Dark Souls Nightfall: tried of the PC mod, direct sequel to the first chapter of the saga
Dark Souls Nightfall
About a month away from the arrival of Elden Ring, the new souls-like action RPG from FromSoftware and Hidetaka Miyazaki. The wait is tough for many, especially given that the release date has been postponed by about thirty days compared to the initial one. In this end of January 2022, however, fans have a way to soothe their pains thanks to an extremely special project: Dark Souls Nightfall.What is Dark Souls Nightfall? A mod, but not "just" a mod. It is basically an entire fan-made following, made by a group of famous modders of Dark Souls Remastered, who over the years have produced mods such as the Daughers of Ash and Roguelike Souls. The promise is to create a whole new game that, taking advantage of the areas already available, allows us to explore a different map, with repositioned enemies, new bosses, new items, equipment, NPCs (with new dialogue and voice acting), new lore and, as you will read shortly, not only.
The publication was originally scheduled for December 2021, but was postponed for a month to January 2022. Unfortunately, the team has decided to postpone the release date again, but has made available a demo that includes the first two areas. We have tried it and can tell you everything you need to know about the Dark Souls Nightfall demo.
Where to start
The creation of the Dark Souls Nightfall character What's new in Dark Souls Nightfall are not few, know that. Already in this short demo we had the opportunity to get our hands on many game mechanics and original content, which gives us hope for the variety and the final quantity.Let's start with the creation of the character. The mod allows us to choose between several original classes, ranging from pure warrior to mixed classes based on Intelligence and Faith. Each weapon and armor is completely original on a visual level, with also new names and descriptions: the quality, above all stylistic, is very high. Technical differences aside, the art care equals that of Bloodborne's gear sets - we believe there is no better compliment than this.
Once you've chosen your character (note: the only gift available is the Pending), the game starts and you find yourself at the Altar of the Binding of Fire, facing the broken Vessel of Lords. Inside it we find the Shadow Effigy, a new "dark" version of the Estus flask. Continuing beyond the Altar, we find ourselves in the Ruins of the Demon, where the Demon Centipede is normally found. Confused? Don't worry: Nightfall reorganizes the whole world by connecting the game areas in an original way.
This is an idea that we appreciate, as it allows us to never have a precise idea of what lies ahead. but at the same time the veterans (to whom this mod is aimed) will have a generic knowledge of how to explore the single area. It is therefore a fusion of the familiar and the unknown, with enemies repositioned, objects in places where normally there was nothing and bonfires moved.
Talking about bonfires is not entirely correct, actually, as Dark Souls Nightfall also wants to tell of a new Lordran, after the defeat of Gwyn and after the flame failure. The bonfires no longer exist and in their place there are the Springs, which however perform the same task (level up, make enemies reappear, bottomless chest ...).
Time is distorted
The new bonfire, called Source, of Dark Souls Nightfall The mod does not change, however, only the structure of the game world, but changes the approach to it. Starting we are greeted by an inscription: "12 ashes left". These are Lord Gwyn's ashes, trapped in a pendant. The ashes run out as the hours go by (by eye, we would say 3 hours in total, maybe a little more) and, in the event that these end, we will finally be teleported to the beginning of the mod and the world will go back in time. If we want, we can activate the ashes ourselves and go back to the beginning at any time.We will not lose progress, mind you: the levels, the souls, the objects and the shortcuts open will remain, while the objects to land and unique enemies - including bosses - will reappear. A clarification, however, on the bosses. We have a bottle, in which we can trap the soul of a single defeated boss, to ensure that this does not resurrect when time goes back. Additionally, the soul trapped in the bottle can be sacrificed to teleport to the boss arena. This way, you can basically jump to the last completed area, right after restarting the demo because of the ashes. Re-exploring is useful, however, as it allows you to collect items again and thus have quick and easy access to souls and other consumables (which include original items, such as lava bombs and disposable scrolls that activate spells).
Item menu: there are many new items with original graphics in Dark Souls Nighfall For the moment this is an interesting mechanic, but we have seen too little of the game world to be able to understand if this time loop will be a problem or instead a point of force. Sure, you can use it to make bosses reappear and farm souls faster, but at the same time it can be frustrating in the final stages to have to repeat the game over and defeat certain bosses multiple times. If in the final version there will be a way to find more bottles to block more bosses at once, and if the game world turns out to be open enough to be able to decide which path to explore multiple times and which ones to ignore, then it could be a winning idea. . For now we are intrigued but aware of the risks.
These dark blows
The Ruins of the Demon: in Dark Souls Nightfall we climb from the bottom to the top The news, however, are by no means finished . Dark Souls Nightfall also features a revamped combat system. First of all, the dodge is no longer a roll, but a sort of small sprint: in this way it is faster and we are immediately ready to fight, since we do not have to get up. There is also no heavy, medium or light roll, but only one movement speed and dodge. The original weapons, on the other hand, are weapons already present in the game with new graphics. The moveset is therefore the same, at least until we activate the dark mode.The mod in fact allows, through the command of the two-handed handle of the weapon, to activate a sort of transformation. The character hits himself in the chest, holds the two-handed weapon and gets big bonuses: first of all, the dodge is much longer and faster, giving us a clear advantage over the enemies; secondly, stamina recharges much faster. In addition, the weapon moves faster when we attack and gets two additional sets of moves: in addition to the regular R1 and R2, modders have created original attacks for L1 and L2, so as to greatly expand the offensive possibilities of each weapon to two hands. There is even the possibility of parrying enemies by simply attacking at the right moment (in Devil May Cry style): let's admit, however, that we have never (deliberately) managed to do so.
The second area of the Dark Souls Nightfall demo è The Dark Root Garden There are obviously some penalties. The first, which you may have guessed, is the inability to defend oneself while being transformed. Dark Souls Nightfall is a bit Bloodborne under this point of view and in fact it adds the rally mechanics: when you are hit, you do not suffer the damage immediately and - if you attack enemies hand to hand - you recover a part of lost life. with every stroke. The rally is also important because during the dark transformation it is not possible to use the shadow effect (aka the new Estus flask, as mentioned above). Having to undo the transformation, use the heal, and transform back takes time and is not an easy move to perform during boss fights. Also in this case, it is an intriguing mechanic, which exchanges considerable attack power with a decrease in defensive and survival skills.
We can already say that the clashes are designed above all to be faced in mode dark and the game pushes us to opt for it since all the shields present have a maximum of 50% physical defense. Dark Souls Nightfall doesn't want us to stay on the defensive and tells us plainly. This (together with many minor details that we have no space to mention) makes us understand that the authors know what they are doing and have a precise idea in mind: some may not like it, but objectively these game mechanics work and give a strong personality to the mod, which is not easy since we are talking about an eleven year old game.
Some of the original weapons of Dark Souls Nightfall At the same time, however, we have a hesitation: the authors of the mod will be able to find a balance between focus on your own ideas and listen to the fans? In fact, you should know that a few hours after the publication, and following the feedback from the players, an update was published (1.1, all the details here, followed by 1.2 which corrects other details).
Update 1.1 has significantly weakened the first phase of the second boss (objectively powerful, we admit it). In our opinion (which echoes that of other players in the Discord channel dedicated to the mod), the change has exaggerated in the opposite direction, making the first phase of the boss so easy to be useless. Up to this point of the article we have judged the mod as a real game, moreover we have thought of the authors as real developers: although not lacking in experience, however, I do not know. The modders may feel the weight of the community and the expectations of the players and may sometimes listen too much to the ideas of a few fans, putting aside their own vision. Dark Souls Nightfall, from our point of view, will not only be a technical and design test, but it will also be a personality test for the team, which is faced with their largest and most complex project.
Demo and mod notes
The Dark Souls Nightfall demo (and most likely its full version) does not have an English translation. If you start the game in Italian there will be problems with the display of the original texts, so you have to change the language of the game directly from Steam. You have to right click on the game -> Properties -> Language and finally choose English. Also remember to play offline only: mods are not allowed online and you could be banned from the game's servers.Dark Souls Nightfall is an extremely interesting project, designed primarily for veterans and made by veterans. The new map, time loop mechanics, and a Bloodborne-inspired combat system are clever and well-integrated ideas for now. But we always talk about a mod and this tried of the demos showed us only a fragment. Will the authors be able to create a complete balanced and technically solid game? We will have to wait at least several months before we get an answer, but we admit we are very intrigued and, after Elden Ring, this could be one of the most anticipated souls-like of the year.
