A crisp addition to the Dark Souls franchise

The Dark Souls 3: Ashes of Ariandel DLC contains a snowy world where you will find new enemies, armor and bosses. It is a new area where you will even find new magic and weapons. The downloadable content continues with the same underlying game without diluting the gameplay experience, which means you will have just as much of a hard time beating this extension as you did beating the game. This is DLC, which means you need Dark Souls 3 the game in order to play it.

The unfathomable story continues

This version of Dark Souls III Ashes of Ariandel answers some questions, but not all, and it raises new questions. The beauty of the game is that the narrative, the events and its history are fractured and partially lost (just like real life), so you may only guess as to why things have happened and why a character you met in Dark Souls 2 is dead in suspicious circumstances in Dark Souls 3: Ashes of Ariandel. The DLC is an extension of Dark Souls 3 and is not a re-engineering, which means you fight enemies the same way you do in Dark Souls 3, except that you may find and use new weapons and spells. The spells built specifically for the snowy wasteland enemies are an especially nice touch.

Conclusion – you owe this game to yourself

The graphics are as beautiful and artistic as they ever were, and the gameplay experience doesn’t differ from the core Dark Souls 3 fundamentals. When you buy the DLC, you are buying more of what you like; you are not buying something groundbreaking. If you have stuck with Dark Souls from number one or two, and you have played your way through Dark Souls 3, then you owe it to yourself to buy this DLC pack.