I by no means stop to be amazed on the modding neighborhood’s means to make PC video games larger, higher, and in lots of circumstances weirder. However the love proven by modder KingDavidW to Arkane’s pre-Dishonored hack ‘n’ slash Darkish Messiah of May and Magic goes above and past. As just lately outlined in a prolonged replace on ModDB, KingDavidW has been actively working with Ubisoft—Darkish Messiah’s writer—and Nvidia to deliver a swathe of mods and modding instruments to the 2006 motion sport. Now, that collaboration has begun to yield fruit.
KingDavidW leads with particulars concerning the collaboration between themselves and Ubisoft/Nvidia, which feeds into quite a few mods presently being created by the sport’s modding neighborhood. “The official assist we have had from the Ubisoft and Nvidia partnership has allowed us to succeed in heights we by no means thought we might in our work right here,” he writes, noting that “Our contacts at Ubisoft have been preventing for us to deliver all the things we will consider to this wonderful neighborhood”.
One of many methods Ubisoft has assisted the modders is with restoring lower content material to Darkish Messiah, which is the brand new goal of the suitably titled “Darkish Messiah: Restoration Mod”. KingDavidW explains this mod was initially restricted to fixing “gameplay associated bugs” corresponding to buggy ropes, degree soft-locks and “the dreaded French keyboard popup”, a phrase that seems like a very troublesome magic trick.
Nonetheless, Ubisoft supplied entry to some “wonderful belongings” from Darkish Messiah of May and Magic: Component, the Xbox 360 model of the sport. “Inside that there was a load of lower content material by no means earlier than seen In Darkish Messiah.” Now, the Restoration mod supplies entry to bonus missions, alternate ranges, a “lower degree” from Darkish Messiah referred to as The Caves, and a number of other lower weapons such because the “Sword of Distress or the Necromancer Workers”.
Alongside this lower content material, Ubisoft can also be serving to the modders work on an “superior SDK”, which KingDavidW hopes will end in a launch inside “the subsequent few months as an alternative of the top of the 12 months.” As for Nvidia’s help, KingDavidW does not specify exactly how the corporate has helped. Presumably it has to do with the Darkish Messiah RTX mod the neighborhood is engaged on. This stays closely in improvement, because it requires remodeling fashions and textures which KingDavidW says take “extraordinarily lengthy to make”. The neighborhood has put collectively a trailer displaying the mod’s progress to date, which you’ll be able to view beneath:
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Lastly, the modders have sort-of launched a cooperative mod for Darkish Messiah. That is nonetheless technically unfinished and hasn’t been added to ModDB but, however the modders have made it out there on Github for public testing,. KingDavidW says that “all the primary kinks ought to be ironed out for a playable expertise” however that the staff must “refine” the degrees to make them preferrred for co-op play. Regardless, I can simply think about how a lot enjoyable Darkish Messiah should be in co-op, what with its bevy of physics-based traps and spells. Who fancies a sport of keepie-uppies with a ragdoll orc?
You may learn the total replace right here. Though most of those tasks stay unfinished, it’s nonetheless a formidable quantity of labor from the Darkish Messiah modding neighborhood, and KingDavidW is themselves greatly surprised by the way it has all fallen into place. “To see all of it come collectively has been very emotional for us” he writes. “We’re strolling into a brand new period for Darkish Messiah.”
