Daughters Of Ash Is The Closest We’ve Gotten To Dark Souls 4

Dark Souls’ franchise may be done and dusted. A fourth entry wouldn’t be completely out of the realm of possibility, but the likelihood of a Dark Souls 4 dwindles with each new day and every new FromSoftware game or IP that’s announced. Luckily, fans have mods to produce unofficial, expansion-like content that can satisfy them all the same, such as Daughters of Ash.

Created by Grimrukh and available on Nexus Mods, Daughters of Ash is described as a “massive re-imagining and expansion of Dark Souls.” So while this isn’t a sequel, nor is it an official expansion or batch of new content, Daughters of Ash is no less a boon for Dark Souls fans who’ve been desperately searching for a reason to replay the original game, as they reconcile with the idea that there may never be a Dark Souls 4 in FromSoftware’s future.

Dark Souls 4 Is Probably Never Happening

Dark Souls went on for three games, each with its own astonishing DLCs, and there might not be much more we could realistically ask for. Indeed, Dark Souls fans can’t be too greedy, when some of FromSoftware’s most popular games, namely Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, are mere single installments with no promise of a sequel ever being made.

In any case, FromSoftware has been enjoying the immense success of Elden Ring and used that success to propel it into a multiplayer-focused endeavor with Elden Ring Nightreign. Then, scheduled for sometime this year, FromSoftware’s next game is The Duskbloods, an online, PvPvE game.

It’s unknown when the next Soulslike game from FromSoftware will be, whether it reverts to linear level design or decides to keep Elden Ring’s open-world level design, though it’s almost guaranteed that players would’ve already seen a Dark Souls 4 between the release of Dark Souls 3—three months shy of 10 years ago now, back in 2016—and today if one was ever going to come to fruition.

At Least We Have Daughters of Ash

Meanwhile, Daughters of Ash has been around for long enough and has cemented its place as one of the best Dark Souls mods for anyone who is in the mood for expansion-like content that overhauls (or “remixes”) the original experience in the following ways:

New game progression (including “new world-changing events, key items, and unexpected pathways”)
New bosses and enemies (including “enemies restored from cut content”)
New NPCs and storylines (including “new characters with brand new questlines, whose paths will intersect in numerous unpredictable ways”)
New weapons, items, and mechanics (including “new weapons with brand new abilities, some of which may require keen insights to master”)
Expanded lore (including “new item descriptions and gameplay events”)
New secrets (including “hidden content”)

Modder Grimrukh is also apparently at work on a Dark Souls mod called Nightfall that would behave like a “complete fan-made sequel,” though only a demo of that has been released with no clear timeline on when fans might be able to anticipate its release. Expect it sooner than Dark Souls 4 though.