Dark Souls III: The Ringed City

Dark Souls 3: The Ringed City has found a way to revisit the past without a cheap reliance on nostalgia, wrapping up the story of Dark Souls in a way that will be satisfying for fans who enjoy digging into the rich lore the series has been building for the last few years. But you don’t need an encyclopedic knowledge of the Souls series to appreciate the satisfying twists and turns of this short, but exciting adventure, with its abundance of haunting, secret-filled locales and terrifying boss fights.

The Ringed City is a well-executed conclusion for the revered Dark Souls series.

Gorgeous but empty, challenging but not always fair, The Ringed City is a weak reflection of the series' best traits.

If The Ringed City really is the end of Souls, it manages to hang its head high with the rest of the series. From Demon's to Dark III we have more than enough macabre settings to pore over in the years to come. They aren't all created equal, and some of them aren't even created by Hidetaka Miyazaki, but I'll remember each and every one of them for as long as I live. It's been a wild ride.

Two locations and four bosses doesn't sound like a whole bunch but don't be fooled - The Ringed City easily clocks in at four to five hours depending on how you fare with the bosses and other challenges. It's a meaty instalment and a welcome deviation from the practices seen in Ashes of Ariandel, while still interlocking with and continuing the complex narrative. The bosses are challenging and visually fantastic - besides a cheap NPC opponent - and the environments continue the Dark Souls tradition of being large, intricate, and engaging. The Ringed City feels like the climatic end that the Souls franchise deserves, even if we find ourselves hoping that this isn't actually the end at all.

This experimental final look into the world of Dark Souls is fascinating, but also comes with a few critical missteps.

The Ringed City is an incredible end to an incredible series.

The Ringed City is possibly the best DLC of the series - Bloodborne's Old Hunters included. It's challenging, intriguing and mysterious, like a good entry in the Souls series should be, but takes all of those factors to the max. A wonderful conclusion to the series, but we can't help but want more...

Dark Souls III: The Ringed City isn’t the swan song that we hoped it would be, but it’s still an enticing adventure for hardcore fans.

Plentiful, engaging and beautifully designed content adds many hours of playtime and reasons to return to the base game one year after release, be it to enjoy fashion souls or your powerful new arsenal, or simply explore what humanity may have meant all along. A fitting end to a fantastic game, worth full price.