Dark Souls is an interconnected game—if you datamine out a full model of Lordran, you’re able to look at the entire breadth of it like it’s a model train set, from the swamps of Blighttown to the hallowed halls of Anor Londo.
Back when the game first came to PC, its port was pretty shocking—it took about six years before the remastered version sorted most complaints out. But we’re PC gamers. If a game isn’t modded to have rig-melting textures or Dewmer rocket boots, what are we even doing here?
Fromsoftserve and their DSR Graphics Overhaul mod (thanks, Gamesradar) is one such attempt to polish the classic to a mirror sheen. This thing’s really impressive. Far from just a bunch of texture packs, fromsoftserve has been laboriously giving the whole game a facelift: bringing dynamic shadows to Lordran, making Anor Londo’s windows see-through, and even adding new meshes to far-off locations.
This adds to the game’s feeling of interconnectedness, letting you see anything from anywhere, as long as you’d be able to draw a reasonable line of sight to it. Turns out that FromSoftware were kind of banking on the draw distance, though.
My graphics overhaul mod allows you to easily cheese Capra demon with firebombs, since he now realistically shows up from Undead Burg. pic.twitter.com/UJ0OaYrExuOctober 24, 2023
“My graphics overhaul mod allows you to easily cheese Capra Demon with firebombs,” writes fromsoftserve, before demonstrating their character hucking bombs all the way from the Taurus Demon fight to the Capra Demon down below. The modder relishes the fact that this works, and their explanations are pretty in-keeping with the rest of the game’s design.
“This is one of my favourite changes in my mod,” fromsoftserve wrote in a reply. “Because it makes sense that he’d be visible from here, as that’s his actual boss room location. Plus, most new players still wouldn’t notice it, I’d think. but for skilled players, they can take advantage.”
Overall, there’s some great work being done here. Fromsoftserve is going over Lordran with a fine comb, fixing small details that only a long-time fan would notice. You can keep up to date with the devs logs on their YouTube channel. Also, considering how much trouble the Capra Demon gave me back in 2011, I relish the sight of him and his freaking dogs getting lit up.
