Watch the Dark Souls III: Ashes of Ariandel PvP trailer
Dark Souls III's first of two DLCs, Ashes of Ariandel, is leaning hard into its multiplayer offering with a trailer for its PvP arena.Ashes of Ariandel is set to take place in a Painted World, but a different one than existed in the first Dark Souls. Other trailers have focused on the sprawling campaign and lore implications of the DLC, and those have referenced an area that looks like a frozen version of DS3's final boss arena. As this trailer highlights, this arena serves a much greater meta purpose: Coliseum for large-scale PvP fighting.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDUuLtxrWzM
Dark Souls III’s first of two DLCs, Ashes of Ariandel, is leaning hard into its multiplayer offering with a trailer for its PvP arena.
Ashes of Ariandel is set to take place in a Painted World, but a different one than existed in the first Dark Souls. Other trailers have focused on the sprawling campaign and lore implications of the DLC, and those have referenced an area that looks like a frozen version of DS3’s final boss arena. As this trailer highlights, this arena serves a much greater meta purpose: Coliseum for large-scale PvP fighting.
With the effortlessly catchy and ominous song “Ain’t No Devil”, and several shots of players coming upon the game’s different covenants and weapons, it hypes up the multiplayer components of the upcoming game. The fact that it references the game’s gesture systems and players posing for fun brings an almost giddy sense of excitement. “Invade…Protect…Duel…Betray…and now… Battle”, we are told, flashing through all the covenants devoted to the above playstyles, before coming to the PvP arena with silver crowns floating above 6 players’ heads.
As far as mechanics, it offers some interesting hints. Sometimes, a gold crown is visible above a player’s head, probably some indication of who is winning; does this suggest that the “winner” is the last man standing, or the one who kills the most others? Beyond that, we see mostly ranged weapons being used to hit several distracted people at once, and a focus on pyromancy– perhaps such a crowded, hectic arena will make spells/miracles/pyromancies (more) viable in PvP. This would certainly be a boon to a community which has stagnated with the same optimized builds and 1v1 matches (the easiest to find).
Dark Souls III: Ashes of Ariandel releases October 25th. It is $14.99 standalone, and a Season Pass containing Ashes of Ariandel and one more upcoming DLC is available for $24.99.