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Dark Souls Archthrones might be the most ambitious fan mod of a Souls genre game ever. A massive undertaking, it’s something fans have been talking about for some time now, but what exactly is it? This mod has been in development for four years, with a demo recently hitting the internet. With that in mind, it’s time to talk about what it is and what fans can expect when diving into this challenging but satisfying adventure into the Souls lore.
Fans of the Souls titles can expect lore from every game in the franchise, alongside plenty of new bosses, weapons, and much more. Let’s dive into Dark Souls Archthrones and figure out exactly what’s coming for you.
What can fans expect from Dark Souls Archthrones?
Dark Souls Archthrones is, at its core, a retelling of the Dark Souls universe. Built on the architecture of Dark Souls 3, it has its own lore and, according to the Nexus Mods page, is “informed by the deepest secrets of the Dark Souls mythos.” Currently, only a demo is available, but it is playable on PCs, Steam Decks, and Linux.
Perhaps best of all, the mod itself is free, and players can run it without fear of being banned from the Dark Souls 3 vanilla servers - provided they don’t put their Archthrones save data on the regular DS3 servers. That would almost certainly result in a ban, so that is not recommended.
According to the developers, the design was inspired by Demon’s Souls level structure, with plenty of their own designs. Fans of the entire Dark Souls trilogy will not want to miss out on Archthrones, especially if they crave something new and challenging. It even has voice acting, featuring some of the biggest names in the Souls community.
Five worlds take place across the vast Souls mythos, and 17 new boss fights - that’s just for starters. There will be more new encounters in the future. There will be new combat mechanics to look forward to as well: Guard counters, perfect blocking, deflection, back-step guard canceling, and fixes for virtually every weapon class.
Dark Souls Archthrones has a wealth of new weapons and armor, as well as a recommendation to hold onto boss souls until they can be transposed. Players will be free to explore these worlds in the manner of their choosing, making it as easy or as difficult as they want. You can even play online with friends via their private servers. The demo is brand new, but even content creators like Asmongold are impressed by it.
How to take part in the Dark Souls Archthrones demo
Before you consider downloading the Dark Souls Archthrones demo, make sure you own Dark Souls 3, and the Ashes of Ariandel DLC, as well as The Ringed City DLC. If you have all three of these and the below system requirements, you can download the demo on Nexus Mods:
- CPU: Intel Core i5-9400F
- GPU: NVidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Storage: 12 GB additional space
As you can see, it’s pretty forgiving on what kind of PC can run it. The mod’s Nexus Mods page states that you should be able to run it on Dark Souls 3 version 1.15.2, but if it repeatedly crashes, they recommend down-patching to 1.15, which they have a link for to make it easy. If you’re interested in downloading the game, simply head to the above link and follow these instructions - which are also in the folder for the Dark Souls Archthrones fan mod:
- Make sure you have a freshly installed copy of DS3 with both DLCs
- Copy the folder into the “Game” folder, where your DS3.exe is located.
- Set the Game Language to English in the Steam properties of Dark Souls III (more languages will be added later)
Enjoy the game! The dll downloads the game files from their servers, but the files can be manually downloaded from their NexusMods page if the servers are overburdened.
If you've manually downloaded the files from Nexus Mods, follow these steps:
- Create a folder named “archthrones” in the “Game” folder, where your DarkSouls3.exe is located.
- Extract the contents of the archthrones.zip into the folder, so when it is complete, it contains a folder named _archthrones.
With fan mods like Dark Souls Archthrones in the works, there’s never been a better time to play Dark Souls 3. The Archthrones demo is available now on Nexus Mods.
