A close up of a burning knight in Dark Souls 3.
By
Lee D'Amato
Published 11 minutes ago
Lee D’Amato is a writer born, raised, and based in Queens, New York. With collective thousands of hours in games like Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Elden Ring, and The Legend of Zelda, he's now writes game features, guides, and reviews for Screen Rant, but has covered a wide range of topics, including ancient history, affordable travel, and overall health.
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Dark Souls 2 players rejoice: a new update to a fan-favorite mod will soon provide a major boost to the game's lighting, making it look better than ever. The most popular download for Dark Souls 2 on Nexus Mods, Ganaboy's DS2LightingEngine adds several new features to DS2's vanilla lighting engine.
DS2LightingEngine's next update is set to add yet another new feature, ray tracing global illumination (RTGI), to the mix (via Dark Side of Gaming). While the update has yet to set a release date, the improvements to DS2's visuals could potentially be massive,
Dark Souls 2 Is Back
How RTGI Changes The Game
DS2's visuals are about to get a huge upgrade thanks to the addition of ray tracing global illumination. The screenshots above, shared by Ganaboy and published by Dark Side of Gaming, demonstrate the difference between DS2's default visuals and the modded version with RTGI.
In the first image, the ruins' walls are illuminated with an unnatural, even sickly glow, looking less like an ancient forgotten hall and more like a fluorescent-lit office. In the second, the dungeon is appropriately dark; light pours in from natural sources only.
That's thanks to global illumination, a process in which a graphics engine algorithmically determines how light sources travel through and illuminate a virtual world.
The term ray tracing in the new feature's name refers to the particular algorithm used here, which has gradually become the industry standard for realism in video games over the past few years as ray tracing GPUs become more common.
Again, we don't know when ray tracing is expected to come to DS2LightingEngine. When it does, though, it'll join features like volumetric fog, upgraded shadows, ambient occlusion, improved material rendering, new meshes, temporal super sampling, textural replacement, and HDR to create a whole new look for Dark Souls 2.
It's A Sequel That Deserves Another Look
Why You Should Play DS2 Again
Dark Souls 2 has often been considered the black sheep of the franchise: the only title in the trilogy not to be directed by creator Hidetaka Miyazaki, its unique approach to level design, enemy placement, and combat difficulty has divided the fan base since its 2014 release.
Unlike its immediate predecessor, Dark Souls 2 has never gotten a true next-gen remaster, and its fan base is divided between its original PS3 version and the enhanced Scholar of the First Sin version.
What most players can agree on, though, is Dark Souls 2's incredible visuals. There's really nothing else in the series comparable to your first visit to Majula, the golden sun hanging in the eternally sunsetting sky over a churning sea.
Still, it's very visibly a PS3 game, which could be a turnoff for some newer fans. And it undeniably has its flaws. Thankfully, DS2's fan base has largely filled the gap left by the lack of a next-gen remaster, creating things like a framerate mod and new lighting engines to improve its look and ensure it stands the test of time.
If you bounced off DS2 the last time you tried it, or never picked it up for one reason or another, then the lighting engine update may be the perfect time to revisit it. Although it's markedly different from the rest of the series, Dark Souls 2 has a unique identity that's worth experiencing for yourself.
Dark Souls 2
10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Like Action RPG Systems
OpenCritic Reviews
Top Critic Avg:
88/100
Critics Rec:
91%
Released
March 11, 2014
ESRB
T for Teen: Blood and Gore, Mild Language, Partial Nudity, Violence
Developer(s)
From Software
Publisher(s)
Bandai Namco Entertainment, From Software
Engine
havok
Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Franchise
Dark Souls
Genre(s)
Action RPG
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