just before reaching 2017
But you can't, you can make 2016 last longer, but 2017 is still there, it will still come, it's only a matter of time. And when it does, RIP 2016.
RIP in RIP
in RIP.
Even Dark Souls III reinforces that Dark II considered Fire and Dark a cycle, they added the option to not link the fire to Dark Souls II, but we're still in the age of fire in Dark Souls III. They could've just chosen the Link the Fire ending from I to write II, as you suggested, but it makes no sense that they would patch in an ending that they were already discarding, since Dark Souls III was most definitely already in development at that point.