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The concept behind Souls multiplayer is unique among big-budget releases, and so to this day feels fresh. Online multiplayer design over-values symmetry as some sort of foundational principle - which in certain genres, to be sure, it is. But the Souls series thrives on placing a rock-solid combat system in asymmetrical scenarios, bringing players together in unexpected ways and often giving one side a clear advantage. This is the life of an invader, and it's never about fairness. The very mechanics have an arcane aura to them - one that has been highly-polished over multiple entries, and is less obscure in Dark Souls 3, but still gives cloaks the proceedings in a little mystery. The rules are thus: when your character is a host of embers, an in-game item that increases your health and allows the summoning of phantoms, you can be invaded by other players. When you're not embered up, you can become so by either being summoned and helping with a boss, or by invading another player and killing them.
The thing to note is that Dark Souls is mixing PvE and PvP, which has always been the case but even moreso for Dark Souls 3. The PvE players have the benefit of numbers, and a fixed 'goal' in the level, whereas the PvP players are being framed within that level's context - as a particularly dangerous red phantom, the ultimate Souls midboss. Many permutations arise from different covenants and online items, and the way PvEvP criss-cross each other, but the single most impactful change in Dark Souls 3 is the explosion in player numbers in a single host's world.
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