Dark Souls 2 Graphic Mod
Flames of Old is an upcoming graphics mod for Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin that reworks and overhauls its look, profoundly changing Dark Souls 2 in the process. Modder Stayd is changing lighting, shaders, and map design, and the result is a striking upgrade to the visuals. Stayd is inspired by the pre-release renders for the game, and wants to bring the graphics "on-par with what was shown pre-release." They've showed off some pretty impressive screenshots on Twitter (opens in new tab). Much of the lighting work changes how the game looks fundamentally, lessening the very flat tones of many environments. There are also small tweaks, like removing trees from the upper left, revealing the Shrine of Winter to add more sense of scale to the area:
dark souls 2 graphic mod
The graphics engine was designed with the then next-gen PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles in mind, but when Dark Souls II was released on PS3 and Xbox 360 back in 2014, the hardware limitations meant that the ambitious lighting system was scrapped. Now, modder Stayd is working on replicating that original lighting model using Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin on PC.
Stayd is an artist and graphics programmer, and has been sharing work-in-progress screenshots of their Flames of Old graphics mod on Twitter. The mod adds some striking updates to the game's lighting that fundamentally changes how Dark Souls II looks. Notable areas like Heide's Tower of Flame and Shrine of Amana look much improved, but the Shaded Woods catches the eye in particular.
The modder claimed that he used iGP11 for extensive texture overriding. By using this tool, he was able to dump every texture in the game and filter, tone down the brightness and make them darker. As such, nearly 6000 individual texture files were modified and are included in this pack.
GEM, that is Graphics Enhancement Mod does what it says on the tin, it makes the graphics slightly more enhanced. Creator neme0 uses SweetFX Stack Shader to give the darker areas of the game a deeper black feel, so it really feels as though the darkness is causing you a problem.
In the meantime, GeDoSaTo for Dark Souls 2 allows players to introduce things like less buggy ambient occlusion (the way enclosed areas are darkened based on their exposure to ambient lighting) and will also brighten the days (or rather blur the backgrounds of the days) of people who worship at the altar of Bokeh depth-of-field. What's more, it's all configurable in text files, so if you don't share Durante's preferences, you can define your own with a bit of tinkering.
It will also take advantage of the power of the PlayStation 4 system, Xbox One, and DirectX11 capable PCs to provide enhanced graphics for those specific platforms on top of several additional exclusive enhancements.
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.
Stayd, a self-taught lighting artist and graphics programmer, is currently undertaking the task of remastering the entire game's lighting. With a few relatively small but massively important tweaks, the game suddenly takes on a new life. The difference is perhaps most noticeable when viewing any of the iconic boss fights in Dark Souls 2. A YouTube clip showing the fiery Smelter Demon boss fight is particularly revealing of the changes.
Daughters Of Ash saves a lot of its best for later. Several boss fights are now multi-phase encounters that reference the mod's new expanded lore, and brutal challenges await those who uncover the dark secret of Anor Londo. There's some technical rough edges like objects popping in as you cross room thresholds, but this one is a must-play for Souls fans. While I played the version of the mod for Dark Souls Remastered (which is easier to set up), there is a multiplayer-compatible version for the older Prepare To Die Edition of the game, available here. Daughters Of Ash is especially eye-opening if you've played Dark Souls to death, with many surprises I don't want to spoil.
While it might seem that Augur Of Darkness is preoccupied with murdering you to death (and it is), there's a lot more to it. Through careful placement and removal of scenery objects, Vempirick has created whole new paths through familiar environments. Battles play out entirely differently, as you access rooms in wildly different orders. Those rooms will all be full of terrifying deathtraps and powered-up invading dark spirits, but at least it'll be a fresh experience after so many years of wandering familiar halls.
There are a lot of other smart features to this mod. Around the starting hub you'll find notebooks detailing the fundamentals, including how they've re-worked covenants into offline buffs, rewritten status ailments, and rejgged crafting. There's even an optional hard mode, activated by picking a new option from the Firekeeper's menu, which adds extra enemies to the world that go berserk at low health, but drop extra souls to compensate. This is on top of tougher, meaner enemy placement, too, so buckle up.
Sequel to the popular mod of the same name for the original game, this one can best be summed up as Dark Souls 3: Super Turbo Championship Edition. This is for players who've cut their teeth on the regular game and committed all the boss attack patterns to heart. If you're feeling bold, however, it's a surprisingly entertaining time, provided you can get over the initial difficulty hump and punch your way through a beefed-up Iudex Gundyr. By the time I had a chance to level up, I was sitting on a bounty of 16,000 souls.
While I'd not recommend either Cinders or Ascension to newer players, they're fun picks for a return trip through the game - not that you need an excuse to immerse yourself in Dark Souls 3's combat sandbox again. And there you have it: six mods (and change) to die repeatedly for. Fitting for a series about the tireless, obsessive undead that the game should still be alive and kicking after all these years. I wonder what the trilogy will look like in another five? Judging by teaser shots of this upcoming Souls 2 graphical mod by "Stayd", there's plenty more room for improvement.
Dark Souls 2 is one of many successful Action Role-Playing releases from FromSoftware, Inc as part of the Dark Souls Series. It was released to consoles on March 11th, 2014, and was made available on Steam since 25th April, 2014. Dark Souls 2 can be played on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Later, a remastered version with improved graphics and updates was released on April 2015, which contains all base content along with the DLC.
The addition of the DLCs added new Bosses, NPCs, Events, and Items to the game, including a new dark Ending to the original campaign. Minor modifications and changes to the text and descriptions of some items found in the game upon the release of the Scholar of the First Sin Patch.
The Souls games are most famous for their challenging combat encounters, forcing players to craft a strategy in the game that best suits them and the battle itself. The souls games are known for their many features to consider when creating a build to suit each combat encounter. Choosing appropriate gear, or applying the wrong strategy against certain Enemies and Bosses will have great consequences in Dark Souls 2, but like previous games, this title has a cooperative feature that allows aid from other players. Dark Souls 2 multiplayer modes allow players to be summoned to cooperate in boss battles and offers PvP invasions as well. Many of these features are returning features that are found in previous titles of the Dark Souls series and can still be found in From Software's recent releases.
Dark Souls II is released with some returning features from the Dark Souls series and some new improved features that allow for better graphics and improved experiences. Below are some Key Features from their official website.
Not much is revealed about the game's story and lore before entering the game. Dark Souls 2 was made to be explored and uncovered with progress and exploration. To understand the story, players must engage in dialogue with different characters in the game, and pay attention to item descriptions, and geographic clues. These will allude to the history of the lands and will slowly take players through the Age of Fire and then the Age of Dark through in-game storytelling.
Dark Souls 2 is finally out on PC, and this time with much better support for PC features compared to its predecessor. In the video above, we see what the game looks like on a range of graphical settings. This guide will also provide some recommendations for the computer hardware necessary to run at those settings, from the minimum requirements up to maximum settings at 4K resolution.
A note on GPU requirements: Even at 1080p on maximum settings, Dark Souls 2 is not very demanding for graphics cards. A GPU in the $100 range, like the R7 250X can still produce a smooth average framerate of 50 FPS. To get that up to 60 FPS, you will need something a little more powerful, like a GTX 750 Ti, which is what is recommended at our Good tier at Logical Increments. If you want 60 FPS on a 25601440 screen, then you will probably need a card from the Superb tier, such as the GTX 760 or R9 280. For 60 FPS at 4K resolution, you will want at least a GTX 780 or an R9 290X. We cover all of this in more detail below.
Dark Souls 2 is one of the best games that I have ever played. When I found out I could mod the game I knew I needed to play it modded right away. The mods that I am going to show you will range from making the game easier to slight graphics or texture changes that make the game prettier. Below are the 10 of the best mods I could find for Dark Souls 2 on the nexus mods website.
The Bloody Gore Souls mod is one of my favorite Graphic mods on the list. this is because I love watching the blood splatter on the screen it is extremely high definition and really brings you into the immersion. The Dark Souls series as a whole could use a lot more blood and gore and this graphics enhancement mod really allows the game to reach its full potential.