Everything We Know About Dark Souls III: Ashes of Ariandel’s New PVP Arena So Far

Over the past week, Bandai Namco invited a select group of Twitch streamers and YouTubers to check out the brand new dueling arena that will be made available in the upcoming Ashes of Ariandel DLC. Here’s everything we know about the new arena so far.

• There are 1v1 duels where players will face off against each other with no Estus Flasks. This allows players to fight each other in an “honorable” duel with one life, and you’re sent back home after you win or lose a duel.
• There are also brawls where players are given a 300 second time limit to get as many kills against the other player as possible. The brawls are also available in the 2v2 variety, and they can also be played in four or six player matches, where all players are basically engaged in a free-for-all rumble where the player with the most number of killing blows wins.
• You spawn with one Estus Flask during a brawl, but you can get more Flasks by killing other players.
• When in a brawl, you also spawn in with a low-damage Wrath of the Gods spell around you to prevent other players from getting too close and trying to get a free hit on you.
• The Kiln of the First Flame seems to be the main arena here. However, it was also reported that there are options to select different arenas, so we’ll probably get more environmental options when Ashes of Ariandel is finally out.
• You access the arenas from Firelink Shrine. Whenever you want to join in on the PVP fun, simply rest at the Firelink Shrine bonfire, and there will be an option that allows you to get matchmade with other players.
• There’s an option called “Co-op group” but we haven’t been able to confirm if players can actively team up with their friends to fight other random players in the arena. However, you can use password matching to get into a single lobby together with your friends, and fight each other from there.
• It doesn’t look like covenant rewards will be given out for winning a match in the PVP arena. You can equip different covenant items to color code yourselves during the fights, but from all the footage we’ve seen so far, covenant rewards don’t seem to be a thing. Blades of the Darkmoon might have to continue farming Silver Knights for those sliced ears.

In addition to all of these new arena mechanics, Ashes of Ariandel will also come with tons of new weapons, armor sets, and spells. You can check out a small portion of the available gear and weapons in the videos linked above with no worries of getting spoiled, as there are no item descriptions or lore information given away in them. Dark Souls III: Ashes of Ariandel is set to be released for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC on October 25.