There's an ogre standing in the stream. It really shouldn't be. This stream – which leads into the Forest of Fallen Giants – is one of Dark Souls II's starting areas, and it's where a lot of players get their first real taste of action. I've died here often enough to know exactly who shows up here and when, and this huge, waddling blob is not on the list. Its presence is throwing me off, and that's the point.

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“ Playing on PS4, the new, prettier lighting and particle effects are immediately striking.

Of course, Scholar of the First Sin also packs in the visual improvements you'd expect from a new-gen port: The PS4, Xbox One, and DirectX 11 PC versions will all look noticeably better than the original, with the console editions running at a promised 60 frames per second in 1080p. (Markov said that the DirectX 11 version will also look better than the player-created graphics mods currently available.) Playing on PS4, the new, prettier lighting and particle effects are immediately striking, with the former sending warm-looking, dusky rays of sunlight filtering through the forest's Scaffolding and Cardinal Tower areas. It's not a big jump – the characters and familiar environments don't look any different – but it's a clear one.There's also the Scholar of the First Sin himself (itself?) – a hulking but apparently friendly creature added in the big, recent Dark Souls II update. Here, he'll show you a new path through the game, although it's not clear if or how much that'll differ from the content that was added in the update. Otherwise, Dark Souls II's familiar layout and hack-and-slash feel are largely unchanged, although it's worth noting that the demo character I played as was overpowered, so I wasn't able to gauge how much the beloved difficulty has been affected, if at all."It's hard to say if it's more or less difficult," says Markov. "It's different."

Mikel Reparaz is a freelance contributor who likes a little hopelessness with his hack-and-slash. Follow him on Twitter @wikiparaz or listen to him talk on the weekly Vidjagame Apocalypse podcast