This modder's 'final love letter to Dark Souls 2' is a massive mechanical overhaul and just the excuse I needed for a Majula homecoming

Even before the ascent of Elden Ring, Dark Souls 2 was all too often overlooked—and unjustly maligned, according to the brave, intelligent, and very cool souls who are defending Dark Souls 2 to this day. One of those devoted few, modder AoiYozora, just released what they call "a final love letter" to FromSoft's black sheep sequel: Bearer of the Curse Edition, a "faithful DS2 conversion" mod that refreshes Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin with a suite of mechanical overhauls.

Bearer of the Curse Edition's goal isn't adding new content or entirely redesigning how it plays. Instead, the mod's main focus is on providing quality-of-life mechanical changes to bring Dark Souls 2 more in line with design conventions from later FromSoft games, add convenience, and sand down some of the friction that might've obscured its appeal.

As an example, Bearer of the Curse Edition uncouples dodge roll iframe duration from the Adaptability stat, addressing an oft-reviled mechanic that made it mandatory for most players to drop a handful of their hard-won levels into the stat just to get their rolling up to basic functionality. Now Adaptability is entirely optional, unless you're particularly interested in being able to swig your Estus flask faster.

Speaking of the Estus flask, Bearer of the Curse Edition lets you chug your healing juice while moving instead of planting your character's feet while they quaff, providing the same manoeuvrability while recovering that Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring allow. Also like Elden Ring, the mod gives a dedicated jump button that doesn't require sprinting, which should help when you're trying to get to a treasure chest on the other side of a tricky chasm.

Stamina drain has been slightly retooled: Attacking and rolling will use the same amount of stamina, but sprinting will drain much less. It's a change that leaves combat mostly untouched, but cuts down on travel time.

AoiYozora has added additional clutter to fill out empty areas, and has made visual and lighting tweaks throughout the game in an attempt to improve the atmosphere. NPC, enemy, and bonfire locations have been adjusted, too, and additional shortcuts have been added to provide more routes for circling back to earlier areas.

There's a lower delay between actions in Bearer of the Curse, and not just for the player: AoiYozora's ramped up the difficulty in boss encounters by increasing the pace at which they'll throw out their attacks, too. Great. However, the mod also lets you parry and riposte a lot of bosses, which will help even the odds. Not for me; I'm incompetent. But for someone, surely. You'll apparently be rewarded for the effort though, as the mod description says "A lot of boss weapons will have more diverse movesets as well as additional weapon arts." Neat.

Bearer of the Curse Edition makes far more changes than I could cover here, but its Nexus Mods page has the full list of features. All in all, it seems like a thoughtful, considered effort to make the magic of Dark Souls 2 accessible for players who might've bounced off it before.