There's finally a demo for the Dark Souls 3 mod that transforms the whole game into a bizarro fan sequel to the series

Desert Sorceress standing before mountain temple
(Image credit: FromSoftware, Archthrones Team)

Dark Souls: Archthrones feels like a Souls series romhack, mashing up disparate parts of FromSoftware's body of work in a custom campaign for Dark Souls 3. This is one for the fans, full of clever winks and references to other games in the series, but as one of those fans myself, I sure do not mind being pandered to.

From the jump, Archthrones' opening level is a condensed homage to Demon's Souls, featuring the same stinky potato boy Vanguard boss⁠—new school fans will recognize his moveset and animations from the Asylum Demon in Dark Souls and Erdtree Sentinels of Elden Ring. I thought I was a shoo-in for a first try victory against this clear "supposed to lose" boss, but at half health he whipped out a new funky moveset ripped straight out of Bloodborne's Old Hunters DLC, and I was put in my place.

That kind of cheeky subversion of expectations gives me a lot of hope for Archthrones⁠—at its core this is an exercise in reference and imitation, but having that kind of inside baseball sense of humor by Souls fans, for Souls fans feels like its perfect niche. 

If you're good enough at this sort of game to reach the boss' second phase, your brain probably has enough holes in it to recognize and be delighted by the Bloodborne gag disguised in a Demon's Souls gag, and I for one was tickled by this kind of freak nerd turducken. It takes one to know one.

And the quality of craft here is worthy of praise too: in addition to chopped and screwed assets straight out of FromSoft's catalogue, the custom model work on display is excellent. One of the starting classes, the Duelist, comes with this elegant plate armor and half cape that would make for a great end game set, and it was fully bespoke for this mod.

Installation's a cinch: just drop the demo files into your Dark Souls 3 install and run the game. After a first time setup, running Dark Souls 3 will take you straight into Archthrones, which has its own saves and online server to keep you safe from DS3's anticheat. At the time of writing, I've had more luck playing Archthrones offline, but the fact that it has mainline Souls asymmetrical multiplayer ambitions at all is commendable. 

For uninstalling and playing the original game, you'll likely want to fully reinstall Dark Souls 3 just to make sure everything's fully clear on the saves/anticheat front. Archthrones does not currently have a set release date, and you can check out the demo for yourself over on NexusMods.

TOPICS
Associate Editor

Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch.

Read more
The creator of the Elden Ring Seamless co-op mod is now infusing unlimited multiplayer into Dark Souls 3
The Dark Souls 3 seamless co-op mod is here, letting you further hone your teamwork skills before Elden Ring Nightreign launches
Ten planks of wood from Dark Souls, responsible for my nightmares in Blighttown.
The co-creator of Dark Souls' most ambitious mod resurfaces to inform me that Blighttown, source of my nightmares, was cobbled together with '10 bits of wood'
elden ring nightreign
3 hours with Elden Ring Nightreign helped me accept it's not the co-op FromSoft game I asked for, but damn fun in its own right
Junya Ishizaki next to an image from Elden Ring: Nightreign
Elden Ring Nightreign director didn't want to 'encroach too much' on the lore fans hold sacred by including Dark Souls bosses, but admits 'I thought it'd be kind of fun'
Double headed wizard man holding arms up looking sad
A tabletop RPG designer made a game about the way FromSoft NPCs say cryptic stuff and go 'heh heh heh' all the time, and the result is a love letter to the 'grubby little weirdos'
Latest in RPG
Rise of the Ronin review
Rise of the Ronin review
A lolporrit squeals in excitement while being driven in a moon buggie in Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail, patch 7.2.
Final Fantasy 14 patch 7.2's trailer has me finally hyped to get stuck back in—and to go to the moon and pilot some mechs, because why not
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 barbers change hairstyle - Henry sitting on a horse wearing armour.
How to find a barber and change hairstyle in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
Key art of the videogame Lunacid, showing a pale, long haired knight in purple armor contemplating a purple, flaming sword surrounded by the different phases of the moon.
One of my favorite indie RPGs is getting a follow-up made with FromSoftware's 25-year-old Super Mario Maker for first person dungeon crawlers
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 image - Henry riding a pink and blue striped horse while holding a fish
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 now has Steam Workshop support, and of course one of the first mods lets you adjust the 'jiggle physics'
Erenshor - A player and two simulated MMO party members stand on a plateau in front of a yellow landscape
This RuneScape-looking 'simulated MMORPG' has all the nostalgia without the drama because all the other 'players' are NPCs
Latest in News
Man facing camera
The Day Before studio reportedly sues Russian website for calling infamous disaster-game a 'scam'
Will Poulter holding a CD ROM
'What are most games about? Killing': Black Mirror Season 7 includes a follow-up to 2018 interactive film Bandersnatch
Casper Van Dien in Starship Troopers
Sony, which is making a Helldivers 2 movie, is also making a new Starship Troopers movie, but it's not based on the Starship Troopers movie we already have
Assassin's Creed meets PUBG
Ubisoft is reportedly talking to Tencent about creating a new business entity to manage Assassin's Creed and other big games
Resident Evil Village - Lady Dimitrescu
'It really truly changed my life in every possible way': Lady Dimitrescu actor says her Resident Evil Village role was just as transformative for her as it was for roughly half the internet in 2021
Storm trooper hero
Another live service shooter is getting shut down, this time before it even launched on Steam