The Dark Souls modding community’s most prominent members have banded together to develop fan-made sequel, Dark Souls: Nightfall.
There seems to be something about Dark Souls that just keeps players coming back to it. Is it the grim, oppressive atmosphere, and the thrill of potentially instantaneous death lurking around every corner? Is is the masochistic pleasure of marching back up to a difficult boss fight, only to die for the dozenth time?
Whatever it is, the Dark Souls community is alive and well – especially its modding scene. Some mods will let you mow down enemies with modern firearms. Others have popped their target game’s bonnet and managed to uncap its framerate. But Dark Souls: Nightfall is easily the community’s most ambitious project to date.
From a team that includes Grimruhk, creator of the massive Daughters of Ash mod, Nightfall is described as a “direct sequel” to the original Dark Souls. Its plot is said to begin seconds after the ‘Dark Lord’ ending of the game, where the player chooses to let the First Flame die and usher in the Age of Dark.
Nightfall promises a new world map fashioned from the rearranged and recombined portions of the original game’s assets. Combat has been revamped to be more fast paced, with original enemies being retextured and reanimated to breathe new life into the classic Dark Souls gameplay formula.
Finished a lot of the Azure Knight (Lance) custom enemy’s moveset, sounds, and visual effects. His AI is just random equal chance of each pattern right now but I’ll make him pick patterns more interestingly some other time I’m T I R E D pic.twitter.com/GlTKjog3MJ
— Meowmaritus (@meowmaritus) August 27, 2020
New, fully voiced characters will help deliver the mod’s story, and Grimruhk says the team is aiming to include more event scripting, boss fights, weapons, armour sets, items, and optional quest lines than ever before.
The Dark Souls: Nightfall team estimates that the mod will be ready for release around the middle of 2021. More details can be found on the official announcement page, and anyone keen to support Nightfall’s development might like to visit Grimruhk’s Patreon.
As for how we feel about the project, this gif captures our sentiments pretty well: