It’s common knowledge that FromSoftware’s Souls series and its children — Bloodborne and Elden Ring — are some of the best games ever made.
What not everyone knows, however, is that many of these games’ DLCs often provide even better gameplay experiences than the original games. Let’s rank the best DLCs in the history of the series so far.
8. Dark Souls 2: Crown Of The Ivory King
Whether or not you like the maligned Dark Souls 2, one thing I recommend you don’t sleep on are its DLCs. They each provide a better gameplay experience than the base game. While I’m not crazy about the Ivory King DLC, I must give it credit for a few bold choices.
This is the first time in the series that players have to deal not only with very wide-open areas, but also with weather effects that will greatly impair the player’s vision. Ivory King ensures that brave knight will become truly errant in their quest of finding the next cozy checkpoint. I wouldn’t want to play a whole game where I can’t see crap most of the time, but I find this detour an interesting change for a DLC-sized adventure.
7. Dark Souls 3: Ashes of Ariandel
I was originally pretty disappointed with Dark Souls 3‘s first DLC because I had learned it only featured two bosses even before I got to play it. It’s an all-time low when it comes to boss amount for a Souls DLC, and things get even worse when you enter the first fight and it’s just… not very memorable.
I didn’t care for the first boss, and I really didn’t care for the ice-covered and insect-filled areas, but the final boss more than made up for it. Sister Friede is fast, has a bunch of nasty tricks up her sleeve that I won’t spoil here, and her fight is split into three wildly different forms. Turns out From wasn’t getting cheap when it came to bosses — they were just banding them together to maximize the amount of headaches they could cause!
6. Dark Souls 2: Crown Of The Sunken King
One of the weakest aspects of the original Dark Souls 2 is its level design. Sunken King feels like an apology letter to that. It invites players to an intricate system of underground pyramids where you can waste a lot of time just taking neat screenshots.
It’s not exactly spectacular when it comes to the number of bosses, but it does feature three very different boss encounters which are pretty decent in their own right.
5. Dark Souls 2: Crown Of The Old Iron King
This is an absolute slap on the face of all Dark Souls 2 haters that just cannot dodge or deflect. The Old Iron King DLC features good level design, absolutely gorgeous looks, and two of the best bosses in the entire series. Yes, this is the one with the Fume Knight, the only boss in DS2 that falls in the much-derided category of being “just a guy in armor” that’s actually incredibly challenging and fun to do battle against.
This is the DLC you should recommend to anyone saying that Dark Souls 2 isn’t deserving of its name. It’s cheating because it’s not the base game, sure, but please bear in mind that Miyazaki would probably be so proud of your mischief.
4. Dark Souls 3: The Ringed City
There’s not a single DLC in Souls history that’s even a hair below “pretty damn good”. Still, they rarely try to convey a different feel than the one you get from their main game. The Ringed City is the end of Dark Souls 3, and every moment of it seems like it’s carrying a bittersweet feeling of finality. Every boss is incredibly tough to kill, the arenas and play areas are as grand and majestic as they’ve ever been, and there’s not a single victory that doesn’t come paired with an immense sense of achievement.
Finally beating the last boss of Dark Souls 3 felt like killing a dragon IRL — even if the final boss isn’t a dragon, but actually just some old guy.
3. Dark Souls: Artorias of the Abyss
The original Dark Souls only featured one DLC, but it was one for the ages. FromSoft was very FromSoft-like when they put Artorias, the Dark Souls-ified version of King Arthur, in the game’s cover, but not in the base game.
Players were seriously hyped to see if the legendary knight who’d fought the abyss was as cool as promised — and as pissed off as you’d expect for someone who had his dog murdered by a mysterious knight. The answer was yes to both. Artorias provides such a cool challenge that he could be the only boss in that DLC and still make it work, but it features three more bosses, all pretty memorable in their own right.
2. Bloodborne: The Old Hunters
Bloodborne only has one DLC, but don’t let that fool you into believing you will not get to quench your thirst for the finest old blood in the entirety of the cosmos.
Bloodborne’s The Old Hunters is one of the best DLCs in FromSoft’s history because it’s not one, but two of the best DLCs ever made merged into one. Yes, it turns out that From had originally intended Bloodborne to have two DLCs, but they ended up being nice to the point of just cramming all the best bosses of Bloodborne into one single package. The result? The best challenge that you could ever hope to get for such a low price.
1. Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree
You’d be hard-pressed to convince me that Elden Ring isn’t an all-timer in the realm of video games. The open-world Souls-style game took the world by storm in 2022, and it’s become an instant hallmark of FromSoftware’s library.
I understand fearing that this DLC would disappoint, because even “great” pales in comparison to what Elden Ring is. The good news is that it’s a fantastic mix of new and (revamped) old, one that rules even though the developers lied to us. Yeah, Hidetaka Miyazaki said that the playable space in Shadow Of The Erdtree would cover an area more or less the size of Limgrave, but the Realm Of Shadow is so much vaster and has so much more to do. Perhaps it shouldn’t be battling it out with DLC, but with full-priced games.
