In an era increasingly surrounded by corrective patches and post-launch updates, the fashion of the DLC has definitely taken a turn, with almost all titles now enjoying additional downloadable content to the base title. There are those like Capcom who have made it an essential dogma, with the striking example of the recent multi-criticized Street Fighter V, or who like CD Projekt has taken advantage of it to create content with a capital C, absolutely justifying the price and the expected time with content to make titles sold at full price pale. Fortunately From Software joins in the wake of the Polish studio, creating ad hoc content that broadens the background and the game world created with their visionary titles; after the good play with the saga of the crowns in Dark Souls II and after the fantastic Artoryas of the Abyss and The Old Hunters, here is the Ashes of Ariandel digital store, the first of the two DLCs scheduled for the most recent Dark Souls III. Will From Software be able to trace the excellent work done with the old DLCs? Let's find out together!
The fabulous world of Ariandel
Ashes of Ariandel is set in the painted world of Ariandel, reachable via an NPC in the Cathedral of the Depths. The location is one of the most evocative of all Dark Souls III, presenting a truly expansive map full of crossroads in a magical world full of snow and death. The references to the previous Souls and to the painted world of Ariamis are indisputable, location from which it takes inspiration and part of the name; the most attentive and hardened players will not fail to notice the extreme similarity of the entrance to the DLC with that of Artoryas of The Abyss, or the scene of the bridge that strongly recalls the one present to Ariamis in the first Dark Souls: this is the style of the master Miyazaki, paying homage to loyal consumers with choices that are stationed in the limbo of fanservice, however finding coherence in a context masterfully created by the mind of the brilliant producer. The result is the usual artistic orgasm to which the master has accustomed us, with a lot of lore and background to support: although Ashes of Ariandel deals with a main theme different from that of Dark Souls III, the connections are certainly not lacking, complete with NPCs from the base game that will change their dialogue after completing the downloadable content. From's style has remained unchanged and, consequently, to find out what happened to Ariandel we will necessarily have to speculate, read descriptions and talk to the NPCs present, in fact building a historical and credible path up to the events we are facing; the result is as always very stimulating for the gamer, making this DLC unique and extremely interactive like all the main Souls.
Quality> Quantity.
If qualitatively we have absolutely no doubts, it is on the "quantity" that the first DLC of Dark Souls III leaves us a bit disappointed: Ashes of Ariandel can in fact be completed in about 5 hours, a good but not exceptional duration for a DLC, especially since the base title is extremely long-lived: in the content there will in fact be only 2 boss fights, in fact one of the key elements of every Souls that respect yourself; if the optional boss fight left us a bit perplexed, given the simplicity and the lack of inspiration that distinguishes it, we can only be satisfied with the main one that actually closes the DLC: the battle is incredibly rewarding, technical, varied and characterized by an incredible soundtrack and art direction, making it probably one of the best in Dark Souls III and beyond; of strong Bloodbornian inspiration, it will in fact give us incredible emotions, closing this Ashes of Ariandel up.
The map we talked about before is huge, open and circular, but unfortunately limited to only one large area: it ends quite quickly, ranging from huge and snow-covered areas to a desolate and abandoned village, inhabited only by malformed raven beings devoured by corruption. The enemies present are limited to ten and are very well made, especially the Northerners of Millwood and the snow wolves; the feature of the entities in this DLC, however, will not be brute strength, but the frequent supernumerary: From has in fact devised some real traps in which to drop the player, expertly made with the collaboration of the excellent level design; the result is a breath of fresh air and a satisfying experience, quite different to the base game and in which particular attention will be required to "aggro" and dead ends. As for the equipment we have two rather distinct tracks: if on the one hand the additional weapons gave good satisfactions, especially those based on unique dexterity and weapon art, the same cannot be said of the armor, present in a very small number and limited to mere fashion souls; similar speech for rings and spells: their presence can be counted on the fingers of one hand and their function is centered on freezing, a mechanics not very detailed in the basic title.
Team Deathmatch.
In addition to everything we have described to you, Ashes of Ariandel introduces a new area totally dedicated to competitive multiplayer: by killing the optional boss we will in fact obtain an object which, burned at the altar of the bond, will allow the achievement of the area in question. This is an innovative mechanic for the Souls in general, with the possibility of selecting the most suitable match for us through matchmaking: they range from fights for 4 to 6 players up to single duels, with the fantastic possibility of playing team matches of 2 or 3 people even with friends, given the presence of passwords; the enormous possibilities that this modality has to offer come together with two “macro-defects” that absolutely limit the experience. First of all, the little crowding of the servers will not allow matchmaking to quickly find matches, if we exclude the duel mode; as already mentioned before, the new mode will be exclusive to the DLC and to those who have completed it thoroughly, while in our opinion it would have been more congenial to make it available to everyone with the consequent better functioning of the new arena mode. Afterwards, the missed rewards lead to the average player getting bored soon, bringing in fact only the fanatics of the player versus player to crowd this mode; the glory alone will not be enough to stimulate the player and surely we would have appreciated the rewards based on the classic online pacts, the true cross of the trophy hunters of Dark Souls III. In essence, we can only be partially satisfied with this new multiplayer experience, which we are sure will be thoroughly investigated with the second and last DLC of the From Software title.
