Dark Souls III: Ashes of Ariandel

 PC
User Score
7.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 188 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 107 out of 188
  2. Mixed: 55 out of 188
  3. Negative: 26 out of 188

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  1. GungorGuzel
    Oct 27, 2016
    6
    Positive;
    - New Mode Arena
    - Final Boss
    - Some New Weapons and Armor Sets
    - Three Titanite Slab :)

    Negative
    - 2/3 hours gameplay :(
    - Everywhere has same
    - Unbalanced enemies
    - No new staff

    Wait second DLC :((
  2. Micalica
    Oct 25, 2016
    5
    TL;DR:

    "I wish this DLC was better, longer, harder, or at least $5 cheaper, but none of those are true." Dark Souls III is pretty darn fun. At least half the bosses are interesting, a few enemy designs are, the lore is deeper than ever, and the PvP is still pretty garbage. Well, at least it's not Dark Souls II garbage. Ashes of Ariandel is plagued by a lack of playability. You go    TL;DR:

    "I wish this DLC was better, longer, harder, or at least $5 cheaper, but none of those are true."

    Dark Souls III is pretty darn fun. At least half the bosses are interesting, a few enemy designs are, the lore is deeper than ever, and the PvP is still pretty garbage. Well, at least it's not Dark Souls II garbage.

    Ashes of Ariandel is plagued by a lack of playability. You go to the place, you do one thing, go across a bridge, talk to an albino chick, break the bridge, drop down, kill a boss, go around, kill a different mini-boss, go further, talk to some weird suicidal bald birds, go further, talk to an albino chick who says some weird stuff, go further, fight big things that have dumb hitboxes, go further, go down, turn a crank, go back to start, final boss with 3 health bars.

    Sure it's cool and all, but that took me around 3 hours to get through. There are about 9 new enemies but they're just kind of rehashes of what you've seen before.

    Speaking of what you've seen before, I've already played through Irithyll, Ariamis in Dark Souls 1, and Eleum Loyce in Dark Souls 2. Hey look, an icy cold place that's full of snow! An occasional bloody pustule doesn't really change the scenery that much. I love the candle-tree enemies, but once you kill two of them, the mystery is over. Nothing's all that new in the DLC after the first few minutes.

    It's still got the awful Dark Souls III level design; they didn't dare try and shake it off. Hey look, item! Ambush. Hey look, an isolated unmoving enemy! Ambush. Hey look, a path that looks like a shortcut, but drops down so you can't run back! Ambush. Whoa, some corpses over there that are definitely not alive! Ambush. It gets SO old, SO friggin fast, just like it did in the main game.

    The peak fun is at the end of the DLC. You fight an actually difficult Fluffy Tail, but without no tail, so that's how you know she means business. She gets stunlocked fairly easily, so with a Black Knight Straight Sword +5 and 40 strength, I could get about 1500 damage in before having to back off, dodge, or heal. In other words, this boss is ♥♥♥♥ easy and you can beat her as long as you don't use your toes to play. Then Scarecrow pulls himself off of his chair-crucifix and revives his daughter by lighting her on fire. What?

    This is where it gets interesting. You now have to micro-manage Fluffy Tail sending constant streams of Frostbite at you, while attacking Scarecrow, while rolling through his attacks, while attempting to avoid the trail of Frostbite he leaves behind himself. This is a poor man's Ornstein and Smough. Cool, but loses its luster after a few failed attempts. Strangely enough the fire in the arena never burns you.

    You slay Scarecrow even if you spend the whole fight wailing on Fluffy Tail. He dies but revives her again by lighting her on fire-- this time with BLACK fire. And as we all know, the Amaterasu is the most powerful Dark Souls pyromancy there is.

    This is probably one of my favorite boss fights in the entire game, probably due to its clear difficulty cap. It's a fight straight out of Bloodborne. You're no longer micro-managing or backing off in order to heal or re-buff. You smash, stab, and slash until you run out of stamina, panic-roll until you have a few inches, roll under an attack, heal, and then resume your flurry of blows until one of you is dead. I found myself legitimately respecting a fictional character for her sheer skill and furiosity displayed in battle.

    Then you see a guy pretending to be asleep inside of an old snake Halloween costume he hastily put on at the last second, and warp back to the Cathedral. Albino's chilling there now, talking about finishing a painting for other weird people. The End.

    To reveiw:
    Pros:
    - final fight is super challenging and great
    - some gear is cool and interesting to find
    - more lore than you can shake your White Birch stick at
    - Waifu Souls

    Cons:
    - same old Dark Souls III level design
    - only a few hours
    - very bland overall, little replayability
    - very forgettable landscape, setting, and enemies
    - out of 3 bosses, only 2 are actual bosses, and only 1 fight is challenging
    - $15, it should cost $10.    … Expand
  3. therainbowpigs
    Oct 26, 2016
    5
    Hands down the worst DLC fromsoft has ever made. For 15$ you get a 2-3 hour DLC set on a pretty bland snow area that is only difficult because the level designers just put a huge amount of enemies to gank you and called it a day. You also get a whopping 2 boss fights both of which are just visually boring looking ganks and the non-optional boss in particular is anti-climactic as all hellHands down the worst DLC fromsoft has ever made. For 15$ you get a 2-3 hour DLC set on a pretty bland snow area that is only difficult because the level designers just put a huge amount of enemies to gank you and called it a day. You also get a whopping 2 boss fights both of which are just visually boring looking ganks and the non-optional boss in particular is anti-climactic as all hell because i actually had to look it up on the wiki to see if it was the end boss. The only real good thing about this DLC is that it has a PvP arena and a dozen cool new weapons so if you like the PvP (which you most likely don't cause' it's still pretty bad) then this might be worth the price.
    As a whole though, Ashes of Ariandel is pathetic. Never would i have thought that i would say that to a DLC made by Fromsoft.    … Expand
  4. Darthtux
    Oct 25, 2016
    8
    This dark souls 3 dlc offered some really unique locations but everything at first glance feels small. There are many different alternate routes you could have easily missed and it definitely feels a bit more open than the base game.

    There are some cool new enemies and weapons but nothing can really top your current equipment if you have already finished the game. The bosses are    This dark souls 3 dlc offered some really unique locations but everything at first glance feels small. There are many different alternate routes you could have easily missed and it definitely feels a bit more open than the base game.

    There are some cool new enemies and weapons but nothing can really top your current equipment if you have already finished the game.

    The bosses are good. Do not watch the trailers or any gameplays of it or it will kinda spoil the experience. There is one that really stands out than the other but both fights were entertaining. OST wise it's awesome, just what you expect from any DS OST!

    PVP feature is a cool side feature....

    As a DS fan from playing all the games, it's definitely disappointing if you compare it to the other dlcs.
    The scale of this dlc just feels "small" and compare to the other dlcs, it can't get the theme of it right.
    Even the crowns dlc from ds2 got the theme and scale right.
    I took it more as something from the base game than a actual expansion.

    Now triple A games now a days are just not doing too great with expansions except for like Witcher 3. I feel like it definitely meets what we call DLC in these years. I didn't expect too much from reading the reviews of other people but I think this DLC is good.

    As a souls fan I would give this more like a 7/10
    But if you just turn your brain off and let it be just a dlc then its more like 7.5
    I hope expansion 2 will deliver the single player experience we truly wanted.    … Expand
  5. ImSchroeder
    Oct 25, 2016
    8
    As a big fan of dark souls I was pretty annoyed by the rating of the positive reviews that dark souls 3 had. It is a good game but its hard to explain how the third chapter(despite a few good moments) had no soul and just seem like a big fan service without much purpose, without originality.
    The problem with this DLC it is one and only: It is too short. Once you accept that it should be a    As a big fan of dark souls I was pretty annoyed by the rating of the positive reviews that dark souls 3 had. It is a good game but its hard to explain how the third chapter(despite a few good moments) had no soul and just seem like a big fan service without much purpose, without originality.
    The problem with this DLC it is one and only: It is too short. Once you accept that it should be a bigger experience believe me, it is far more original and exciting than the base game. I can only imagine how much better( at least for me) the main game would be if every area of the game had the kind of sense of exploration and ambience this DLC delivered.
    As a pvp addicted I was very disappointed with the weapons on base game: you had 14 straight swords, for example, and almost the same move set/skill for every single one: "Of course I'm gonna use the one with ridiculous damage and life regen!"
    A lot were just impossible to play with, like daggers (Brigand twindaggers, yes I'll spam parry you after the first attack for sure) and almost all katanas. But I can assure you of this: each single weapon of this DLC its original and unique. Something that should have been done to every weapon on base game and probably wasn't done because of how hard would be game balancing (let's get this right, this is not an excuse for not doing it so ok?Just work it out FROM).
    The pvp arena, if you play a lot of pvp like me, works pretty well and there's not much to be said.
    I just wish I could give this a ten, it got so many good things going for it, things that I was missing from the base game but, for now, I stand in hope that the next DLC will deliver a bigger experience with the same care for level design and originality I see here.    … Expand
  6. Smilingcookie
    Oct 30, 2016
    10
    Real score 9,5/10. Great expansion. It took me 4-5 hours to fully complete the single player collecting all items and defeating all enemies with a level 193 character on NG++. After that I'm left with the PVP arena and 2 bossfights that are a lot of fun in co-op. The new weapons are brilliant and original. The game has great atmosphere, top notch level design and interesting, challengingReal score 9,5/10. Great expansion. It took me 4-5 hours to fully complete the single player collecting all items and defeating all enemies with a level 193 character on NG++. After that I'm left with the PVP arena and 2 bossfights that are a lot of fun in co-op. The new weapons are brilliant and original. The game has great atmosphere, top notch level design and interesting, challenging new enemies. I can full heartedly recommend this DLC. It's not long, but the content is great!… Expand
  7. Sunykamey
    Feb 11, 2018
    2
    In terms of map and enemy design aswell as balance this is the worst FromSoftware game content ever created.
    PS - I originally had it at a 5 but due to the stupidly unbalanced millwood knights in the tower this gets a 2.
  8. Gamer-critic
    Oct 30, 2016
    7
    So, this is the worst DLC ever made by From Soft and only for the greatest boss of all souls series games (and cool new weapons), this DLC is having 7/10 from me . That's almost all, that a usual player should know. If you are the ultra nerd with 2k hours in three first games, I have something special to tell you...

    This DLC is super easy, and you should buy it only for the Arena and a    So, this is the worst DLC ever made by From Soft and only for the greatest boss of all souls series games (and cool new weapons), this DLC is having 7/10 from me . That's almost all, that a usual player should know. If you are the ultra nerd with 2k hours in three first games, I have something special to tell you...

    This DLC is super easy, and you should buy it only for the Arena and a bunch of amazing new unbalanced weapons.
    Looking forward to the next DLC, I hope it will be better.    … Expand
  9. mykod95
    May 15, 2020
    2
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Ridiculously short and with a awful final boss. Not that it is impossibly hard but has 3 phases where if you die on the final one (and you will!) you’ll have to go through the 3 phases over and over again. Why? To artificially extend the time of the DLC since otherwise you would complete it in 20 minutes. Worst dlc from ever did. By far.… Expand
  10. Deckz
    Nov 25, 2016
    6
    It looked promising, but after 2 hours, i was done. i found the final boss room, i had done everything else, and i was just sad, i was so exited to turn this game back on, but after all the things i got in the new dlc, i just thought: well, im never going to use this stuff now, because the game is over agin... 2 hours on a dlc this long after launch, is a **** joke
  11. frederik1478
    Aug 5, 2022
    8
    It has the best boss fight in the series, but the rest of it I
    is so short that if you bought then I will feel you have wasted your money. I'm glad you get Game of the Year from it since it's in there.
  12. Bullzz
    Apr 29, 2017
    7
    Fand den DLC schlechter als den 2ten Ringed City aber trotzdem hat es sich ausgezahlt.

    Was mich störe waren die wenig vorhandenen anspruchsvollen Gegner... bis auf den Endboss war im tank alles kein Problem. Und was mich als Dark souls 1 Fan am meisten stört ... ich mag kein Porten ... diese Seuche hat seit DS 2 sich eingebürgert. Das heisst aber nicht das ich es gut heißen muss.    Fand den DLC schlechter als den 2ten Ringed City aber trotzdem hat es sich ausgezahlt.

    Was mich störe waren die wenig vorhandenen anspruchsvollen Gegner... bis auf den Endboss war im tank alles kein Problem.

    Und was mich als Dark souls 1 Fan am meisten stört ... ich mag kein Porten ... diese Seuche hat seit DS 2 sich eingebürgert. Das heisst aber nicht das ich es gut heißen muss. Eine richtige rießige zusammenhängende Welt wie in DS1 wäre wünschenswert für das Nachfolgespiel von FromSoftware    … Expand
  13. nitorita
    Nov 8, 2020
    7
    A decent DLC that adds extra content and bosses to the main game, but is not the most pleasant experience. Most enemies are annoying to deal with and tedious to run past. The final boss is an obnoxious three phases long, and near impossible to beat if you do not summon a helper (the provided AI or a friend). It is satisfying to beat the bosses in this DLC, but there is an incredible lackA decent DLC that adds extra content and bosses to the main game, but is not the most pleasant experience. Most enemies are annoying to deal with and tedious to run past. The final boss is an obnoxious three phases long, and near impossible to beat if you do not summon a helper (the provided AI or a friend). It is satisfying to beat the bosses in this DLC, but there is an incredible lack of balancing to make it less frustrating to play.… Expand
  14. PappyBakesCakes
    Jan 17, 2018
    7
    This DLC suffers from some of the chaotic environmental story telling found in the original game. The scenario portrayed here is still interesting but it quite shallow and the length to complete the DLC shows. The bosses, armor and weapons are interesting and the environment beautiful but I would not invest in this if you are new to the series an have yet to beat the main game. This DLCThis DLC suffers from some of the chaotic environmental story telling found in the original game. The scenario portrayed here is still interesting but it quite shallow and the length to complete the DLC shows. The bosses, armor and weapons are interesting and the environment beautiful but I would not invest in this if you are new to the series an have yet to beat the main game. This DLC does have a tie in to the one that follows so if you want the whole experience this is recommended but be prepared to have this not live up to your hopes and dreams.… Expand
  15. nurfedx
    Oct 30, 2021
    10
    One of the best Games known to mankind.
    From Software is a safe heaven for the Gaming community.
    Especially in times where big Developers dissapiont us with theyr fraudulent intent.
    Praise the sun!
  16. kimi1775
    Nov 9, 2020
    8
    ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‏‏‎
  17. Game0fLife
    Aug 4, 2021
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Honestly, too short, only two bosses within the entire DLC? Come on........… Expand
  18. 523kl
    Jun 24, 2022
    7
    Dark souls Dlc:Not worth it.

    When I played DS3,I thought that they would make a perfect Dlc and make us very happier. Ashes of ariandel starts after killing crystal sage boss.Good starting,good concept.You find a secret cave,and your second bonfire.And you pass a bridge,talk to sister,then go down...pass the villages and pull a lever for a boss fight.And boss room can be accessed in 5    Dark souls Dlc:Not worth it.


    When I played DS3,I thought that they would make a perfect Dlc and make us very happier.


    Ashes of ariandel starts after killing crystal sage boss.Good starting,good concept.You find a secret cave,and your second bonfire.And you pass a bridge,talk to sister,then go down...pass the villages and pull a lever for a boss fight.And boss room can be accessed in 5 minutes after starting!But isn't opened for course...And second boss.After an encounter you see the "boss"Just a normal mob wolf.After you kill him you take a co op (and a good ) item.There are 2 bosses this is not enough for us...


    Pros

    Good atmosphere
    Enemies
    Bosses


    Cons


    Two bosses

    Areas

    Boring(some of the areas are fun)

    Very short



    Score is:77.    … Expand
  19. ManHoof
    Jul 29, 2023
    8
    Good DLC with an interesting little world. The downside is that it is too small.

Awards & Rankings

82
#82 Most Shared PC Game of 2016

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
73

Mixed or average reviews - based on 23 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 23
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 23
  3. Negative: 0 out of 23
  1. NZGamer
    Nov 23, 2016
    75
    Ashes of Ariandel is a competent piece of downloadable content for Dark Souls III. It checks all the right boxes and makes all the right moves. It’s gorgeous, mysterious, but it’s also tame. While it does fill in the gaps around one of the series’ bigger question marks, no amount of mystique can hide the fact that there isn’t a lot on offer here.
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  2. GameCritics
    Nov 22, 2016
    50
    Dark Souls 3 was a wonderful coda for the series, revisiting the best parts of Soulsborne while skillfully buffing over the pieces that didn’t work. Still, the Souls tricks and tropes that have become hallmarks are no longer groundbreaking, and there isn’t much left for Souls proper to achieve. As such, the run-of-the-mill quality of the experience offered here just doesn’t cut it anymore. While I still hold some hope that the second (and final) piece of DLC will be more substantial, Ashes of Ariandel illustrates exactly why Souls needs to end for the foreseeable future.
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  3. Gamer.no
    Nov 9, 2016
    70
    Ashes of Ariandel attempts to tackle too many things at once, and loses focus. There are few negatives about the expansion in itself, it just doesn't have enough content. FROM had the potential to make a great expansion to the series, but put its efforts into developing the wrong aspect of the game.
    Read full review
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