The viral Dark Souls Pro Skater mod lets you trick around Firelink Shrine

What comes to mind when you hear Dark Souls Pro Skater? What the flip, probably (because, you know, skateboarders flip. No?). A mod that lets you slay hollowed enemies as Tony Hawk is a good guess, but Dark Souls Pro Skater is almost the reverse. A clip went viral over the weekend showing praise-the-sun-guy Solaire shredding around the game’s opening Firelink Shrine. And yes, it looks as cool as it sounds.

You can watch the clip on Twitter, but if that cursed site’s not working, you can find it on YouTube. There’s also a version that has Shrek shredding but badly, for some reason. Firelink’s ancient, mysterious ruins are transformed into a fun skatepark. Who cares where the skaters came from? Just grind, Gwyndammnit.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is one of those games that just changes your perception of the world. Not in a life-altering epiphany sorta way, but in the sense that you’ll soon see every real-life handrail as a place to grind on for some points. And stairs? No sir, those are now my biggest rival. So the viral Dark Souls Pro Skater mod isn’t too unexpected - Lordran is just another series of jagged edges waiting to be skated on, after all.

Between this mod and the equally amazing Bloodborne Kart game, there’s something about FromSoftware’s games that invites this kind of memeification. Maybe it’s because the SoulsBorneRings are so given to toying with players themselves that they’ve built some kind of reciprocal relationship with the community. Or maybe they're popular and people like mashing things they enjoy together. Maybe people just like fun things and I’m over-theorising.

To download the mod, you’ll need a copy of Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 on PC and the THUGPro mod installed. Then you can install the Firelink Shrine mod as a stage, and the model for Solaire for some added immersion.