Look if companies could implement successful anticheat without kernel access they sure as hell would, regardless of cost or effort. There is a TON of money to be made in competitive fps games alone, and they’re pretty much all overrun by hackers
I had the same experience: I played DS1 almost completely blind (I’d seen my old roommates playing it years ago so I knew some of the tricks, in a half-remembered sort of way). It was hard, and I got stuck in a few places for a really long time but wow it was extremely rewarding. Anyways I’m not that good at videogames, if you’re persistent pretty much anyone can beat dark souls 1 I think
I enjoyed playing the game on Xbox and I am happy to claim it for PC, but I kid you not the Ubisoft Connect client hangs when I try to open the Ubisoft store. As others have said, there’s really no need for them to have their own client. Just use Steam!