Before I begin The Ringed City, the final downloadable expansion for From Software’s existentialist fantasy epic Dark Souls 3, I have to prepare. Unlike most games, the expansions to Dark Souls titles aren’t additional, isolated new bits of game—they’re embedded directly into the world as it already exists. If you don’t have a save file progressed enough to access the new stuff you just bought, you’d better get to playing. So I do.

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