Ashes of Ariandel

Dark Souls III's first DLC expansion offers a pretty nice change from the base game's aesthetic by throwing you into a big standalone area covered in snow. I found this one of the more fun areas in the game, well-paced and with a nice and bright look contrasted with some dark interiors. It has some cool little unique moments like avalanches that drop you down a level and a long bridge leading to an apparent dead end that reveals stuff you missed on the way back across. There's a good balance between straightforward areas and ones where I felt like I didn't know where I was going, good bonfire placement, and so on.

The main boss at the end is a real high-effort production in terms of cutscenes, animations, and design in general, a multi-phase duo fight with a cool fire and ice theme and a bunch of interesting abilities to deal with. Additionally the expansion does a fair amount of explicit narrative setup for this boss by Dark Souls standards, which makes it feel especially memorable as part of the area that you kind of understand rather than just a thing that suddenly appears. It’s certainly a fight that can be a little frustrating since it’s three phases and has some very sudden ways to get stunned and take massive damage, but I found it mostly very engaging and fun. Even the first phase is a solid test of your attention that has a wide moveset and punishes bad rolling habits and stamina management, and the fight’s overall arc from 1-on-1 to duo and back to 1-on-1 feels like a strong formula.

I'd say this is a successful expansion that I wouldn't want to pay $15 for in 2025 but that's certainly worth incorporating into your DSIII playthrough.