For better or for worse, Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree looks like more of the same. The DLC’s reveal trailer boasted a comparable dark fantasy atmosphere with gruesome and hideous figures and a sweeping landscape to explore, all while teasing new weapons players will have access to. This is fairly standard for FromSoftware DLC expansions at this point; still, like Bloodborne and the Dark Souls trilogy before it, Elden Ring is bound to receive some of its best content in Shadow of the Erdtree, and Dark Souls 3’s two DLCs will have likely played a role in influencing its final product.

FromSoftware followed Bloodborne with The Old Hunters DLC, which gave it some of its most revered and memorable boss fights in Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower, Ludwig, the Accursed/Holy Blade, and Orphan of Kos. Dark Souls 3 didn’t disappoint with its own DLCs, either, delivering bosses such as Sister Friede and Slave Knight Gael. Ashes of Ariandel and The Ringed City both have their share of optional bosses, too, but what delineates them most is their respective level designs and what kind of enemies are thrown at them between stellar bosses. If Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree is going to take inspiration from one more than the other, it will hopefully emulate Ashes of Ariandel for that reason.

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Dark Souls 3’s Ringed City is a Bleak and Grueling Gauntlet

The Ringed City arguably falters in comparison to Ashes of Ariandel because of its level design, particularly the unbearably grating enemies it decides to place in players’ paths. The front half of The Ringed City leaves little to no time for idle exploration if players are limited to melee, for instance, because a butterfly-like angel enemy is perpetually around to spam them with volleys of light-based projectiles.

This enemy tails the player for the entire front half of the DLC, up to Dark Souls 3’s Demon Prince boss fight, and the back half begins with another barrage of projectiles spammed by an army of spectral summons. The Dreg Heap is gorgeous in its surreal aesthetic, but that does little to compensate for how annoying its pursuer enemy is.

This sequence is brief and followed by a better region anyhow, though that also comes as little consolation when the DLC up to the Halflight, Spear of the Church boss is a painstaking exercise in tedium and patience. Thankfully, Shadow of the Erdtree is inherently unlikely to follow this design regardless since it appears to feature its own extension of Elden Ring’s open world and wouldn’t be claustrophobic.

This kind of level design only really works if players are bottlenecked into tight regions with few ways to get around an enemy, and Elden Ring’s wide-open world meant that a lot could be ridden around and circumvented easily. Unless a lot of Shadow of the Erdtree restricts open-world exploration or takes place in tight interior corridors, a repeat of The Ringed City’s irritating gauntlet shouldn’t be of any concern and FromSoftware hopefully won’t try to add something similar in Elden Ring’s DLC, lest it lose a lot of what makes Elden Ring sensational in open-world level design and world-building.

Dark Souls 3’s Ashes of Ariandel is a Perfect Extension of Dark Souls Exploration

Ashes of Ariandel is far more akin to the FromSoftware level and enemy design players know and love, even behaving like a wintry iteration of Dark Souls ’ Darkroot Garden in many ways.

That’s not to say the areas themselves outmatch how spectacular their end-route bosses are, not unlike The Ringed City, but maneuvering through them is much more of what is expected of a Dark Souls expansion. Shadow of the Erdtree already looks stunning in its scale and some areas look strikingly similar to those from the base game, so there will hopefully be nothing to worry about when it comes to the level design of Elden Ring’s one and only planned DLC.