Dark Souls: Archthrones fan mod offers “retelling” of the Dark Souls universe

A new fan mod for Dark Souls 3 has been released offering a complete overhaul of the game that promises “a retelling of the Dark Souls universe.”

Named Dark Souls: Archthrones, it's been created by Archthrones Team and is available on NexusMods for free. The team comprises concept artists, writers, programmers, composers, and voice actors within the Souls community, according to its description.

Interestingly, it takes its cue from Demon's Souls in terms of level structure – hence the mod name being a play on the Archstones of FromSoftware's first Souls game.

Similarly, in Dark Souls: Archthrones players will be able to progress each throne in any order, no matter the difficulty. There are five worlds drawing inspiration “from the FromSoftware mythos”, with reinterpretations of iconic characters and areas from the whole trilogy.

The team has also pulled from across the Souls series and other FromSoftware games for both gameplay mechanics and animations. New combat abilities include guard counters, perfect blocking, deflecting, and back-step guard canceling. There are also 17 new boss fights in which to test your mettle.

The mod also promises new weapons to wield, entirely new armor sets specific to this world, and new NPCs with familiar voices offering various side quests.

There's a huge amount of stuff, then, that appears to be acting like a Demon's Souls / Dark Souls best-of. Souls fans won't want to miss out – it's compatible only with the Steam version of Dark Souls 3.

The Soulsborne games as a whole are ripe for modding, with The Convergence mod for Elden Ring, released last month, offering an “exhaustive overhaul” of the entire game complete with new classes, bosses, equipment and more.

All of this ahead of FromSoftware's next release: the Elden Ring DLC ​​expansion Shadow of the Erdtree in June.