Ashes of Ariandel DLC is Dark Souls at its most disappointing

It feels like it has been a long time coming, especially for someone like myself who played through the entire game to completion for review on a debug console, meaning I lost my save and had to start over with a fresh character on a retail PS4. But I loved the game, and my 9/10 suggests as much, so the realisation we were finally getting some new content after absolutely rinsing the game was brilliant. I reinstalled it, grabbed my save, and awaited for the hour that it would unlock.

Look, I’m not a Dark Souls apologist. I love the series, having first dabbled with Demon’s Souls on PS3 and seeing a game that, despite numerous technical flaws, was doing something different and interesting, rewarding concentration, discovery, and making us learn patterns and skills to defeat incredible odds in a world that wanted to kill us over and over again. But I won’t forgive its flaws to the extent many will. At launch, Dark Souls 3 had some areas where slowdown was awful. Frame drops are never pretty, and when a game isn’t pushing the boundaries of the technology, I think it should be better.

I won’t ever tell you to “get gud” either. Those people aren’t nearly as funny as they think they are, and FromSoft’s series just isn’t for everyone. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it, and that’s cool. But I do. A lot. Bloodborne remains my only platinum trophy, and I’d give my right nut for a sequel. Dark Souls 3 felt almost like a backward step from Bloodborne, which I do believe is the pinnacle of the genre, and indeed, one of my favourite games of all time.

Back when The Old Hunters DLC hit for Bloodborne, we were all rabid. We wanted more, and the two pieces put into one lengthy chunk was brilliant. It was devious and hard. The Orphan Of Kos was an absolute bastard, I still hate him, though I can respect how fantastic the boss battle is. But even accessing Bloodborne’s DLC required a herculean effort. Someone, somewhere, must have happened upon it, or been told by someone on the dev team. At least, that’s how it would have had to play out in the old days. Now, it’s immediately on the internet, and we all know how to do it thanks to guides on day one of release. In fact, Sony sent it over with a guide on how to access it, because otherwise, how would you find it in a game that big?

Ashes of Ariandel is similar. It requires you to be a set way along in the game, and you’ll meet a dude who asks you to enter the painted world. I can respect how the DLC works, because it’s clearly intended to never feel separate to the main game. If you were playing Dark Souls 3 for the first time, this would just feel like another area to visit – it’s only us 50+ hour players that notice it’s new. But then, if you’d played that much how would you even know where to look? It requires community. No. It relies on (excellent, I might add) community. I don’t know, but something about that feels almost lazy. Rather than discovering something new and exciting, to actually access the content you’ve paid for, it requires you to jump through hoops (albeit it less so than previous games), and something about it has suddenly struck me as shitty.

But that’s not why Ashes of Ariandel is disappointing. This is a short piece of content, with no trophies, no ending, one proper boss, and a new PVP area unlocked by killing an optional boss. It’s an area that has a recommended level of 70 to play (though I was 100 and it was still tough), that has some new enemies, fan-service (surely that wolf is related to Sif somehow), and a few areas that recycle ideas from the main game (rope bridge, anyone?). The enemies are the best part, with the wolves calling in support as they howl to one another, some absolutely beastly shielded guys, and some horrible trees, but it’s all over too quickly to really be able to stand back and say you loved it.

But where it truly shits the bed is the final boss. It’s strange for DLC to not have trophies or achievements, but when you kill the final boss (which is a three phase, three full health bar fight), despite it being quite a cool fight, it just stops. There is no ending. There is no explanation, no text, nothing. There’s just a bonfire, which is almost like FROM saying “That’s it, fuck off”, and it sits so poorly with me, that I couldn’t help walking away feeling like this was an utterly throwaway piece of content. Perhaps for those who haven’t been through the game multiple times, it makes sense, but the people like me who have hammered it? I felt empty, and a bit pissed off.

On top of that, I’m curious about the (admittedly fun) PVP arena. Once you beat the optional boss you can burn an item at a bonfire and access the Undead battles. These are actually quite cool, and if you love PVP they must be the best thing ever. But from a design point of view, what does this mean? Part of the Souls series is always risk-reward: you can summon, but that means you can be invaded too, by people who love PVP, or just ruining your day.

Now, if there’s an area that’s specifically been designed for these hardest of the hardcore PVP players, does that mean you’re not going to be invaded anymore? I wasn’t invaded once in my 4-5 hours with the DLC. I explored a lot, trying to find all the new weapons and trinkets, but no, not one invasion. Was I just lucky (or unlucky, depending on your perspective), or does this mean one of the key facets of the game will no longer actually happen?

Don’t misunderstand, here: I’m grateful I get more Souls, but this DLC is perhaps an indication of a tired Miyazaki (and team). There are hooks for super-fans, and parallels to the original Dark Souls just like there are in the main Dark Souls 3 game, but after Bloodborne, perhaps the bar for DLC has been set too high. I loved the new weapons and gear in The Old Hunters, but in Dark Souls 3’s Ashes of Ariandel, I’m just left wondering why I bothered. The reward is perhaps the game itself, and maybe that’s some twisted message we don’t yet understand. But for me, all this DLC has done is cement that perhaps Souls needs a rest. Unless they announce Bloodborne 2, of course. Fucking hell I want that game.