It's not From Software, but Dark Souls is getting another sequel. Modder Grimrukh, who released Daughters of Ash, the most popular mod of the original Dark Souls, is leading a team of other modders to create something even bigger. It's not just a variant of the original version of Dark Souls, but an entirely new game made from its fragments. It's called Dark Souls: Nightfall.

According to the description on Grimrukh's site, Nightfall sounds like a fascinating project. It is a "direct sequel" to Dark Souls, with "expanded lore," but according to Grimrukh, it does not clash with the original storyline. It also features an entirely new world map, but unlike many ambitious mod projects (e.g., "Fallout: Miami"), no new graphical assets are actually used. Grimrukh explains, "We're physically rearranging the areas of Lordran and creating new areas using fragments and clashes of existing maps."

The same is true for the enemies; there are no brand new models, but the modders have significantly adjusted the animations and changed the texturing of existing enemies to make them feel new. Meanwhile, combat has been "significantly modified" and is much faster than in vanilla Dark Souls.

I think this is a smart approach to making a mod "sequel" that feels true to the original game. Even if the new areas don't surprise or shock you like a completely new game, they definitely feel like "Dark Souls".

The mod will also feature some entirely new things, such as voice-acted NPCs; Grimrukh states that Nightfall will "expand on what was hammed up in DoA: event scripting, boss design, and optional (and/or secret) quest lines."

Other modders working with Nightfall, AinTunez and Meowmaritus, have announced their own projects in the past; AinTunez has created QuickSouls and is attempting to speed up combat.

However, it is unclear when they will be ready for play, but it appears that Grimrukh intends to keep the sneak peek limited. They write, "I hope you agree that 'Daughters of Ash' would have been much worse if I had hyped it up a year in advance and spoiled everything with a demo video. Still, you can see some images of the mod on Twitter and more on Patreon.