![]() In turn, the game feels faster without looking like it's on fast forward." AinTunez, co-creator of Nightfall "The new combat system arose from an old mod I made called Quick Souls, which applies specific mathematical equations to each attack animation. That’s a core part of this project, and it’s a reason I became interested in the first place – that it was a huge aspect of modding that I felt was completely unexplored at the moment.” Quick and nimble “The other thing is demonstrating that we are doing massive map rearrangements and overhauls for the first time, not just in Dark Souls, but in any FromSoft game that's been modded before. ![]() “The first is that, as a sequel, we want to set things up exactly where the first game left off, and we take the opportunity to establish which of the endings from the original game will be canon for our direct sequel mod.” “Starting off the game with the jump from the Undead Asylum into the Kiln of the First Flame serves two specific purposes in particular,” explains Grimrukh. ![]() Instead of being whisked away to Firelink Shrine as normal, though, the player instead leaps from the precipice into Kiln of the First Flame, the original game’s final arena, just moments after another player defeats end-boss Gwynn, and has activated the Dark Lord ending. One of Nightfall’s biggest map-related revelations occurs just minutes into the mod, when the player climbs the gravel path at the highest stretch of the Undead Asylum, Dark Souls’ opening area. He admits that while the Dark Souls: Nightfall team lack the resources to make significant geometry edits to their vision of Lordran, simple actions – like, say moving elevators – are often masked by loading screens, which affords the team back-end wiggle room, and messes with the player’s placement on the map on the fly. Grimrukh says a commitment to efficiency, and a degree of trickery and sleight of hand, helps ensure Nightfall’s map additions are cohesive and lore-friendly – despite being unofficial/unsanctioned by FromSoftware. And that's the hardest part when you're starting from scratch with a tonne of existing assets.” Praise the moon But at the same time, we need to find ways to build those loops. “That gives us some leeway to have the player not be too surprised by the level of rearrangement they’re coming across. Then, we need to come up with a lore explanation, which we did early on for why the world would suddenly be in a whole new configuration, with a few brand new areas mixed in there – and that's also established early on.” One, which I won't spoil, really messes with the high-level geometry of the world. There are a few tricks we can use to get around that. Certainly something that feels more like Dark Souls, in inter-connectivity terms, rather than something that really sprawls outward, like Dark Souls 2. “The first goal for us was to try to rebuild a new version of that. "Particularly when it comes to the vertical loops – like the Undead Parish back down to Firelink Shrine and so on, and the way Blighttown and Valley of the Drakes sit connected to many things as well." ![]() ![]() “When it comes to the inter-connectivity of Dark Souls’ map, there's been a lot of discussion about how FromSoftware were technologically constrained in a way that led them to do it that way," continues Grimrukh. ![]()
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