Dark Souls 2 'Crown of the Old Iron King' DLC review: Baby come back

After you've spent dozens of hours methodically slaying things in Dark Souls 2, you become numb to its trademark difficulty (regardless of whether you feel that difficulty has risen or fallen since the original Dark Souls). You find yourself a decent weapon, you continue to tiptoe your way through unfamiliar areas, waiting for monsters or traps to slam you with a surprise death. Even if you do perish, though, you just get back up and do it again. Maybe you retrieve your lost souls. Maybe you don't. As your character becomes more and more powerful, the sting of losing your souls becomes less and less.

To that end, I have an admission: I stopped playing Dark Souls 2. After swinging the same sword for what seemed like the whole game, after defeating nearly every enemy with the same strategy – strafe behind, slash, repeat – it just got ... boring.

Having played through the "Crown of the Old Iron King" DLC, and the "Crown of the Sunken King" before it, I'm reminded of what makes Souls games special to me in the first place. It's not the difficulty, the crafty enemies, the traps, the tricks or the practical jokes, but the world itself. Its cavernous castles are daunting, its roaring dragons seemingly insurmountable. Everything is presented in grand scale, designed to make you feel small and insignificant. That might sound depressing, but the upshot is that Dark Souls, and the Crown of the Old Iron King, plants you in a massive, believable world in a way that only video games can.

And yeah, it's also pretty damned hard.

Your first stop in Crown of the Old Iron King is Brume Tower (accessed by unlocking a chamber near the Old Iron King boss fight in the main game). It's a sight to behold: Huge towers linked together by gigantic chains that serve as bridges, all presiding over a fuming wasteland of lava. It took me some time to realize that the snow blanketing the exposed stonework is actually ash, flakes of it forever falling from the sky. The tower itself, you'll discover, is hollow, filled with gears and machinery of unknown purpose. In short, it all makes a great first impression. The majority of Crown of the Old Iron King is spent descending into the tower (and climbing back up, at intervals), dispatching enemies and eventually firing up the old machinery. Fans of Dark Souls lore will enjoy putting together the pieces of the Iron King's history, reigniting the very fires that gave him power in the first place.

In more practical terms, the DLC bears a resemblance to the Iron Keep from the main campaign, including spike-lined walls and flame-spewing bull heads. What really makes it interesting, though, is how you can use these things to your advantage. Naturally, you can lead enemies into fire or knock them into spikes, just as before, but the DLC also offers up some new opportunities thanks a new type of enemy – an undead carrying a barrel of gunpowder. The twist is that these guys don't attack you, at least not directly. They usually travel in packs, and they run away if you get close. This effectively allows you to herd them – pretty handy if another enemy just happens to be standing near a flame spout. You'll also employ these explosive goons to blast open secret passages and score hidden equipment. Just remember to keep your distance when you set them off. There are some other new enemies as well, including a floating suit of armor with a crazy set of moves. And then are the enormous, metal giants that I'll let you uncover for yourself.

Another wrinkle introduced by Crown of the Old Iron King is the Ashen Idol, a statue of sorts that will generally make your work much harder. Among other things, these can heal enemies and produce a black fog that curses players. You can destroy these idols with a special item, and it's usually a good idea to take them out first, removing any buffs on nearby foes. Of course, this is Dark Souls, so don't expect all of the idols to be in obvious, easily accessible places. These idols also come into play for a few dirty tricks, like a CPU phantom invading your game and then dashing down a spiral staircase – leading you right into a curse-inducing fog. If you really want to beat him, you'll have find and destroy the idol below, but that means running headfirst into dangerous territory.

Delving the depths of Brume Tower and re-stoking the fires of its ancient machinery is generally a good time, though Crown of the Old Iron King's secondary area, Iron Passage, is significantly less inventive. In fact, it's strikingly similar to the Cave of the Dead featured in the previous DLC, Crown of the Sunken King. Once again, players are shuffled into a linear tunnel with no bonfires, forcing players to clear the entire area in one shot (or die trying). There's nothing wrong with that, but it feels a bit like recycling the same idea, especially only a month after the first DLC was released. In fairness, Iron Passage does have two different routes to its goal, and it's fun to join a co-op session and send a separate group through each route, helping each other out along the way. Those who take the second route, for example, can eliminate a sniper that normally makes the first route more difficult. Unfortunately, as did the Crown of the Sunken King DLC, the ending of Iron Passage resurrects one of the main game's bosses rather than giving players something new.

The boss of Brume Tower is new, thankfully. Those expecting a gargantuan beast akin to the dragon that topped off Crown of the Sunken King may be disappointed, but the final boss of Crown of the Old Iron King has his charms. In particular, I like that the Ashen Idols play into the final conflict, though I won't spoil exactly how.

There is a third, optional boss in Crown of the Old Iron King, though I wasn't able to fight it. Accessing this boss requires a late-game item from the main campaign. Specifically, you'll need to have cleared the main campaign up to the Dragon Shrine.

Like I said, I stalled out on Dark Souls 2, so I've yet to reach the Dragon Shrine. Here's the important bit, though: Crown of the Old Iron King makes me want to finish the main campaign. The blandness of Iron Passage may be disheartening, but the majestic, impossible architecture of Brume Tower has driven me back into Dark Souls 2 with unexpected fervor, just so I can see what other amazing sights I've missed.

In other words, I may not have been able sample every challenge in Crown of the Old Iron King, but I'll be back, and that speaks volumes.

This review is based on a PSN download of Dark Souls 2's "Crown of the Sunken King" DLC, provided by Bandai Namco. Images: Bandai Namco.

Note: Joystiq does not provide star ratings for downloadable content reviews with the understanding that the quality of the core game's experience is unchanged from the original release; See our Dark Souls 2 review.