Gonna be real, overall the DLC sucks. It starts out REALLY good, and it can be a lot of fun early on. Gravesite Plain and the accompanying areas feel like going through Limgrave with how (relatively) full it all is. But, there's a lot that hinders this overall.

I'll start by saying the one positive, which is that the visuals here are stunning. Even on low settings the DLC is a complete visual spectacle; they genuinely knocked it out with how every locale looks.

Most areas of the map after the beginning are incredibly empty. There's two sizable sections of the maps that are *only* for one single questline, with no real lore explanation for them despite there REALLY needing one for how interesting the areas should be. Half the map is underneath itself, with no map to collect to make exploration easier, so you're stuck searching either under nebulous areas under cliffsides, or in the black inkblot spot of the last area. Most areas have *a* boss fight or *an* item to collect, and that's it. No spirits to tell you about the area or give lore depth besides a select few spots, no interesting interactions, nothing.

Not to mention, some areas are just completely arbitrary on how to get there. You explain why I have to walk completely around a cliffside and drop down rocks that look like they'd kill me just to get to one section of a fort that's completely inaccessible from any point inside of it. Not even from a kickable ladder, which this DLC should have had more of.

Collecting Scadutree Fragments and the Spirit Ash upgrades also suck. You're initially lead to believe that they're only from the Crosses you find across the map, but someone decided it was a good idea to also have them be on random corpses in the middle of nowhere, on dudes with Jars on their heads (if you see one sparkling it probably has it), and on the Hippos for some reason. And it's not that there's just 20 to get, there's *50*. And I'm gonna be real, fighting against the final boss with Level 20 Fragment? Not any different than Level 17, it's completely negligible and not worth your time (even with the full, true Havel's set you get at the end of the game he still 2-shots you with it if you aren't shielding).

Speaking of, Bosses and Enemies just do too much damage, and too quickly. Most bosses will have *long* strings of attacks where they want you to dodge towards them (except when they decide it's actually bad), but basic enemies will also just chunk you for no reason, with long continuous strings of attacks. I can't stress enough how much using a Great Shield helps during this, something I only realized after the final boss lol. It just ends up making the game feel less challenging and enjoyable, and more frustrating because instead of getting tough encounters, the encounters are only difficult because they decided to add an extra zero to the enemy's damage. It's like they balanced it out for people who freshly fought Malenia 1v1 and thought they needed to keep up that difficulty.

Storywise I want to say it's good, but unlike in Elden Ring where most quest lines can be completed at your leisure, it's *incredibly* easy to lock yourself out of questlines if you aren't careful. There's a point where *all* quest lines progress ahead, all because you wanted to explore, and neither spots where it pushes on are locked behind a boss or anything; you can just do it by complete accident. And then doing work on one person's quest can *completely* lock you out of another's, just because you didn't talk to the person who was 7 floors above you without you knowing (not even an exaggeration).

Some lore implications and revelations are genuinely really interesting, but it makes me want to know more about them than what we do get with Miquella, who ends up being not an interesting character by the end of it. And the ending cutscene after the final boss is probably meant to be really interesting and revealing, but it ends up being "Okay, yeah, we know he did that." And once you do watch it, you're left in the boss arena with nothing else to do. No send off or having anyone there to talk with or anything. Just a big empty space, much like the rest of the DLC.

Also screw having a final boss that lags the game for everyone. It's bad enough that it has never ending strings of attacks that you can barely tank through in phase 2, but having an attack that brings the game's framerate down to 1/3 of what you have is just awful; how did they not test this at all? I don't necessarily who/what the final boss is, though it is a bit boring and lackluster in concept, but the fight itself just sucks. Your final challenge for the only DLC that Elden Ring will ever get, and it's just "Big Numbers go BRRRR". It's just really disappointing.