Dark Souls modder notaprofi has made an art form out of upping the difficulty of a game that’s already plenty difficult all on its own. Thanks to the custom mods notaprofi has developed, Dark Souls players on PC can enshroud the entire game world in perpetual darkness, or subject themselves to a never-ending cycle of increasingly difficulty New Game Plus runs. However, the latest from the intrepid Dark Souls modder might be the most challenging mod yet: a mod which disables all forms of movement other than rolling.
As it says on its official Nexus Mods page, notaprofi’s aptly titled ‘Rolly Souls’ mod disables walking, jogging, and sprinting, forcing players to rely on rolling as their main method of movement. Players can also still “move” by performing combat animations, but for the most part the only way they’ll be able to get around is by jamming on their roll button. Since rolling costs stamina, the Rolly Souls mod also consequently makes the game just a trifle more challenging since it’s much easier to be caught without any stamina at an inopportune moment.
Notaprofi notes that the only caveat about the Rolly Souls mod is that, since it’s applied to all human-like character models and not just the player’s, certain humanoid enemies such as Havel the Rock and NPC phantom invaders can only get around by rolling as well. Of course, that might just be a blessing in disguise since it means they’ll be just as stamina-starved as the player. The Rolly Souls’ Nexus Mods page also notes that it should be fully compatible with any other mod that doesn’t alter the GameParam.parambnd file, so don’t sweat it if there are other mods you just can’t live without.
If you can get your hands on the Dark Wood Grain Ring and access its unique cartwheel roll animation, Rolly Souls might very well let you act out your fantasy of roleplaying as the greatest acrobat in the history of Lordron. Other than that though, at the very least it should make for one heck of a challenge.