Dark Souls 2 is getting a good amount of DLC and I got to experience the first bit of it firsthand.
To me, more Dark Souls is always a good thing. Dark Souls 2 went away from some of the level design ideas of the previous games but the DLC looks to bring it back.
The level I explored was large and expansive, with many twists, turns, and paths to follow. The whole level was a lot more open than most of the places in the main game. This type of level design is what made the previous games great so it is nice to see a return. It also had a lot of verticality and vantage points that showed off just how varied the terrain was.
The new enemies in this area were fierce and actively hunted me down when I was spotted. There was even an enemy that was just walking around, something I don’t recall seeing very much in Dark Souls 2. The section also featured a lot of archers mixed in with melee attackers. Luckily there were a lot of things in the environment to use as cover. Otherwise it would have been a disaster. The openness of a lot of the areas really made it much more difficult because attacks could come from anywhere. This was nice to see as that seldom happened in the main game.
It was a lot of fun to see what this area had in store. There were traps, ambushes, and surprises. Everything I could have wanted from Dark Souls was in this section so the DLC seems to be headed in the right direction. We’ll see when it releases July 22 with two more DLC sections to be released later on.