Did you love finding your friends to play with in Dark Souls? That’s very unlikely to happen in Dark Souls 2 according to Namco Bandai’s Chief of Overseas Production Takeshi Miyazoe who we spoke to at Gamescom.

While it was not easy to find your friends to help you fight the toughest bosses in Dark Souls, it was possible. This will be even tougher in the upcoming Dark Souls 2 says Takeshi. He confirmed that it was not the intention to let players join up with friends, saying ‘this is not what we want.’

While you can build a party of players to progress through the most challenging parts of Dark Souls 2, don’t count on them being familiar faces. Dark Souls 2 is designed to be played with strangers, to enhance the unpredictable and cold nature of the game. Other players will again be able to intrude again, breaking into your game for player versus player combat.

It looks like you don’t have to fear that this sequel will water down the brutal difficulty of its predecessor. A closed beta will begin on October 5th. You will be able to find out more on the Dark Souls 2 Facebook page from September 5th.

Dark Souls 2 will be out on March 14th 2014 for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.