FromSoftware’s highly-divisive second jab at the Souls franchise is finally getting the love it deserves in form of a quasi-remaster. A modder has taken it upon himself to overhaul the PC version in a massive way by reworking the lighting, textures and models of Dark Souls 2.
The Dark Souls franchise has cemented itself as one of the hallmark titles of the past decade. Not only did it spawn an entirely new genre with the soulslike moniker, but the unforgiving game design also made it one of the most influential games in recent memory.
Think it's about time I used this page to show progress on my DS2 lighting mod.
I had wanted my first few posts here to be nice eye-grabbing before/afters of the mod, but inexplicably I can't load the original files to do that, so we're stuck with current-progress shots for now. pic.twitter.com/CNJUrjPfM4— Stayd (@Stayd3D) January 16, 2020
While the actual first game of that type by FromSoftware, Demon’s Souls, remained a hidden gem, the small Japanese studio hit it big time with 2011’s Dark Souls. Naturally, expectations for Dark Souls 2 were sky-high when it came out three years later. It was received mixed by gamers to put it lightly. While some hail it as the best Souls game, there are many who found the nonsensical world layout, changes to animations and stat systems a step back in quality.
Maybe the most prominent point of criticism was an alleged downgrade in visuals compared to early trailers. To be fair, Dark Souls 2 is a great looking game in many areas but it lacks consistency which can lead to outright ugly scenes. The lighting system, in particular, ended up much shorter than what atmospheric early footage promised.
And this is exactly where ambitious modder StaydMcMuffin comes into play. The avid Dark Souls 2 fan has made it his goal to rework the visuals of DS2. Due to technical reasons, this mod only encompasses the Scholar of the First Sin edition of the game. The modder already released comparison screenshots of his work and it’s a generational leap by all means. As you can see in the images, not only has he managed to create a very atmospheric lighting system, textures and models have also been added and changed which makes Dark Souls 2 look so much better than what we’re used to.
There’s no timeline when gamers can expect the release but make sure to follow Stayd on Twitter and Twitch for future updates.
