Dark Souls 3 DLC adds new weapons, areas, PvP maps

Dark Souls 3's second and final slice of DLC, The Ringed City, is due in less than two weeks on March 28. If you're steering clear of heavy spoilers till then, know that the trailer that landed last month didn't give an inordinate amount away—but that James' hands-on expectedly did. The livestream Bandai Namco hosted yesterday is perhaps a happy medium as it explores snippets of the Souls series' ultimate outing's single-player, PvP and weaponry without ruining much of the surprise.

As you'll spot below, the Twitch stream kicks off by showcasing a few of the add-on's new weapons—such as a huge SWAT team-like shield which reminded me of the juggernauts in Dark Souls 2's Undead Crypt, the Lothric Banner which provides you and your allies with AOE protection, and the fire-infused Ringed Knight Straight Sword which looks wonderful.

The Bandai Namco team explains these weapons' worth in PvP before showing off two new areas—The Dragon Shrine, which looks like Archdragon Peak; and The Grand Roof, which is situated atop Lothric Castle. Most interestingly, matchmaking will now let friends band together in PvP, against the random team allocation system that's currently in place.

Players will have access to these zones so long as they own either The Ringed City, the game's Season Pass, or the previous Ashes of Ariandel DLC. This means you can trial the new PvP arenas from March 24, assuming you own one of the latter.

From there, the stream looks at the single-player campaign, specifically The Dreg Heap area which looks similar to the Kiln of the First Flame. Here, a boss fight with vicious bat-like creatures, named the Demon in Pain and Demon from Below, looks typically terrifying.

Here's the livestream in full:

Dark Souls 3's The Ringed City DLC is due March 28.