Hey all, so while this video's been posted, we just hit 7,000 subscribers on the channel! Suffice it to say, my mind is blown! Thank you to everyone who's considered subscribing, even if our opinions don't line up. You are all fantastic!
I genuinely believe that a true dark souls 2 remake with better ai, harder bosses w/more moves, and less mobs has the potential to be the best souls game. It already has such a unique and adventurey feel straight out of a fantasy book. The npcs are some of the best and there are sooo many cool ideas in ds2. Burnt ivory king is the coolest boss with the best intro and I could only imagine it with next gen graphics and a boss that would actually destroy me. Sinh and the whole area of Shulva gives me this tomb raiding Indiana jones feeling and brine tower already had 2 of the best bosses in the game. Hopefully one day from soft sees the groundwork they laid back then and how they could improve it so more people could enjoy it more.
I agree, but I get the sense FromSoft don't care enough a out DS2 to ever remake it. And given the bare minimum they put into DS1 remastered, I don't have faith that they'd do DS2 justice.
The Lore for the dlc area's are always the most fasinating to learn about and study on, that and the back story with all the bosses, i love learning the stories of the 3 kings in each of the crown dlc's
I found brume tower to be a better version of Eleum loyce. It’s basically better at everything including bosses, level design, atmosphere, art style, etc. the only thing I’d say the 3rd dlc does better is the world design
Level design and atmosphere 100% go to eleum loyce. Best area in the series imo. The troll invaders, unfreezing the city, finding the knights is so cool. Also they are tied on boss quality, as while fume knight is great and alonne is amazing, blue smelter is Dogshit ass. Ivory king is the coolest boss in the series and the best boss in the game, and aava is no slacker herself@@Sephirothkingdom782
This might be a scalding hot take, but I think the last place DLC needs to be Ashes of Ariendel. It is good of course and Friede is an amazing boss, but just what it offers is so minimal when you really break it down. You get basically an empty snowfield, a very small town, and the icy area. It’s also just kindof not fun to go through. Then you get one pretty bad boss and one really good boss. I just can’t think of another DLC that is actually offering less.
Yeah, I can totally see that. I think because I enjoy ice levels, I vibe with what was presented more, but if I saw someone make a video with your thoughts, I'd be like "Yeah, that's fair."
I can smell it, the s!** taste. A complete lack of mention of how this DLC gave us the PvP arena, a place that gives chunks early game technically and the lore and new weapons it brings. The mark of a CASUL if I’ve ever seen it.
I'd argue Crown of the Ivory king should be last, because it has all the same issues of Ashes of Ariandel, but without the polish of DS3. One Good Boss fight, with one throw away optional boss fight and pretty mid level exploration and variety. of course I just really think Sihn carries the Sunken City super hard, and is my personal favorite boss fight in the game and I like the level puzzle stuff.
I kinda agree, either Ariandel or Sunken Crown could be last. However I think the Artorias DLC is a bit overrated. I personally didn't really enjoy the the forest nor the enemies inside. I would rather have a brand new area. All the bosses of course are top notch but I've felt it didn't offer that much besides them. Oolacille was the only place I actually enjoyed walking through.
CotSK is so criminally underrated, Shulva is hands down one of the best areas in DS2. To me: 1. Ringed City 2. Old Hunters 3. Artorias of the Abyss 4. Crown of the Sunken King 5. Crown of the Old Iron King 6. Crown of the Ivory King 7. Ashes of Ariandel
While I do love both Gael and Sister Friede I don’t think it can be argued that the Old Hunters DLC is by far the best in the series. giving us stellar bosses like Ludwig, Lady Maria, and Orphan and some of the best locations in the game like the fishing hamlet and research hall
sister friede is defiantly the single best boss fight fromsoft has ever made. I can't even begin to describe the feeling of relief upon getting that titanite slab after beating stage two with no healing left that immediately swapped to horror after she once again got back up
My list: 7. Ashes of Ariandel (For me it’s Friede the DLC and Vilhelms voice of course) 6. Crown of Ivory King (I just get really tired of the aesthetics for some reason but the level aside from that is neat and Frigid Outskirts is fine, I always summon the npcs as meatshields though) 5. Crown of old iron king ( The tower is really good and I love the descend down to Fume knight but the enemies are sometimes really annoying especially these ashen sorcerers. There is also this one room if you know you know and the alonne runback is infamous. Fume knight and Alonne are cool and deserve to be named with the best bosses of the series. Iron passage can piss off worst coop area. 4. Ringed city (in my opinion the bosses are what saves this except halflight because ringed city and the dreg heap are meh areas for me although I like the dreg heap quite a lot more than the city. The bosses are phenomenal though midir, Gael and demon prince are top notch and in my opinion almost perfect) 3. sunken king (shulva is just gorgeous and I love it. This underground city which now only serves the curiosity and greed of robbers after being destroyed by the venomous dragon is peak fiction for me and it also has this Indiana jones feeling to it) sinh and elana are cool too, not as cool as fume and alonne but still. 2. artorias of the abyss ( it’s awesome. The areas are good and have interesting visuals the bosses are awesome perfect balance between cool areas and bosses 1. Old hunters (although bb is not my fav this dlc has to be the best of them all because it features the awesome bosses of the ringed city, the immersive levels of shulva and artorias of the abyss and in my opinion one ups them all. But it needed to, bloodborne really needed this dlc
Gael isn’t almost perfect, he’s literally perfect. Best boss they’ve ever done and there’s nothing wrong with the fight. That alone puts it above AoTA, ringed city is literally the first dlc in the first game but better. I’m not sure how you thought ringed city level design was meh but have a pass to oolacile which is just a worse darkroot garden
@@Sephirothkingdom782 I don't really see how he's perfect, his position in the lore is minimal, he came outta nowhere, and then took the role of series finale for some reason.
@@tomasstargamer6308 that’s the point lmao, he’s a nameless canon fodder that somehow managed to survive to the end of the world, just like you. The ashened one and undead ones aren’t some deity beings that everyone knows like the gods in anor londo, yet he got the most cinematic fight in the entire trilogy which is the reason why he’s the best fight. He has no flaws whatsoever. It’s BECAUSE you expect it to be someone a lot “cooler” that the fight is automatically improved in of itself. The move animations are great, he has the best arena in any souls game, one of the best soundtracks, very cool cutscenes, and the atmosphere of the fight is perfect
@@Sephirothkingdom782 A nobody will remain a nobody, I barely felt hype fighting him, he appeared for a whole 60 seconds in Ariandel, had some messages, then he's the big finale of this lore filled saga and they basically fight over a bucket of paint. And Ivory King arena is best tbh.
It’s funny that Sunken King is last(I’m not at all disagreeing either) because Sinh genuinely bumps it up a couple of notches for me. He’s one of my favorite fights in the entire series(I know, I know).
You can really feel how the Ashes of Ariandel was once 1 large DLC split into two with sister friede probably being the first boss. But I think they did a phenomenal job at creating it into its own
True soulsborne vets know the immense pain the ringed city angels were before their nerf. That was just straight pain and still a competent feat for whoever got passed them
Personally my ranking of the Soulsborne DLCs go like this 1. The Old Hunters 2. The Ringed City 3. Artorias Of The Abyss 4. Crown Of The Ivory King 5. Crown Of The Sunken King 6. Crown Of The Old Iron King 7. Ashes Of Ariandel I reeeeeally don't like the Gravetender duo, feel AOA was too short, didnt like getting a third snow area when we already got two snow areas which stole my fucking favorite type of area from me(i love deserts, Irithyll and Anor Londo were originally planned to be a desert in DS3, making it align more with Carthus, but then they made it a snowy area, and if you go look at the snow in Irithyll really closely and you'll notice its recolored sand) and i feel that Friede can be a bit too crazy for new players coming from 1 or 2 speedwise, fun yes, amazing lore yes, very rewarding yes, but your first time finding "lady maria but you move at dark souls speed" ? Nah
Solid list. I like Ivory King over Iron King just because Frozen Eleum Loyce is one of the best areas in all of Souls. Ringed City is carried *hard* by its bosses; I really dislike the levels, especially Earthen Peak Ruins when you don't know where the angel summoners are.
Yes, The Older Hunters is indeed stellar. I also like the way, you descend more and more into the abyss in the Artorias DLC. In the Ringed City my Nemesis definitely is the Judicators, especially the one in the black swamp.
The swamp Judicator can absolutely do one. It's one thing facing the opening Judicator where the level was designed around them. But having nowhere to hide in the swamp since it's just a flat expanse, and still letting him summon the archers. Bleh.
Very good rankings. Honestly for me the top 3 are all pretty interchangeable. They are all stunning and I don't think I could place any of them above the others.
You’ve got some brass balls putting Sunken King instead of Ashes of Ariandel. (Note: I actually love Ashes of Ariandel, but Sunken King is objectively better.)
for me its: 7. ashes of ariandel: horrible dlc, dont even like the bosses there. 6. crown of the sunken king, if it werent for the ghosts that you cant hit until you kill their bodies, it would be higher up. 5. crown of the old iron king, a bit confusing and some of the areas have way too many enemies. 4. artorias of the abyss, just thought it was alright and nothing special. 3. the ringed city, the area itself isnt incredible but the bosses are the best in the series, hands down. 2. crown of the ivory king, love the area vibe, bosses are cool, we dont talk about frigid outskirts, and i think the level design is very cool aswell. 1. old hunters, yeah its just the best, dont really need to explain why.
Well to be fair, the co-op areas of either of the DS2 DLCs should be enough to get them at the very bottom. Cave of the Dead and Iron Passage are among the shittiest, laziest, most nothing areas in the franchise. And Frigid Outskirts are a very infortunate case of a cool concept getting trampled over by a bunch of incomprehensible decisions to make it the most frustrating area ever made. Their inclusion makes any of these DLCs significantly worse and they're the only ones that are completely dedicated to beating the shit out of the player in the most unfair way possible. It's quite the feat how bad these areas are.
@@markopusic8258 what’s funny about reading this is everytime always says “souls games don’t care about you. All souls games do is beat the player into the ground over and over” but In reality the games aren’t no where near as bad as they are said to be, and when one area like that pops up everytime loses their minds over it.
@@lotrfan4237 If I'm being completely fair, Cave of the Dead is indeed the least annoying of the 3 considering it's rather easy and quick to run back to the fog wall, but it's the only compliment I can give it. it's still an extremely lazy area that only exists to overwhelm those who stay in it longer than the strict minimum.
For me, the old hunters is a masterpiece of a dlc as it made Bloodborne go from a souls game that I liked to my favorite games, I’ll never forget fighting Ludwig and beating him for the first time, Ludwig is easily my favorite boss fight and I replay Bloodborne because of the dlc
@@zackmooretalks Bloodborne Is my favorite alongside elders ring and sekiro. I replayed it more times than I can count, it would be my favorite ever, if it’s main bosses was as strong as sekiro, Elden ring and ds3. The dlc bosses for Bloodborne were Anazing!
I love that while talking about Sunken King's enemies needing strategy or thought to get through, he's showing yet another clip of him face tanking enemies because their poise so high that even two handing a great hammer isn't enough to stagger them.
Imo God Tier: Old Hunters (actually the most perfect DLC you could imagine, if you split it up into two then both would still be a tier above the others) Great Tier: Old Iron King Ringed City Sunken King Good Tier: Ivory King Oolicile/Abysss Iffy tier: Ashes of Ariandel (would be lower if not for my homie Vilhelm's voice)
I respect your opinion, but I'd honestly raise Ariandel to good tier. May just be me, but I genuinely don't think any of the DLCs are iffy/bad. Ashes just needed a lil bit more content to it.
@@BillySYT tbh most of why I consider iffy is because it might be the only one not worth its cost. Freide to me is complete bullshit (I actually kind of enjoyed the gladiator+wolf guys), I think the areas were ok but not mindblowing, I don't really think it improved the story at all, and while a lot of the new equipment was good I don't feel like it was enough for what? $20 or so?
1. Old Hunters 2. Crown of the Sunken King 3. Artorias of the Abyss 4. Crown of the Ivory King 5. Ringed City 6. Crown of the Old Iron King 7. Ashes of Ariandel
Hey all, which Soulsborne DLC is your favourite? Let me know in the comments! My rankings are subjective, but all 7 DLC packs are quality, so feel free to also share what you love about your favourite DLC pack!
As someone who played ds1 last… I think artorias of the abyss is a very eh dlc. Would rank it over ivory king and under iron king with ring city and old hunters fighting it out for first
DS1 was my first game and I habe played every other since and Artorias is my favorite dlc alongside Ringed city. There isn't a single bad thing about Artorias dlc. It's simply amazing at every aspect. All 4 bosses are amazing with Artorias, Kalameet and Manus being the highlight of the game and some of the most renowned bosses in the series. Level design is superb and the overall vibe is amazing. That dlc was made over 10 years ago and is still at the top
@@filipgasic2642 I don’t think it’s bad, just was quite easy and short. Artorias was super fast but was a glass cannon. Kalameets difficulty stemmed from trying to get his tail sword. Sanctuary guardian was also a glass cannon. Manus was a genuine challenge tho and did enjoy maneuvering the abyss. Granted it was made over 10 years ago but this is just the the opinion of a recent souls players. But I’m sorry to say it doesn’t come into the top 3 of the dlcs
@@filipgasic2642 I'm looking at this again and I was quite harsh, while I still wouldn't rank the AotA high I understand the replayability and nostalgia would make its a top 3 for you
Great video as always Billy! I completely agree with the Old Hunters being the best DLC of the bunch. Personally, I think the Sanctum city has always been my favorite DS2 dlc. Sihn and Elana are two of my favorite bosses of the series, and the atmosphere is some of the best of the series. But otherwise I think this dlc ranking is exactly like mine
I knew Sanctum City has it's defenders, and I just think that's cool. Every DLC has people willing to sing their praises, which shows just how good FS did
I just beat old hunters last night, its easily the peak of fromsoft after sekiro. Every boss fight was so masterfully made, and kos was an absoltue beast. What a good game
Kos is actually the creature that the orphan crawls out of and is not the boss, hence why he is called the “orphan” because of the fact Kos is dead. No disrespect just wanted to let you know
I really enjoyed the video! These are my top 3: 1) - The Old Hunters is easily my favorite as well, it just feels so complete, and the new weapons, bosses and ost’s are among my favorite in all of Soulsborne. 2) - Artorias of the Abyss just managed to edge out The Ringed City for me mostly because of the atmosphere, but also because The Ringed City could’ve given us more of the literal ringed city to explore rather than ANOTHER GODDAMN POISON SWAMP haha (tbh I don’t really remember if there was poison there or not, but you get my point). Anyway, the boss roster is also really good, which includes 2 of my top 3 bosses in the entire game, being Artorias and Manus. 3) - The Ringed City could be my nr. 2 spot, but like I said, there was just a little too much of lost potential with the overuse of swamps (lmao) and especially with the lack of the actual ringed city itself (not counting the swamp). The bosses are amazing tho with the exeption of Halflight. It’s not quite The Old Hunters level tho, because that DLC has 5 bosses, 4 amazing ones and 1 good one, but this DLC has "just" 4 bosses, 3 amazing ones and 1 meh one imo. The areas in Artorias of the Abyss and especially The Old Hunters are quite better than the ones in The Ringed City as well.
I came to the conclusion that Bloodborne was the greatest game ever made once I got to Ludwig’s second phase for the first time. I was overleveled as hell and using the pizza cutter, so I shredded him in his first phase. During the mid phase cutscene, my friend who was with me said “okay just take your time during this phase”. I’m so glad I did. We will never have another game like Bloodborne and I’m both so happy and so sad about that
I honestly agree on most of this and don’t see anything particularly controversial about ranking. The Ringed City was hands down better than The Old Hunters, but everything else aside from that pretty much lines up with the popular opinion despite what you said.
ik people don’t like Champ GT and GW but i think their fight is actually so fun plus the music is amazing. also hot take: Bloodborne gets carried by the dlc (boss wise)
going off topic personally out of any game, i hope ds2 gets a remake/remaster since i think it could fix a lot of problems the game had (enemy placements/, boss runs, royal rat vanguard etc) and i hope that the same artists who improved demon souls graphics work on ds2 since how cool would it be when you get to bosses like smelter demon and old iron king and how cool and menacing they would look.
well i know that but i mean a modern day remaster and im currently am playing sotfs and i think that its a good bad game, and the smelter demon boss run can go to hell theres never been a worse boss run ive ever done(cant even imagine sir alones boss run)@@theorycraft531
@@BillySYT I just really like its overall design the atmosphere is extremely unique and for the most part, especially the outside area feels extremely well designed It has the most unique enemies of all the dlc overall with every area having a new type of unique enemy and while I personally hate Elana, Sihn more than well makes up for it.
@@BillySYTnot OP but I think it's one of the most beautiful areas in the series. I absolutely love the degree of interactivity with the entire environment. The first half is incredibly well designed and almost feels like a Zelda area with its puzzle-like structure. I also thought the second half felt like an Indiana Jones Temple and I loved trying to figure out the puzzles. I was thinking "oh there's a door I cannot unlock at the beginning, there are also many switches, how do I kill the ghosts, how do I get rid of the spikes?" Normally there aren't many puzzle elements, so it was a great moment figuring out how to open doors, lower the spikes, and kill the enemies. I love areas that don't have everything immediately accessible because it makes me consider the entire layout. Imo I think Crown of the Iron King is too high because although every ds2 area has enemy spam, brume Tower is especially bad in certain areas, like the two spots where you have to open a giant mental door while being swarmed. Additionally, while the other dlcs had 1 optional area each, brume Tower has 2 absolutely atrocious ones (although frigid outskirts is worse than every coop area combined).Tbf discounting coop areas, it's hard to rank these DLCs because they always feature the best bosses/areas in their respective games.
not upset or anything like some weird people would be but, the fact that you said “I have to take everything into account” when mentioning frigid outskirts, actually made me visibly confused. because like 2 minutes earlier you were saying “yaaa I don’t optimize builds, idrc about DLC spells and stuff so I won’t really talk about them much”
I think Sunken King is way better than Ashes of Ariandel and thin Ariandel is the worst. The old hunters is the absolute best tho. It has the best bosses and best areas.
@@BillySYT well i like the area and Friede is a good boss. But I hate the Champion and Wolf boss fight and 15 dollars is too much in my opinion. 15 dollars for a good level and ONE good boss is a bit too much I think. At least the Ringed City was a Banger.
Off the top of my head: 8: Ashes of Ariandel 7: Gauntlet of Strength 6: Crown of the Iron King 5: Crown of the Sunken King 4: Crown of the Ivory King 3: Ringed City 2: Artorias of the Abyss 1: Old Hunters
Ashes of ariandel is easily the weakest DLC, don't get me wrong sister friede is an amazing boss, but it's the only good thing about it. Both crown of the ivory king and sunken king are better, they have cool bosses, amazing level design with great verticality and puzzles, amazing unique items and atmosphere etc... I'd even put brume tower above DS1 dlc simply for the level design because it's far more impressive than Oolacile.
I. I actually like the King's Beasts. I don't like the Frighid Outscurts as an area, but the idea of them being two trained beasts that served the king and fight together is cool, and limited vision is very cool as a gimmick for a fight, if not for an area. It's a bit disappointing that they're just a reused boss from the same DLC, but I think that both fights have enough unique elements to still be interesting. I do wish the movesets had more differences though.
I can understand the hate on the run back to Lud boss fight and the boss itself being terrible but the rest is so amazing that I’d place Crown of the Ivory King with Ringed City and Artorias of the Abyss. I absolutely loved every bit of it and returning to the bed of chaos was so unexpected and fun
My list (excluding Old Hunter cause I haven't played BB): 6. Crown of the Old Iron King: Good bosses but probably my least favorite area in ds2. Annoying to traverse and mostly pretty boring aesthetically. 5. Artorias of the Abyss: Ds1 is my least favorite souls game in general. Artorias is awesome but other than that it's just alright. Not as annoying to traverse as Brume Tower but also not very interesting. 4: Crown of the Sunken King: Shulva looks pretty cool and unique. Can be a bit annoying at times but is mostly fine. Sinh is great. 3: Ashes of Ariandel: I just love snowy areas. Looks great imo, mostly fun to traverse, Vilhelm is great. Friede is cool too, I just kinda suck at her fight. Also some really fun weapons. Crow Talons, Valorheart, Friede's Scythe etc. 2: Crown of the Ivory King: Once again a snow area but looks even better than Ashes of Ariandel. Other than the bottom and the optional Frigid Outskirts it's a fun area with great buildup to my favorite boss in the game, Ivory King. Also some of the greatest weapons in ds2. Bone Fist, Loyce GS, Ivory King UGS and my (at least as a concept) favorite weapon in souls, the Ivory Straight sword (Just sad that it kinda sucks). 1: Ringed City: Admittedly aesthetically not the greatest but very fun areas nonetheless. Demon Prince is good, Halflight is at least pretty unique as a pvp boss, Midir is imo the best Fromsoft dragon fight and Gael is my favorite Fromsoft boss. Also very fun weapons: Aquamarine Dagger, Frayed Blade, Ringed Knight ss etc.
Firstly, congratulations of 7000 subscribers Billy, your channel is spreading like its Covid 20. I think you undershot your milestone of 10k by 2024. Cant think of many who deserve the growth more. But now, brace yourself for a wall of text big enough to act as a dictatorships borders. My favourite DLC is the Ringed city, which is weird because Bloodborne is my favourite Souls game and the old hunters is probably Bloodbrone at its peak and i believe that objectively The old hunters IS the best of the DLCs, and yet since i first finished it I've always found myself appreciating The ringed city more. After having thought about it for a while I realised why i did. Personally I play games for more than just the surface level enjoyment of the gameplay itself, I love being pulled into a world different to our own and exploring how it works, its history, people, setting, and the atmosphere it creates. Fromsoft are the best at doing this that I've ever experienced. No book, show, movie or game has ever pulled me into their world like the Souls series has - Fromsoft are masters of atmosphere and ambience and i could write a whole essay about how they do it and what i love the most about it but ill save that for your inevitable ranking of the atmospheres in each souls game. I know you wont let me down on that. Point is: I love being pulled into worlds and getting invested into whats happened and what will happen to and in them. This leads back to Dark Souls 3. I got into the souls games when Bloodborne came out. Bought it on a whim and never looked back then played DS1 and 2, loved 1 and had and still have a love/hate relationship with 2, but it left me dying to know what was gonna happen next. Aldia's character and dialogue especially stayed with me, his profession of Gwyns first sin and mankinds cycle of slavery to fire and the possibility of breaking it made me so excited when 3 was announced. All the questions we have will be answered and the ultimate fate of the world ive become so unhealthily invested in is gonna be paid off. And when it came I was....disappointed to be honest. Dark Souls 3 had seemingly no thematic continuity from the interesting ideas posed in 2 (Not really its fault in hindsight, 3 and 2s development overlapped a fair bit, Aldia was patched into DS2 barely a year before 3s final product was released), there was very little in the lore answered and the ending was just Dark Souls 1s same choice with extra steps. Put bluntly It felt pointless, so i was hoping beyond hope that the announced DLCs were going to gove the series and world a better sendoff. Playing Ashes of Ariandel initially made me pretty miserable because i was convinced it was just a self contained painted world story inconsequential to the world i wanted to see given justice. That was until I heard that the painter still needed materials to make a new painting, the blood of the dark soul. Ngl i got unreasonably excited for a minute and was genuinely stoked to think that the next DLC would actually bring up not just one of but perhaps the most central plot point to the story, but also finally explore it to the depth it should for being the namesake of the series. And then the ringed city dropped. The first thing I appreciated about The ringed city is that it built upon the set up of the first DLC. We have pre established motives to find the blood - the painting is set up as the worlds last chance at an ending beyond the cycle light and dark. It also works because we've already seen the cycle and its atrocities particularly in DS3. It takes this and uses it to strengthen the DLC before we've even set foot in it. And yes I agree with the detractors: The level design isn't always perfect, the swamp is a screaming missed deadline, the street of harold knights is ridiculous, the turtle clerics and the curse covered hags make me want to jam my thumbs into their eyes until they pop like I'm Jason fucking Voorhees, the angels are annoying and halflight is a shit boss. But I'd argue that the level design is for the most part ranging from ok to brilliant with a few exceptions. The harold and ringed knights I love fighting (when they're not coming in rows of 3), the locusts are great and the adjudictors make for unique and fun level hazards/enemies. The swamp can be run through quickly if you're not interested in the pretty cool side passages (the humanity puzzle and Ledo's room mainly), ill explain soon why i don't mind halflight anymore and theres no excusing the hags or clerics they can go deepthroat cyanide. But what I really love about the ringed city most of all (I warned you this was gonna be long) is its impact on the themes, lore, unanswered questions and the final conclusion it gives to Dark Souls. First of all if finally explained what happened at the beginning of the world. Where the darksign originated and humanitys role in the worlds birth. This is important because without this context it makes the struggle of humanity in the cycle of the gods feel like an unfortunate coincidence - but when it was revealed that Gwyn did infact shackle humanity to this cycle the themes and purpose of the series becomes infinitely more clear and more powerful because of it; recontextualising the players and the undead's struggle and giving it a broader scope of purpose. And that was just one reveal. I'm not even getting into finally finding out what the furtive pygmy did and built and their own choices and whats so important about the Dark Soul really. I know Kaathe explains this in DS1 but for starters the truthfulness of his words is questionable and he doesn't provide a lot of detail or context that really matters besides telling you humanity can thwart Gwyn with the Dark Soul. Its not until the Ringed city we understand what it really is. But most importantly The Ringed City provides Dark Souls 3 and the series a proper conclusion. At the end of the world you travel to the place humanity's journey and struggle first began to find answers both to the past and to try and salvage something of the future. All is laid to waste and claimed by the cycle barring two broken people who fight for the faintest glimmer that something can exist beyond it. And it can. Gael is sacrificed and the dark souls and its blood is claimed completely by the Ashen one, something not seen since the Dark Soul was first found. Returning it to the painter provides the perfect answer to Aldias question in DS2. There was no other path beyond light and dark; until we made one ourselves. We never see it, but we know it'll be a place free from the war that ate the outside world into Ash. And so when we defeat the Soul of Cinder and bury it, along with the remnants of the God who so long ago started it all, and summon the firekeeper to let the fire finally fade, we know that we made a difference. Our 3 game journey wasn't completely meaningless. We made something better. And that to me is just so much more powerful than "The fire fades again, are you gonna save it for the 1000th time or plunge the world into Dark for all 0 people left alive to witness." It also ties off other loose ends with the first 3 bosses like the demons and the dragons. The demons supposedly died off with the old demon king but that fight was a lame sendoff. The demon prince is a far more impactful and final sendoff to the species and confirms that the demons have officially all died out, and same goes for Midir and the ancient Dragons with Halflight representing the end for the way of white/the evangelical worship of the Gods. I also love Patches' conclusion too and feel he embodies this idea perfectly, I always summon him and gank halflight because it feels like the perfect end to this frenemy we've known so long. So yeah, Rant over. Thanks for indulging me. I fully understand not liking this Dlc that much if this sort of thing isnt for you thats fine i just like my worldbuilding and storytelling to make the gameplay more impactful. Tl;dr The ringed city has a greater impact on the story and purpose of the series than any other DLC. It answers important questions and provides a good ending to a game and series I'd argue didn't have one and in doing so recontextualises everything you've done up until this point across the 3 games into something far more impressive and interesting.
Apologies that my reply won't be texts of paragraphs, you already covered it for me, but I agree with most of what you said - The Ringed City bookends the story of the Dark Souls trilogy, and presents areas that are just dripping with atmosphere. From the way the Dreg Heap is just this world folding in on itself, everything on the brink of collapse, only to reveal the Ringed City, the last bastion on the edge of the world, seemingly untouched in it's splendour by the rest of the world. It ends the story of Gwyn, the story of the Dark Soul, the story of the demon race. And you pointed it out, but I'll emphasize it again - Patches and his questline is a perfect example of everything the Ringed City is trying to achieve with the player. And while I probably won't do a Soulsborne "Atmosphere" ranking persay, I would love to do a Soulsborne lore ranking, as I feel that's where thematic atmosphere would realistically fit. But that type of video would require a lot of research and a lot of rewatching Vaati to re-engage myself with all the lore I've tragically forgotten lmao
@@BillySYT no need to apologise I wouldn’t even want a reply half as long as my reading marathon there. I was half joking about the atmosphere ranking so no pressure there. Glad we agree on most points and thanks for bearing with my overindulgence. A lore ranking would be sick though
Putting any of the DS2 DLCs over any of the DS3 DLCs is criminal. Sir Alonne and Blue Smelter and of course Fume Knight are the best bosses in DS2 by far everything else is so gank it drags them to the lower range for me.
Sunken King is tamer than Ringed City when it comes to ganks and it has two good bosses and fantastic level design. The others, I can understand tho, although Ivory King is better than Ariandel imo.
@@lotrfan4237 eh I felt the Sunken King was more annoying with the bugs, long ass routes through a ton of stuff and no BF between. Especially the Cursed armor knights and the salamander Dino things. They didn’t gank the fuck out of it but you had longer stretches with more total enemies vs Ringed City and the banks in Ringed city where easier to deal with because most the enemies where melee, slow and only a couple tough spots (stairs). Sunken city you where constantly fighting to get inside and once inside enemies everywhere. As for boss fights Squalid Queen was meh and Sinh was highly buggy for me. That’s just my take on it. Almost every good spot was ruined. If they reduced overall enemy count by 20-30% it would help.
There's quite a few people in this comment section who'd agree with you, and I can totally see the argument for all the positives it brings. Just the fact that a DLC I have in last place can be someone else's favourite from DS2 is pretty cool, shows they did a good job with all three packs.
@@canallj3480you say that as if bosses and visuals are incredibly insignificant? Boss quality and how it ties into player builds is at least 50% of what makes a good Soulsborne title. +I fail to see how the Ringed City dlc areas are worse than the Old Hunters areas
@@C1yde902 Well, the Ringed City FOR ME has too much annoying shit,for example the Angels, too many enemies in some areas and i also dont like a lot of the Ringed City enemies and like i said before i dont think that the level design and other things are bad, i just dont see them as amazing too.
My controversial list(least to greatest): Crown of the Sunken King, Crown of the Ivory King, Crown of the Iron King, Ashes of Ariendel, Artorias of the Abyss, The Old Hunters, and finally The Ringed City.
I still have to get through DS 1 and BB, but the Sunken City is currently my bottom ranked, and I doubt anything could end up lower. It's boring, frustrating, and encapsulates a lot of broader problems I have with DS2. It's not just my least favorite DLC, it's my least favorite area, period. Currently my top ranked is either The Frozen City, or the Ringed City. The Ringed City had better bosses, the Frozen City had a better level. Can't decide which I overall like more.
If you look at the dlc release dates in comparison to when the games came out, their is a strong correlation between the dlcs that rank well on this list, with how long after the games release were the dlcs. Meaning the longer dlc wait time, the better the dlc (as you'd expect). Shadow of the erdtree has had a wiat time of about 18 months by now, currently the longest by far (ds1 was 11 months, old hunters was 8 months) this hopefully indicates shadow of erd tree will be the best dlc yet!!!
I have full faith that Shadow of the Erdtree is going to be fantastic, but it all depends on the scope. How many new open world areas will we have to explore? Will there be multiple legacy dungeons? Will they re-use any bosses? At least we know we'll be getting fed weapon/spell-wise.
For me, I just don't find the areas of the Ringed City to be as intricate or interesting as Old Hunters, but I know Ringed City is a fanbase favourite, so I was always prepared to be in the minority on that one.
Imo: 7| Crown of the Ivory King 6| Ashes of Ariandel 5| Crown of the Old Iron King 4| Crown of the Sunken King 3| The Ringed City 2| Artorias of the Abyss 1| The Old Hunters
7 Sunken king - Looks cool but it's quite annoying 6 Iron king - god those runbacks kill it 5 Artorias of the Abyss - I'm not really the lore guy so it doesn't really matter for me. Best bosses in DS1 which isn't saying much but still good (well Sanctuary Guardian is very much just there) and I just don't like the areas that much 4 Ivory king - Frigid Outskirts is a mistake but the rest of DLC is some of my favorite Dark Souls content 3 Ashes of Ariandel - It's Friede time baby 2 Ringed City - It's BIG and bosses are top tier and I like me some end of the world 1 Old Hunters - PEAK
Man why does so many people hate on Ashes of ariandel. It literally has the best boss fight in all of souls history. (I have not played ringed city, bloodborn, sekiro or demon souls yet)
I think you admittedly answered your question there. You're looking at the DLC from the perspective of a boss fight and not from the perspective of the full package. This isn't a DLC Boss Ranking video, this is a video that takes every aspect of each DLC into account, from areas and design, to bosses, weapons, optional content, value for money, etc.
@@BillySYT yes but it's still in no way a bad dlc even if you were to remove friede. Like you said in your video the entire area is mostly great. So I'm surprised to see everyone in the comment section put it in last position. I would definitely expect one of the ds2 dlc to be last in people's rankings, by example if we talk about good bosses but horrible area then iron king should definitely be the worst dlc of them all. Fume knight is by far my favorite ds2 boss but God is the entirety of the dlc outside of the bosses just a chore instead of something fun. The only dlc that made me feel "I'm free" instead of "I'm done" once having completed it
This will be a strange ranking, because I'm not a fan of Bloodborne: 1-The ringed city 2-Artorias of the abyss 3-The old hunters 4-Ashes of Ariandel (if the optional boss fight had been better, or there had been another fight I would have put it in second place) 5-Crown of the Ivory King 6-Crown of the Sunken King 7-Crown of the Iron King
me an Ornstein simp 🤝Artorias simps Knights that kick ass and go fast are awesome and peak design (also Dragonslayer Armor dropping his gear completed my main character aka my ng+12 gal's armor set with the chest piece and Artorias' gf/fellow knight of Gwyn's name is pronounced Keer-an I believe)
Yes, because his actual fight plays out quite differently to the Cleric Beast. The moveset is much harder to handle & his enrage state where he crawls on the ground is completely unique. It also makes sense from a lore perspective since he IS the first Cleric Beast to have been created, and we knew that even before the DLC dropped. I'll call out re-used assets if it doesn't work well, such as Lud & Zallen. But this really isn't one of those moments.
As much as Bloodborne overall is not my favourite game in the series, the Old Hunters DLC is beyond incredible. The story, the level design, the bosses, the soundtrack. It’s all peak FromSoftware. No singular DLC has felt that amazing, though I think that might change when Shadow of the Erdtree comes out For me I’d rank them: 7.Crown of the Sunken King 6.Crown of the Ivory King(would be higher without Frigid Outskirts) 5.Ashes of Ariandel 4.Crown of the Old Iron King 3.Artorias of the Abyss 2.the Ringed City(just for the bosses) 1.the Old Hunters(by far)
It's probably a me-thing lol; I can't wrap my head around the criticisms you levied at The Ringed City's PVE while liking Iron King's and having nothing bad to say
Well for me, it's pretty simple - I can handle the Iron King's PVE content. I might die, but overall I find a majority of the rooms & enemies manageable. But I, for the life of me, am absolutely horrendous at handling the enemies in the Ringed City, to the point where I feel a bit embarrassed. And tbf to the Iron King, there are some rooms with set-ups I dislike, and I forgot to mention the crawly boys that explode in the side-tower. Those suck.
Nice video!! Agreed on most things, but I have to say, you used the runbacks to the boss as a negative for DS2, but you didn't even mention the runback in DS1 e.g. to Artorias. xD Though he is also my favourite character over all of the games too, Fume Knight is up there also for me. But saying that, like you say they're all excellent so hard to disagree with any ranking :) I also love Kos, a lot of people drop him because of the difficulty. But like damn, all the DLCs are just amazing!!
Kos is actually the creature that the orphan crawls out of and is not the boss, hence why he is called the “orphan” because of the fact Kos is dead. No disrespect just wanted to let you know
@@BillySYT I can imagine how big of a hassle that would be though, if you end up doing it,I apologize ahead of time 😅. But I did subscribe after seeing you in my feed again, so you will be guaranteed my watch time and interaction in the comments per video, for whatever that’s worth😁
The Iron Passage legit got me to just. Drop Dark Souls 2 as a whole once it yoinked the scales from my eyes and made me realize just how *bad* DS2 was overall. Like by the time I tossed my hands up and moved on to something else I realized I wasn't having fun with *any* of the game. I was just playing it because it was more Dark Souls, for better or worse. Just, in this case, it was worse. EDIT: Gonna toss the heart away to clarify what grumpy-ass me meant. DS2 is really only bad in the scope of actually 'Souls' games, and only by merit of just feeling generally clunkier to me even between 1 and 3 and whatnot. It's better than a fair few Soulslikes out there, but in general it really just didn't vibe with me at much of any point. I was just going through the 'must have more Fromsoft' motions and gritting my teeth, ultimately. The Iron Passage was, again, just where I threw my hands up and realized 'there's more out there than Souls' for that period of time.
For me the weakest DLC is Ashes of Ariandel and then Crown of the Sunken King. Sister Friede is great, but generic knight + normal enemy wolf is trash. My personal ranking is: -The Old Hunters -Artorias of the Abyss -Ringed City -Crown of the Ivory King (I actually like the Frigid Outskirts, not the recycled boss though) -Crown of the Iron King -Crown of the Sunken King -Ashes of Ariandel
Crown of the Sunken King being at the bottom hurts my dark soul, it's literally a big sprawling Zelda dungeon with a lot of exploration and enviroment interaction and a freakinton of loot and hidden goodies, Ariandel is easily the worst, super bland snow field, only two bosses and one sucks ass, enemies not fun to fight. And Ivory King being 6th hurts even more. Imo Ivory King>Sunken King>The Old Hunters>Artorias of the abyss>The Ringed City>Iron King>Ariandel. Eleum Loyce has the best lore, an amazing character on Alsanna, the best romance in the saga, and the most epic final boss.
Definitely sucks given FromSoft could have knocked it out of the park, but I guess knowing they were working on Elden Ring after Sekiro's development explains why they couldn't give it a proper DLC.
I love how going into this my first thought was old hunters is number 1 it’s better then the actual base game it’s shorter but the weapons are insanely cool (boomhammer) and the bosses are almost all amazing (I hate Lawrence )
Hey all, so while this video's been posted, we just hit 7,000 subscribers on the channel! Suffice it to say, my mind is blown! Thank you to everyone who's considered subscribing, even if our opinions don't line up. You are all fantastic!
Hardest part of the Hamlet isnt Kos, it's the damn sharks in the well.
Getting the rakuyo was a pain!!!
TRUTH
Shaman blade
Do it without shaman blade if you wanna be a coolguy
Old Hunters DLC is the greatest piece of video game content ever made.
100% agreed
Oh plz...
Nahh ringed city better.. wayyyyy better
@@officialvaultboy8242 nuh uh
@@jan-ep7lm Yuh
I genuinely believe that a true dark souls 2 remake with better ai, harder bosses w/more moves, and less mobs has the potential to be the best souls game. It already has such a unique and adventurey feel straight out of a fantasy book. The npcs are some of the best and there are sooo many cool ideas in ds2. Burnt ivory king is the coolest boss with the best intro and I could only imagine it with next gen graphics and a boss that would actually destroy me. Sinh and the whole area of Shulva gives me this tomb raiding Indiana jones feeling and brine tower already had 2 of the best bosses in the game. Hopefully one day from soft sees the groundwork they laid back then and how they could improve it so more people could enjoy it more.
I agree, but I get the sense FromSoft don't care enough a out DS2 to ever remake it. And given the bare minimum they put into DS1 remastered, I don't have faith that they'd do DS2 justice.
We can always hope that blue point will give it the remake that they did with demons souls
The Lore for the dlc area's are always the most fasinating to learn about and study on, that and the back story with all the bosses, i love learning the stories of the 3 kings in each of the crown dlc's
1. Ringed city
2. Old hunters
3. Eleum loyce
4. Artorias of the abyss
5. Shulva sanctum city
6. Brume tower
7. Painted world
I found brume tower to be a better version of Eleum loyce. It’s basically better at everything including bosses, level design, atmosphere, art style, etc. the only thing I’d say the 3rd dlc does better is the world design
Level design and atmosphere 100% go to eleum loyce. Best area in the series imo. The troll invaders, unfreezing the city, finding the knights is so cool.
Also they are tied on boss quality, as while fume knight is great and alonne is amazing, blue smelter is Dogshit ass. Ivory king is the coolest boss in the series and the best boss in the game, and aava is no slacker herself@@Sephirothkingdom782
This might be a scalding hot take, but I think the last place DLC needs to be Ashes of Ariendel. It is good of course and Friede is an amazing boss, but just what it offers is so minimal when you really break it down. You get basically an empty snowfield, a very small town, and the icy area. It’s also just kindof not fun to go through. Then you get one pretty bad boss and one really good boss. I just can’t think of another DLC that is actually offering less.
Yeah, I can totally see that. I think because I enjoy ice levels, I vibe with what was presented more, but if I saw someone make a video with your thoughts, I'd be like "Yeah, that's fair."
I can smell it, the s!** taste.
A complete lack of mention of how this DLC gave us the PvP arena, a place that gives chunks early game technically and the lore and new weapons it brings.
The mark of a CASUL if I’ve ever seen it.
@@josetomascamposrobledano4618 ya other dlcs still give more of all those things and who actually says casual anymore lol
I'd argue Crown of the Ivory king should be last, because it has all the same issues of Ashes of Ariandel, but without the polish of DS3. One Good Boss fight, with one throw away optional boss fight and pretty mid level exploration and variety.
of course I just really think Sihn carries the Sunken City super hard, and is my personal favorite boss fight in the game and I like the level puzzle stuff.
I kinda agree, either Ariandel or Sunken Crown could be last. However I think the Artorias DLC is a bit overrated. I personally didn't really enjoy the the forest nor the enemies inside. I would rather have a brand new area. All the bosses of course are top notch but I've felt it didn't offer that much besides them. Oolacille was the only place I actually enjoyed walking through.
bloodbornes dlc fits so well into the main game that it doesnt even feel like dlc
Even the entry requirement is just getting picked up by an Amygdala. Very on brand.
CotSK is so criminally underrated, Shulva is hands down one of the best areas in DS2.
To me:
1. Ringed City
2. Old Hunters
3. Artorias of the Abyss
4. Crown of the Sunken King
5. Crown of the Old Iron King
6. Crown of the Ivory King
7. Ashes of Ariandel
👍
Ashes of ariendel should be higher purely because the door shields are funny
While I do love both Gael and Sister Friede I don’t think it can be argued that the Old Hunters DLC is by far the best in the series. giving us stellar bosses like Ludwig, Lady Maria, and Orphan and some of the best locations in the game like the fishing hamlet and research hall
Old Hunters just did so much for Bloodborne's longevity, and actively fixed the fairly critiqued end-game of the base content. So much fun!
@@BillySYT totally agree! Whenever I go back and replay bloodborne I always rave to play the DLC
It can be argued it’s just lots of souls borne fans are addicted to bloodborne so there’s a lot of bias
@@cermit5626 nah whether you love or hate bloodborne you can’t deny that DLC wasn’t top tier like that’s not an argument
Might be an unfair comparison considering Old Hunters was apparently two dlc's combined into one. Imagine if they'd done that for DS3@@AccursedHawk
sister friede is defiantly the single best boss fight fromsoft has ever made. I can't even begin to describe the feeling of relief upon getting that titanite slab after beating stage two with no healing left that immediately swapped to horror after she once again got back up
My list:
7. Ashes of Ariandel (For me it’s Friede the DLC and Vilhelms voice of course)
6. Crown of Ivory King (I just get really tired of the aesthetics for some reason but the level aside from that is neat and Frigid Outskirts is fine, I always summon the npcs as meatshields though)
5. Crown of old iron king ( The tower is really good and I love the descend down to Fume knight but the enemies are sometimes really annoying especially these ashen sorcerers. There is also this one room if you know you know and the alonne runback is infamous. Fume knight and Alonne are cool and deserve to be named with the best bosses of the series. Iron passage can piss off worst coop area.
4. Ringed city (in my opinion the bosses are what saves this except halflight because ringed city and the dreg heap are meh areas for me although I like the dreg heap quite a lot more than the city. The bosses are phenomenal though midir, Gael and demon prince are top notch and in my opinion almost perfect)
3. sunken king (shulva is just gorgeous and I love it. This underground city which now only serves the curiosity and greed of robbers after being destroyed by the venomous dragon is peak fiction for me and it also has this Indiana jones feeling to it) sinh and elana are cool too, not as cool as fume and alonne but still.
2. artorias of the abyss ( it’s awesome. The areas are good and have interesting visuals the bosses are awesome perfect balance between cool areas and bosses
1. Old hunters (although bb is not my fav this dlc has to be the best of them all because it features the awesome bosses of the ringed city, the immersive levels of shulva and artorias of the abyss and in my opinion one ups them all. But it needed to, bloodborne really needed this dlc
Gael isn’t almost perfect, he’s literally perfect. Best boss they’ve ever done and there’s nothing wrong with the fight. That alone puts it above AoTA, ringed city is literally the first dlc in the first game but better. I’m not sure how you thought ringed city level design was meh but have a pass to oolacile which is just a worse darkroot garden
Finally someone who recognizes how immersive Shulva was
@@Sephirothkingdom782 I don't really see how he's perfect, his position in the lore is minimal, he came outta nowhere, and then took the role of series finale for some reason.
@@tomasstargamer6308 that’s the point lmao, he’s a nameless canon fodder that somehow managed to survive to the end of the world, just like you. The ashened one and undead ones aren’t some deity beings that everyone knows like the gods in anor londo, yet he got the most cinematic fight in the entire trilogy which is the reason why he’s the best fight. He has no flaws whatsoever. It’s BECAUSE you expect it to be someone a lot “cooler” that the fight is automatically improved in of itself. The move animations are great, he has the best arena in any souls game, one of the best soundtracks, very cool cutscenes, and the atmosphere of the fight is perfect
@@Sephirothkingdom782 A nobody will remain a nobody, I barely felt hype fighting him, he appeared for a whole 60 seconds in Ariandel, had some messages, then he's the big finale of this lore filled saga and they basically fight over a bucket of paint.
And Ivory King arena is best tbh.
This is pretty much my list bang on. All of them are fun. None are truly bad at all!
It’s funny that Sunken King is last(I’m not at all disagreeing either) because Sinh genuinely bumps it up a couple of notches for me. He’s one of my favorite fights in the entire series(I know, I know).
You can really feel how the Ashes of Ariandel was once 1 large DLC split into two with sister friede probably being the first boss. But I think they did a phenomenal job at creating it into its own
True soulsborne vets know the immense pain the ringed city angels were before their nerf. That was just straight pain and still a competent feat for whoever got passed them
Mhm. Played on launch and those angels were not fucking around. Genuine PTSD flashbacks, many many deaths, god.
Personally my ranking of the Soulsborne DLCs go like this
1. The Old Hunters
2. The Ringed City
3. Artorias Of The Abyss
4. Crown Of The Ivory King
5. Crown Of The Sunken King
6. Crown Of The Old Iron King
7. Ashes Of Ariandel
I reeeeeally don't like the Gravetender duo, feel AOA was too short, didnt like getting a third snow area when we already got two snow areas which stole my fucking favorite type of area from me(i love deserts, Irithyll and Anor Londo were originally planned to be a desert in DS3, making it align more with Carthus, but then they made it a snowy area, and if you go look at the snow in Irithyll really closely and you'll notice its recolored sand) and i feel that Friede can be a bit too crazy for new players coming from 1 or 2 speedwise, fun yes, amazing lore yes, very rewarding yes, but your first time finding "lady maria but you move at dark souls speed" ? Nah
Solid list. I like Ivory King over Iron King just because Frozen Eleum Loyce is one of the best areas in all of Souls. Ringed City is carried *hard* by its bosses; I really dislike the levels, especially Earthen Peak Ruins when you don't know where the angel summoners are.
The areas are insanely good in my opinion. I always like big grand cities is souls games. Ringed city is grandiose, amazing and it really delivers
Yes, The Older Hunters is indeed stellar. I also like the way, you descend more and more into the abyss in the Artorias DLC.
In the Ringed City my Nemesis definitely is the Judicators, especially the one in the black swamp.
The swamp Judicator can absolutely do one. It's one thing facing the opening Judicator where the level was designed around them. But having nowhere to hide in the swamp since it's just a flat expanse, and still letting him summon the archers. Bleh.
@@BillySYT . Yes, that's the problem with him.
@@BillySYT you can either avoid him completely by going around the left side or take cover on the right side and hurry up.
This video just makes me even more excited to see what FromSoft will do with Shadow of the Erdtree.
Very good rankings. Honestly for me the top 3 are all pretty interchangeable. They are all stunning and I don't think I could place any of them above the others.
You’ve got some brass balls putting Sunken King instead of Ashes of Ariandel.
(Note: I actually love Ashes of Ariandel, but Sunken King is objectively better.)
I personally hate the crown of the iron king more than the other 2 ds2 dlcs so seeing 3 dlcs above it hurt 😭
Totally fair - I just vibe with Iron King content, but everyone's opinions are valid 😎
for me its:
7. ashes of ariandel: horrible dlc, dont even like the bosses there.
6. crown of the sunken king, if it werent for the ghosts that you cant hit until you kill their bodies, it would be higher up.
5. crown of the old iron king, a bit confusing and some of the areas have way too many enemies.
4. artorias of the abyss, just thought it was alright and nothing special.
3. the ringed city, the area itself isnt incredible but the bosses are the best in the series, hands down.
2. crown of the ivory king, love the area vibe, bosses are cool, we dont talk about frigid outskirts, and i think the level design is very cool aswell.
1. old hunters, yeah its just the best, dont really need to explain why.
Crazy how an optional area basically dragged down the ivory king dlc in everyone’s eyes
Well to be fair, the co-op areas of either of the DS2 DLCs should be enough to get them at the very bottom. Cave of the Dead and Iron Passage are among the shittiest, laziest, most nothing areas in the franchise. And Frigid Outskirts are a very infortunate case of a cool concept getting trampled over by a bunch of incomprehensible decisions to make it the most frustrating area ever made.
Their inclusion makes any of these DLCs significantly worse and they're the only ones that are completely dedicated to beating the shit out of the player in the most unfair way possible. It's quite the feat how bad these areas are.
@@markopusic8258 what’s funny about reading this is everytime always says “souls games don’t care about you. All souls games do is beat the player into the ground over and over” but In reality the games aren’t no where near as bad as they are said to be, and when one area like that pops up everytime loses their minds over it.
@@markopusic8258Cave of the dead is really not that bad tho. Not good, but certainly not as shitty as the other ones.
@@lotrfan4237 If I'm being completely fair, Cave of the Dead is indeed the least annoying of the 3 considering it's rather easy and quick to run back to the fog wall, but it's the only compliment I can give it. it's still an extremely lazy area that only exists to overwhelm those who stay in it longer than the strict minimum.
For me, the old hunters is a masterpiece of a dlc as it made Bloodborne go from a souls game that I liked to my favorite games, I’ll never forget fighting Ludwig and beating him for the first time, Ludwig is easily my favorite boss fight and I replay Bloodborne because of the dlc
Bloodborne is FromSofts magnum opus and the DLC confirmed it absolutely cannot be touched. The only viable #1 option!
Bloodborne main game bosses it’s only weaknesses
@@generalyousif3640 Completely disagree, but to each their own!
@@zackmooretalks
Bloodborne Is my favorite alongside elders ring and sekiro.
I replayed it more times than I can count, it would be my favorite ever, if it’s main bosses was as strong as sekiro, Elden ring and ds3. The dlc bosses for Bloodborne were Anazing!
I love that while talking about Sunken King's enemies needing strategy or thought to get through, he's showing yet another clip of him face tanking enemies because their poise so high that even two handing a great hammer isn't enough to stagger them.
I can’t remember a single thing about ashes of ariandel besides the sister Friede fight
Imo
God Tier:
Old Hunters (actually the most perfect DLC you could imagine, if you split it up into two then both would still be a tier above the others)
Great Tier:
Old Iron King
Ringed City
Sunken King
Good Tier:
Ivory King
Oolicile/Abysss
Iffy tier:
Ashes of Ariandel (would be lower if not for my homie Vilhelm's voice)
I respect your opinion, but I'd honestly raise Ariandel to good tier. May just be me, but I genuinely don't think any of the DLCs are iffy/bad. Ashes just needed a lil bit more content to it.
@@BillySYT tbh most of why I consider iffy is because it might be the only one not worth its cost. Freide to me is complete bullshit (I actually kind of enjoyed the gladiator+wolf guys), I think the areas were ok but not mindblowing, I don't really think it improved the story at all, and while a lot of the new equipment was good I don't feel like it was enough for what? $20 or so?
1. Old Hunters
2. Crown of the Sunken King
3. Artorias of the Abyss
4. Crown of the Ivory King
5. Ringed City
6. Crown of the Old Iron King
7. Ashes of Ariandel
Hey all, which Soulsborne DLC is your favourite? Let me know in the comments! My rankings are subjective, but all 7 DLC packs are quality, so feel free to also share what you love about your favourite DLC pack!
As someone who played ds1 last… I think artorias of the abyss is a very eh dlc. Would rank it over ivory king and under iron king with ring city and old hunters fighting it out for first
DS1 was my first game and I habe played every other since and Artorias is my favorite dlc alongside Ringed city. There isn't a single bad thing about Artorias dlc. It's simply amazing at every aspect. All 4 bosses are amazing with Artorias, Kalameet and Manus being the highlight of the game and some of the most renowned bosses in the series. Level design is superb and the overall vibe is amazing. That dlc was made over 10 years ago and is still at the top
@@filipgasic2642 I don’t think it’s bad, just was quite easy and short. Artorias was super fast but was a glass cannon. Kalameets difficulty stemmed from trying to get his tail sword. Sanctuary guardian was also a glass cannon. Manus was a genuine challenge tho and did enjoy maneuvering the abyss. Granted it was made over 10 years ago but this is just the the opinion of a recent souls players.
But I’m sorry to say it doesn’t come into the top 3 of the dlcs
artorias of the abyss is hard carried by the abysmal quality of darksouls 1 end game level design.
@@filipgasic2642 I'm looking at this again and I was quite harsh, while I still wouldn't rank the AotA high I understand the replayability and nostalgia would make its a top 3 for you
Great video as always Billy! I completely agree with the Old Hunters being the best DLC of the bunch. Personally, I think the Sanctum city has always been my favorite DS2 dlc. Sihn and Elana are two of my favorite bosses of the series, and the atmosphere is some of the best of the series. But otherwise I think this dlc ranking is exactly like mine
I knew Sanctum City has it's defenders, and I just think that's cool. Every DLC has people willing to sing their praises, which shows just how good FS did
@@BillySYTthing is it’s the only time in a souls game where bows are actually useful
I just beat old hunters last night, its easily the peak of fromsoft after sekiro. Every boss fight was so masterfully made, and kos was an absoltue beast. What a good game
Kos is actually the creature that the orphan crawls out of and is not the boss, hence why he is called the “orphan” because of the fact Kos is dead. No disrespect just wanted to let you know
I really enjoyed the video! These are my top 3:
1) - The Old Hunters is easily my favorite as well, it just feels so complete, and the new weapons, bosses and ost’s are among my favorite in all of Soulsborne.
2) - Artorias of the Abyss just managed to edge out The Ringed City for me mostly because of the atmosphere, but also because The Ringed City could’ve given us more of the literal ringed city to explore rather than ANOTHER GODDAMN POISON SWAMP haha (tbh I don’t really remember if there was poison there or not, but you get my point). Anyway, the boss roster is also really good, which includes 2 of my top 3 bosses in the entire game, being Artorias and Manus.
3) - The Ringed City could be my nr. 2 spot, but like I said, there was just a little too much of lost potential with the overuse of swamps (lmao) and especially with the lack of the actual ringed city itself (not counting the swamp). The bosses are amazing tho with the exeption of Halflight. It’s not quite The Old Hunters level tho, because that DLC has 5 bosses, 4 amazing ones and 1 good one, but this DLC has "just" 4 bosses, 3 amazing ones and 1 meh one imo. The areas in Artorias of the Abyss and especially The Old Hunters are quite better than the ones in The Ringed City as well.
Beautiful choices there, if I do say so myself.
I predict the DLC will release on the 2 year anniversary 😅
I came to the conclusion that Bloodborne was the greatest game ever made once I got to Ludwig’s second phase for the first time. I was overleveled as hell and using the pizza cutter, so I shredded him in his first phase. During the mid phase cutscene, my friend who was with me said “okay just take your time during this phase”. I’m so glad I did. We will never have another game like Bloodborne and I’m both so happy and so sad about that
the old hunters is just perfect. The lore, bosses and level design are all amazing and need i mention the whirligig saw
I honestly agree on most of this and don’t see anything particularly controversial about ranking. The Ringed City was hands down better than The Old Hunters, but everything else aside from that pretty much lines up with the popular opinion despite what you said.
Awesome, love your Soulsborne content! Keep up the good work and the cool vids :)
ik people don’t like Champ GT and GW but i think their fight is actually so fun plus the music is amazing.
also hot take: Bloodborne gets carried by the dlc (boss wise)
going off topic personally out of any game, i hope ds2 gets a remake/remaster since i think it could fix a lot of problems the game had (enemy placements/, boss runs, royal rat vanguard etc) and i hope that the same artists who improved demon souls graphics work on ds2 since how cool would it be when you get to bosses like smelter demon and old iron king and how cool and menacing they would look.
It did get one, it's called Scholar of the First Sin, it moved enemies and added red phantoms and other stuff that made the game even worse.
well i know that but i mean a modern day remaster and im currently am playing sotfs and i think that its a good bad game, and the smelter demon boss run can go to hell theres never been a worse boss run ive ever done(cant even imagine sir alones boss run)@@theorycraft531
thats weird, shulva is my personal favorite ds2 dlc
Can you tell me what you love about it? I'd love to hear some different opinions ^^
@@BillySYT I just really like its overall design
the atmosphere is extremely unique and for the most part, especially the outside area feels extremely well designed
It has the most unique enemies of all the dlc overall with every area having a new type of unique enemy
and while I personally hate Elana, Sihn more than well makes up for it.
@@BillySYTnot OP but I think it's one of the most beautiful areas in the series. I absolutely love the degree of interactivity with the entire environment. The first half is incredibly well designed and almost feels like a Zelda area with its puzzle-like structure. I also thought the second half felt like an Indiana Jones Temple and I loved trying to figure out the puzzles. I was thinking "oh there's a door I cannot unlock at the beginning, there are also many switches, how do I kill the ghosts, how do I get rid of the spikes?" Normally there aren't many puzzle elements, so it was a great moment figuring out how to open doors, lower the spikes, and kill the enemies. I love areas that don't have everything immediately accessible because it makes me consider the entire layout.
Imo I think Crown of the Iron King is too high because although every ds2 area has enemy spam, brume Tower is especially bad in certain areas, like the two spots where you have to open a giant mental door while being swarmed. Additionally, while the other dlcs had 1 optional area each, brume Tower has 2 absolutely atrocious ones (although frigid outskirts is worse than every coop area combined).Tbf discounting coop areas, it's hard to rank these DLCs because they always feature the best bosses/areas in their respective games.
not upset or anything like some weird people would be but, the fact that you said “I have to take everything into account” when mentioning frigid outskirts, actually made me visibly confused. because like 2 minutes earlier you were saying “yaaa I don’t optimize builds, idrc about DLC spells and stuff so I won’t really talk about them much”
Everything into account, in the sense of areas, enemies, bosses. Those are the aspects of Souls games I care about.
@@BillySYT fair enough, just thought it was kinda funny. I’m in the same boat as you, idek if I’ve EVER used a spell in any of the games
I think Sunken King is way better than Ashes of Ariandel and thin Ariandel is the worst. The old hunters is the absolute best tho.
It has the best bosses and best areas.
Out of curiosity, what do you dislike about Ashes? I'm guessing the length is a big sticking point for many.
@@BillySYT well i like the area and Friede is a good boss. But I hate the Champion and Wolf boss fight and 15 dollars is too much in my opinion. 15 dollars for a good level and ONE good boss is a bit too much I think. At least the Ringed City was a Banger.
Off the top of my head:
8: Ashes of Ariandel
7: Gauntlet of Strength
6: Crown of the Iron King
5: Crown of the Sunken King
4: Crown of the Ivory King
3: Ringed City
2: Artorias of the Abyss
1: Old Hunters
Ashes of ariandel is easily the weakest DLC, don't get me wrong sister friede is an amazing boss, but it's the only good thing about it.
Both crown of the ivory king and sunken king are better, they have cool bosses, amazing level design with great verticality and puzzles, amazing unique items and atmosphere etc...
I'd even put brume tower above DS1 dlc simply for the level design because it's far more impressive than Oolacile.
I. I actually like the King's Beasts. I don't like the Frighid Outscurts as an area, but the idea of them being two trained beasts that served the king and fight together is cool, and limited vision is very cool as a gimmick for a fight, if not for an area. It's a bit disappointing that they're just a reused boss from the same DLC, but I think that both fights have enough unique elements to still be interesting. I do wish the movesets had more differences though.
I can understand the hate on the run back to Lud boss fight and the boss itself being terrible but the rest is so amazing that I’d place Crown of the Ivory King with Ringed City and Artorias of the Abyss. I absolutely loved every bit of it and returning to the bed of chaos was so unexpected and fun
My list (excluding Old Hunter cause I haven't played BB):
6. Crown of the Old Iron King: Good bosses but probably my least favorite area in ds2. Annoying to traverse and mostly pretty boring aesthetically.
5. Artorias of the Abyss: Ds1 is my least favorite souls game in general. Artorias is awesome but other than that it's just alright. Not as annoying to traverse as Brume Tower but also not very interesting.
4: Crown of the Sunken King: Shulva looks pretty cool and unique. Can be a bit annoying at times but is mostly fine. Sinh is great.
3: Ashes of Ariandel: I just love snowy areas. Looks great imo, mostly fun to traverse, Vilhelm is great. Friede is cool too, I just kinda suck at her fight. Also some really fun weapons. Crow Talons, Valorheart, Friede's Scythe etc.
2: Crown of the Ivory King: Once again a snow area but looks even better than Ashes of Ariandel. Other than the bottom and the optional Frigid Outskirts it's a fun area with great buildup to my favorite boss in the game, Ivory King. Also some of the greatest weapons in ds2. Bone Fist, Loyce GS, Ivory King UGS and my (at least as a concept) favorite weapon in souls, the Ivory Straight sword (Just sad that it kinda sucks).
1: Ringed City: Admittedly aesthetically not the greatest but very fun areas nonetheless. Demon Prince is good, Halflight is at least pretty unique as a pvp boss, Midir is imo the best Fromsoft dragon fight and Gael is my favorite Fromsoft boss. Also very fun weapons: Aquamarine Dagger, Frayed Blade, Ringed Knight ss etc.
ringed city easily the best
Great video! Really well put together and articulated, totally agree on all of your picks, the old hunters dlc is magnificent
Firstly, congratulations of 7000 subscribers Billy, your channel is spreading like its Covid 20. I think you undershot your milestone of 10k by 2024. Cant think of many who deserve the growth more. But now, brace yourself for a wall of text big enough to act as a dictatorships borders.
My favourite DLC is the Ringed city, which is weird because Bloodborne is my favourite Souls game and the old hunters is probably Bloodbrone at its peak and i believe that objectively The old hunters IS the best of the DLCs, and yet since i first finished it I've always found myself appreciating The ringed city more.
After having thought about it for a while I realised why i did. Personally I play games for more than just the surface level enjoyment of the gameplay itself, I love being pulled into a world different to our own and exploring how it works, its history, people, setting, and the atmosphere it creates. Fromsoft are the best at doing this that I've ever experienced. No book, show, movie or game has ever pulled me into their world like the Souls series has - Fromsoft are masters of atmosphere and ambience and i could write a whole essay about how they do it and what i love the most about it but ill save that for your inevitable ranking of the atmospheres in each souls game. I know you wont let me down on that. Point is: I love being pulled into worlds and getting invested into whats happened and what will happen to and in them.
This leads back to Dark Souls 3. I got into the souls games when Bloodborne came out. Bought it on a whim and never looked back then played DS1 and 2, loved 1 and had and still have a love/hate relationship with 2, but it left me dying to know what was gonna happen next. Aldia's character and dialogue especially stayed with me, his profession of Gwyns first sin and mankinds cycle of slavery to fire and the possibility of breaking it made me so excited when 3 was announced. All the questions we have will be answered and the ultimate fate of the world ive become so unhealthily invested in is gonna be paid off. And when it came I was....disappointed to be honest. Dark Souls 3 had seemingly no thematic continuity from the interesting ideas posed in 2 (Not really its fault in hindsight, 3 and 2s development overlapped a fair bit, Aldia was patched into DS2 barely a year before 3s final product was released), there was very little in the lore answered and the ending was just Dark Souls 1s same choice with extra steps. Put bluntly It felt pointless, so i was hoping beyond hope that the announced DLCs were going to gove the series and world a better sendoff.
Playing Ashes of Ariandel initially made me pretty miserable because i was convinced it was just a self contained painted world story inconsequential to the world i wanted to see given justice. That was until I heard that the painter still needed materials to make a new painting, the blood of the dark soul. Ngl i got unreasonably excited for a minute and was genuinely stoked to think that the next DLC would actually bring up not just one of but perhaps the most central plot point to the story, but also finally explore it to the depth it should for being the namesake of the series. And then the ringed city dropped.
The first thing I appreciated about The ringed city is that it built upon the set up of the first DLC. We have pre established motives to find the blood - the painting is set up as the worlds last chance at an ending beyond the cycle light and dark. It also works because we've already seen the cycle and its atrocities particularly in DS3. It takes this and uses it to strengthen the DLC before we've even set foot in it. And yes I agree with the detractors: The level design isn't always perfect, the swamp is a screaming missed deadline, the street of harold knights is ridiculous, the turtle clerics and the curse covered hags make me want to jam my thumbs into their eyes until they pop like I'm Jason fucking Voorhees, the angels are annoying and halflight is a shit boss. But I'd argue that the level design is for the most part ranging from ok to brilliant with a few exceptions. The harold and ringed knights I love fighting (when they're not coming in rows of 3), the locusts are great and the adjudictors make for unique and fun level hazards/enemies. The swamp can be run through quickly if you're not interested in the pretty cool side passages (the humanity puzzle and Ledo's room mainly), ill explain soon why i don't mind halflight anymore and theres no excusing the hags or clerics they can go deepthroat cyanide.
But what I really love about the ringed city most of all (I warned you this was gonna be long) is its impact on the themes, lore, unanswered questions and the final conclusion it gives to Dark Souls. First of all if finally explained what happened at the beginning of the world. Where the darksign originated and humanitys role in the worlds birth. This is important because without this context it makes the struggle of humanity in the cycle of the gods feel like an unfortunate coincidence - but when it was revealed that Gwyn did infact shackle humanity to this cycle the themes and purpose of the series becomes infinitely more clear and more powerful because of it; recontextualising the players and the undead's struggle and giving it a broader scope of purpose. And that was just one reveal. I'm not even getting into finally finding out what the furtive pygmy did and built and their own choices and whats so important about the Dark Soul really. I know Kaathe explains this in DS1 but for starters the truthfulness of his words is questionable and he doesn't provide a lot of detail or context that really matters besides telling you humanity can thwart Gwyn with the Dark Soul. Its not until the Ringed city we understand what it really is.
But most importantly The Ringed City provides Dark Souls 3 and the series a proper conclusion. At the end of the world you travel to the place humanity's journey and struggle first began to find answers both to the past and to try and salvage something of the future. All is laid to waste and claimed by the cycle barring two broken people who fight for the faintest glimmer that something can exist beyond it. And it can. Gael is sacrificed and the dark souls and its blood is claimed completely by the Ashen one, something not seen since the Dark Soul was first found. Returning it to the painter provides the perfect answer to Aldias question in DS2. There was no other path beyond light and dark; until we made one ourselves. We never see it, but we know it'll be a place free from the war that ate the outside world into Ash. And so when we defeat the Soul of Cinder and bury it, along with the remnants of the God who so long ago started it all, and summon the firekeeper to let the fire finally fade, we know that we made a difference. Our 3 game journey wasn't completely meaningless. We made something better. And that to me is just so much more powerful than "The fire fades again, are you gonna save it for the 1000th time or plunge the world into Dark for all 0 people left alive to witness." It also ties off other loose ends with the first 3 bosses like the demons and the dragons. The demons supposedly died off with the old demon king but that fight was a lame sendoff. The demon prince is a far more impactful and final sendoff to the species and confirms that the demons have officially all died out, and same goes for Midir and the ancient Dragons with Halflight representing the end for the way of white/the evangelical worship of the Gods. I also love Patches' conclusion too and feel he embodies this idea perfectly, I always summon him and gank halflight because it feels like the perfect end to this frenemy we've known so long.
So yeah, Rant over. Thanks for indulging me. I fully understand not liking this Dlc that much if this sort of thing isnt for you thats fine i just like my worldbuilding and storytelling to make the gameplay more impactful.
Tl;dr The ringed city has a greater impact on the story and purpose of the series than any other DLC. It answers important questions and provides a good ending to a game and series I'd argue didn't have one and in doing so recontextualises everything you've done up until this point across the 3 games into something far more impressive and interesting.
Apologies that my reply won't be texts of paragraphs, you already covered it for me, but I agree with most of what you said - The Ringed City bookends the story of the Dark Souls trilogy, and presents areas that are just dripping with atmosphere. From the way the Dreg Heap is just this world folding in on itself, everything on the brink of collapse, only to reveal the Ringed City, the last bastion on the edge of the world, seemingly untouched in it's splendour by the rest of the world.
It ends the story of Gwyn, the story of the Dark Soul, the story of the demon race. And you pointed it out, but I'll emphasize it again - Patches and his questline is a perfect example of everything the Ringed City is trying to achieve with the player.
And while I probably won't do a Soulsborne "Atmosphere" ranking persay, I would love to do a Soulsborne lore ranking, as I feel that's where thematic atmosphere would realistically fit. But that type of video would require a lot of research and a lot of rewatching Vaati to re-engage myself with all the lore I've tragically forgotten lmao
@@BillySYT no need to apologise I wouldn’t even want a reply half as long as my reading marathon there. I was half joking about the atmosphere ranking so no pressure there. Glad we agree on most points and thanks for bearing with my overindulgence. A lore ranking would be sick though
Putting any of the DS2 DLCs over any of the DS3 DLCs is criminal. Sir Alonne and Blue Smelter and of course Fume Knight are the best bosses in DS2 by far everything else is so gank it drags them to the lower range for me.
Sunken King is tamer than Ringed City when it comes to ganks and it has two good bosses and fantastic level design. The others, I can understand tho, although Ivory King is better than Ariandel imo.
@@lotrfan4237 eh I felt the Sunken King was more annoying with the bugs, long ass routes through a ton of stuff and no BF between. Especially the Cursed armor knights and the salamander Dino things. They didn’t gank the fuck out of it but you had longer stretches with more total enemies vs Ringed City and the banks in Ringed city where easier to deal with because most the enemies where melee, slow and only a couple tough spots (stairs). Sunken city you where constantly fighting to get inside and once inside enemies everywhere. As for boss fights Squalid Queen was meh and Sinh was highly buggy for me.
That’s just my take on it. Almost every good spot was ruined. If they reduced overall enemy count by 20-30% it would help.
Hot take: Sunken King is the best DS2 DLC by far, and I would definitely put it above Artorias and Ariandel.
There's quite a few people in this comment section who'd agree with you, and I can totally see the argument for all the positives it brings. Just the fact that a DLC I have in last place can be someone else's favourite from DS2 is pretty cool, shows they did a good job with all three packs.
Putting the ringed city at third place is *criminal*
Ringed City is not that good, the bosses and visuals are top notch but the rest is average at best.
@@canallj3480you say that as if bosses and visuals are incredibly insignificant? Boss quality and how it ties into player builds is at least 50% of what makes a good Soulsborne title. +I fail to see how the Ringed City dlc areas are worse than the Old Hunters areas
@@C1yde902 Well, the Ringed City FOR ME has too much annoying shit,for example the Angels, too many enemies in some areas and i also dont like a lot of the Ringed City enemies and like i said before i dont think that the level design and other things are bad, i just dont see them as amazing too.
My controversial list(least to greatest): Crown of the Sunken King, Crown of the Ivory King, Crown of the Iron King, Ashes of Ariendel, Artorias of the Abyss, The Old Hunters, and finally The Ringed City.
I still have to get through DS 1 and BB, but the Sunken City is currently my bottom ranked, and I doubt anything could end up lower.
It's boring, frustrating, and encapsulates a lot of broader problems I have with DS2. It's not just my least favorite DLC, it's my least favorite area, period.
Currently my top ranked is either The Frozen City, or the Ringed City. The Ringed City had better bosses, the Frozen City had a better level. Can't decide which I overall like more.
If you look at the dlc release dates in comparison to when the games came out, their is a strong correlation between the dlcs that rank well on this list, with how long after the games release were the dlcs. Meaning the longer dlc wait time, the better the dlc (as you'd expect). Shadow of the erdtree has had a wiat time of about 18 months by now, currently the longest by far (ds1 was 11 months, old hunters was 8 months) this hopefully indicates shadow of erd tree will be the best dlc yet!!!
I have full faith that Shadow of the Erdtree is going to be fantastic, but it all depends on the scope. How many new open world areas will we have to explore? Will there be multiple legacy dungeons? Will they re-use any bosses? At least we know we'll be getting fed weapon/spell-wise.
Old iron king above ashes of ariendael is crazy, also ringed city at #3 is criminal, id say its tied with old hunters
For me, I just don't find the areas of the Ringed City to be as intricate or interesting as Old Hunters, but I know Ringed City is a fanbase favourite, so I was always prepared to be in the minority on that one.
Ringed City not being number one is criminal.
Imo:
7| Crown of the Ivory King
6| Ashes of Ariandel
5| Crown of the Old Iron King
4| Crown of the Sunken King
3| The Ringed City
2| Artorias of the Abyss
1| The Old Hunters
Just a little silly question but if you had to predict, where do you think Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is going fall in your ranking?
7 Sunken king - Looks cool but it's quite annoying
6 Iron king - god those runbacks kill it
5 Artorias of the Abyss - I'm not really the lore guy so it doesn't really matter for me. Best bosses in DS1 which isn't saying much but still good (well Sanctuary Guardian is very much just there) and I just don't like the areas that much
4 Ivory king - Frigid Outskirts is a mistake but the rest of DLC is some of my favorite Dark Souls content
3 Ashes of Ariandel - It's Friede time baby
2 Ringed City - It's BIG and bosses are top tier and I like me some end of the world
1 Old Hunters - PEAK
Don't forget the Beasthunter Saif! That's one of my favorite weapons!
Man why does so many people hate on Ashes of ariandel. It literally has the best boss fight in all of souls history. (I have not played ringed city, bloodborn, sekiro or demon souls yet)
I think you admittedly answered your question there. You're looking at the DLC from the perspective of a boss fight and not from the perspective of the full package. This isn't a DLC Boss Ranking video, this is a video that takes every aspect of each DLC into account, from areas and design, to bosses, weapons, optional content, value for money, etc.
@@BillySYT yes but it's still in no way a bad dlc even if you were to remove friede. Like you said in your video the entire area is mostly great. So I'm surprised to see everyone in the comment section put it in last position. I would definitely expect one of the ds2 dlc to be last in people's rankings, by example if we talk about good bosses but horrible area then iron king should definitely be the worst dlc of them all. Fume knight is by far my favorite ds2 boss but God is the entirety of the dlc outside of the bosses just a chore instead of something fun. The only dlc that made me feel "I'm free" instead of "I'm done" once having completed it
I personally dont hate the frigid outskirts what I DO hate is the runback. Wish they had a bonfire before the fight
Any DS2 DLC higher than Ashes of Ariandel is criminal
Then I guess I'm a criminal :o
Sunken King easily better than Ariandel tho. Best dlc along with Old Hunters.
old hunters and ringed city are 2 perfect dlc fromsoftware ever made
This will be a strange ranking, because I'm not a fan of Bloodborne:
1-The ringed city
2-Artorias of the abyss
3-The old hunters
4-Ashes of Ariandel (if the optional boss fight had been better, or there had been another fight I would have put it in second place)
5-Crown of the Ivory King
6-Crown of the Sunken King
7-Crown of the Iron King
me an Ornstein simp 🤝Artorias simps
Knights that kick ass and go fast are awesome and peak design
(also Dragonslayer Armor dropping his gear completed my main character aka my ng+12 gal's armor set with the chest piece and Artorias' gf/fellow knight of Gwyn's name is pronounced Keer-an I believe)
I hope shadow of the erdtree will be even better than the old hunters
"All of them fantastic" so we are just gonna ignore that lawrence was a fire version of the first boss then
Yes, because his actual fight plays out quite differently to the Cleric Beast. The moveset is much harder to handle & his enrage state where he crawls on the ground is completely unique.
It also makes sense from a lore perspective since he IS the first Cleric Beast to have been created, and we knew that even before the DLC dropped.
I'll call out re-used assets if it doesn't work well, such as Lud & Zallen. But this really isn't one of those moments.
@@BillySYT but is he or is he not a fire cleric beast in design?
16:19 guys he’s talking about me!
Common Billy S win
I’m tired of y’all bloodborne glazers who treat the game as if it’s the best piece of gaming to ever exist
I won't lie, I don't really understand this sentiment. You're tired of people enjoying something they like, which I just find very sad.
As much as Bloodborne overall is not my favourite game in the series, the Old Hunters DLC is beyond incredible. The story, the level design, the bosses, the soundtrack. It’s all peak FromSoftware. No singular DLC has felt that amazing, though I think that might change when Shadow of the Erdtree comes out
For me I’d rank them:
7.Crown of the Sunken King
6.Crown of the Ivory King(would be higher without Frigid Outskirts)
5.Ashes of Ariandel
4.Crown of the Old Iron King
3.Artorias of the Abyss
2.the Ringed City(just for the bosses)
1.the Old Hunters(by far)
It's probably a me-thing lol; I can't wrap my head around the criticisms you levied at The Ringed City's PVE while liking Iron King's and having nothing bad to say
Well for me, it's pretty simple - I can handle the Iron King's PVE content. I might die, but overall I find a majority of the rooms & enemies manageable. But I, for the life of me, am absolutely horrendous at handling the enemies in the Ringed City, to the point where I feel a bit embarrassed.
And tbf to the Iron King, there are some rooms with set-ups I dislike, and I forgot to mention the crawly boys that explode in the side-tower. Those suck.
I was expecting to suffer on sister fried but then i went in with the paired greatswords from ringed city and the rest is history
Nice video!! Agreed on most things, but I have to say, you used the runbacks to the boss as a negative for DS2, but you didn't even mention the runback in DS1 e.g. to Artorias. xD Though he is also my favourite character over all of the games too, Fume Knight is up there also for me. But saying that, like you say they're all excellent so hard to disagree with any ranking :) I also love Kos, a lot of people drop him because of the difficulty. But like damn, all the DLCs are just amazing!!
Kos is actually the creature that the orphan crawls out of and is not the boss, hence why he is called the “orphan” because of the fact Kos is dead. No disrespect just wanted to let you know
@@TheUnkindledTarnished I know thanks, just a short way of typing. I have all the platinums and I've watched the lore videos :)
I don’t think anyone has ranked all soulsborne enemy mobs yet, if you need any ideas for future rankings lol
I could rank them per game. It's a good idea.
@@BillySYT I can imagine how big of a hassle that would be though, if you end up doing it,I apologize ahead of time 😅.
But I did subscribe after seeing you in my feed again, so you will be guaranteed my watch time and interaction in the comments per video, for whatever that’s worth😁
The Iron Passage legit got me to just.
Drop Dark Souls 2 as a whole once it yoinked the scales from my eyes and made me realize just how *bad* DS2 was overall. Like by the time I tossed my hands up and moved on to something else I realized I wasn't having fun with *any* of the game. I was just playing it because it was more Dark Souls, for better or worse. Just, in this case, it was worse.
EDIT: Gonna toss the heart away to clarify what grumpy-ass me meant. DS2 is really only bad in the scope of actually 'Souls' games, and only by merit of just feeling generally clunkier to me even between 1 and 3 and whatnot. It's better than a fair few Soulslikes out there, but in general it really just didn't vibe with me at much of any point. I was just going through the 'must have more Fromsoft' motions and gritting my teeth, ultimately. The Iron Passage was, again, just where I threw my hands up and realized 'there's more out there than Souls' for that period of time.
Elden Ring DLC is gonna be fucking lit.
Grrrrr you didn’t mention my pookie beasthunter saif.
I actually like the gang squad they are fun to fight since they’re so unfair. Kind of like Malenia
Nice vid good job!
I'm feeling a strong october dlc on this one
For me the weakest DLC is Ashes of Ariandel and then Crown of the Sunken King. Sister Friede is great, but generic knight + normal enemy wolf is trash.
My personal ranking is:
-The Old Hunters
-Artorias of the Abyss
-Ringed City
-Crown of the Ivory King (I actually like the Frigid Outskirts, not the recycled boss though)
-Crown of the Iron King
-Crown of the Sunken King
-Ashes of Ariandel
Ringed city is my personal favorite
Οf course subbed and coming from a bloodborne fanatic, damn this dlc is the goat
Can't knock the DLC that gave us the pizza cutter
putting the crown of the iron king above ashes of ariandel is blasphemous
No, Blasphemous is a completely different game.
@@BillySYT 😑
90% of the comments disagree with you lol
@@C1yde902 yeah but i dont look at them as i dont associate with DS2 sympathiser
@@kianhr104 damn people still shitting on Ds2 in 2023? Nice 🎣
1. Old Hunters
2. Artorias of the Abyss
3. Ringed City
4. Ashes
5. Sunken
6. Old Iron
Crown of the Sunken King being at the bottom hurts my dark soul, it's literally a big sprawling Zelda dungeon with a lot of exploration and enviroment interaction and a freakinton of loot and hidden goodies, Ariandel is easily the worst, super bland snow field, only two bosses and one sucks ass, enemies not fun to fight.
And Ivory King being 6th hurts even more.
Imo Ivory King>Sunken King>The Old Hunters>Artorias of the abyss>The Ringed City>Iron King>Ariandel.
Eleum Loyce has the best lore, an amazing character on Alsanna, the best romance in the saga, and the most epic final boss.
Thanks for being able to appreciate my opinions though, even if they differ from your own ^^
Wow he didn’t even talk about Demon Souls or Sekiro
They don’t have dlc
i’m still so disappointed that sekiro never got a proper dlc, if it did, it had the possibility of being the best dlc in any game ever
Definitely sucks given FromSoft could have knocked it out of the park, but I guess knowing they were working on Elden Ring after Sekiro's development explains why they couldn't give it a proper DLC.
Bro forgot to mention Darkeater Midir 💀
15:53, let's not spread misinformation, bro
@@BillySYTahh my bad I must've missed that! I was eating '-'
Why is it every single time I see any gameplay of ds3, the player is using sellsword blades?
im actually not a huge fan of the oolacile dlc which is a pretty hot take but im am so disappointed in ariendels placing. good video though
I love how going into this my first thought was old hunters is number 1 it’s better then the actual base game it’s shorter but the weapons are insanely cool (boomhammer) and the bosses are almost all amazing (I hate Lawrence )