Dark Souls: Nightfall

 And then there was fire

Well would you look at that? A mod after my very own heart given my, often overbearing, adoration of the Dark Souls franchise. Anything that happens in this Dark twisted plain, forever situated at the very edge of a dying world, has my absolute attention right off the bat, which is something I didn't think I'd need to take into account anymore now that the series is good and dead after the successful completion of it's story. (Hear that? The series is over. No amount of Elden Ring is going to change that, because that game isn't a sequel!) But even having come to terms with that, there's still that nagging part of me which loathes to abandon a video game universe that once meant so much to me, because those memories, lasting and forged in sheer pain, tie me down. Thus I can only imagine it was in sort of recognition of those lingering memories, that Youtube Recommendations immediately hit me with the trailer for a brand new ambitious fan mod coming for Dark Souls Remastered, which looks to expand upon a game series I love.

Now mods aren't anything new to the Dark Souls world by any stretch of the imagination, but a lot of the most famous ones aren't really... designed to extend that Dark Souls experience. You know, that carefully constructed and weighed balance between tough but achievable which fans are forever butting heads against. The mods we see for Dark Souls games are typically huge overhauls that seek to just completely throw out pre-conceived notions of 'balance' and just make the game as hard as possible. Spawn several hundred more enemies in the game to stand in-between baked in spawning grounds? Sure. Enchant some enemies with a red-eyed aura that makes them Sekiro back to life after their first death, stronger then when the went down? Why not? Give us a randomiser mod so that the exquisitely intentional placement of the world and its items become a mismatched jumble of AI dictated chaos? You betcha, we're all over that! But what about that one mod which just wants to keep what makes Dark Souls special and provide more of it? Well, that's a tall ask and some might say an impossible one for someone who's not a trained and practised Game Developer. And to be fair I don't know the credits of the entire Team involved, but that's at the very least the mission statement for Dark Souls: Nightfall. 

To be brutally honest with you, I don't really like the name all that much. 'Nightfall' sounds a little obvious of a title for a Dark Souls related product, and certainly lacks the panache of another Dark Souls mod by one of this mod's creator's: Daughters of Ash. Speaking of which, it seems that the Daughters of Ash mod is a direct predecessor to this project, or at least that's the impression I get from looking at the personal web page of one involved developer: Grimruhk. But whilst that was an expansion upon the Souls world, this actually pitches itself as a direct sequel, which immediately makes me think about the sequel that was already made for Dark Souls, but then I remember how that was a surrealist journey through a land of no-consequence wherein you fought time travelling tree-giants and spent the entire length of the plot engaged in a side mission that didn't even address your primary reason for starting the journey in the first place. I can see why one fan took it into their own hands to make a sequel.

But what does a 'Sequel' even imply, what would something of that kin even look like? Well much like Daughters of Ash, the mod appears to be taking assets and world pieces from the base Dark Souls game and recycling them into this new mod space in the form of new encounters. An elegant solution, a gardener's solution actually, for it assures that everything we see will look and feel will fit as if it's from the Dark Souls that we recognise, and with the exception of some inflated models and added effects, it very much is. (Plus, I don't think Dark Souls has official Modding tools. Creating and adding in a whole new game's worth of original textures and meshes would probably be much more of a pain than it's worth.) The results actually do look inviting, even for someone as familiar with the base game as I am, for when the base game we're talking about is Dark Souls, more of the same is all great with me.

Of course, all that isn't to say that there aren't some new surprises waiting there for the hopeful who wants something new from their Souls adventure. One of the stand outs for the trailer was a new Katana type that appears to be two handed and is worn on the back of the player, like a Dai-Katana. Whatsmore, this weapon comes with a curiously new looking moveset that features a quick backdodge that I swear lifts the effects from the Milkring of Carthus from Dark Souls. The whole 'disappear like a phantom' thing brings back those sore PVP memories at the very least, even if the effect is wholly custom. The mod promises to have other little surprises like that, and a diehard is certainly going to find it a special moment to stubble on something they think they know only to have it totally surprise them in a fun way.

    

Recent years have seen an huge influx in all of these types of crazy Modding projects that go on for multiple years and aim to cure cancer or something, to the point where they're almost becoming as big events as a new game release itself. The Witcher 3 similarly just dropped a brand new anticipated Quest mod that has some groundbreaking, and slightly controversial, technological techniques in it's construction. Personally I love to see the way fans are taking control of the games they're given and turning it into their spot in the limelight, it's a special dedication to something you love as well as a wonderful way to market oneself and your talents, all and all it's a win win! (Though I wonder what the FromSoftware team make of projects like this. Are they flattered or insulted that one would deface their work? They're a weird company, it could go either way.)

We're due a glimpse into the realms under the Undead Asylum as soon as this December, which marks it as one of the few big mod projects out there with an honest-to-goodness release date and not just a- "Hey, this is cool isn't it? Well we're expect it come 2030 and be happy if it comes at all." Whatsmore, this release date it exactly one month before when Elden Ring's first, almost certain to be delayed, release date is due. I hope that's a coincidence and not a matter of "Oh crap, Elden Ring's release date was just announced! We need to hurry and get this out before it gets buried under the new game!" As it plays out right now, the average Souls fan can find themselves enjoying this remix of a classic masterpiece as an entrée to the Elden Ring main course. One last send off of the franchise we've loved for the past 10 years now. (So no pressure to the mod team.)

The age of fire will never truly die whilst there's the calibre of creator out there willing to devote years of their personal life to projects like this. And those that can't let the Souls universe go can rest easy in the fact that neither can others out there. It's gaming royalty now, and getting mods with stupid amounts of love and effort in them is par for the course. I'm just glad to see that the original Dark Souls is finally getting the modding love that the other games were getting due to it actually now owning a decent port. (Prepare to die Edition was a sin against computer gamers everywhere.) Can't wait to play it for myself once Elden Ring gets indefinitely delayed and we're all desperately crawling for a souls-like to fill up that heart-void. Till December!