The environment textures in the world seem flat and the lighting looks more or less the same as how it was on the consoles - it’s still a far cry from those amazing lighting effects we saw back when the game was still in development. And of course, unlike its predecessor, it runs completely free of Games for Windows Live.Īt times, Dark Souls II looks beautiful on PC, though a lot of the time it looks, well, like an up-res’d last-gen console port. Certainly an improvement over how the first game ran at launch on PC, and obviously sharper than either console version. My general impressions: The game runs at 1920×1080 resolution and 60 frames per second for me with my settings maxed out, and it looks nice enough. It runs in Steam as “ Dark Souls II early access,” and by all appearances looks like the full game, though I’m guessing it will get a few small updates as the April 25 release date draws nearer. I’m about 13 hours into what PR representatives call a preview build of the PC version of the game.

Late last year, the sequel’s producer promised that the sequel wouldn’t require so many fan-made fixes they had learned from the first game, and this time they’d take their time with the PC version and get it right. The first game was rescued by heroic modders, and these days it can look downright amazing.