You have to replay Dark Souls to gain access to new DLC

Be warned, spoilers for Dark Souls follow.

Apparently, you cannot access the recently released Artorias of the Abyss DLC for Dark Souls- the pack which costs £10- without having to replay the entire game.

That is, if you’ve finished the game already, or are past a specific point. If you haven’t, you’re good.

Once you finish Dark Souls, the game automatically sends you into a New Game + and autosaves. To gain access to the DLC, you have to do the following:

• Defeat Hydra at Darkroot Basin
• Defeat Crystal Golem at Darkroot Basin and save Dusk of Oolacile
• Defeat Crystal Golem at Duke’s Archive and get Broken Pendant
• Touch Black Fog at lake in Darkroot Basin where player defeat Hydra

Namco Bandai confirms there is no way to work around this issue.

According to Eurogamer, that’s at least twenty hours worth of gameplay that you have to go through again if you want access to the DLC, which contains new areas, weapons, enemies, co-op options and more.