In 2020, I tried to play Dark Souls Remastered to its conclusion without any aid or guide, and I agree that paying attention to NPCs and item descriptions is immensely helpful. But I very nearly got to Gwyn without seeing the DLC because it is incredibly obscure; I had to ask a friend, and he immediately laughed because it's such an infamously bad design decision. And I was lucky enough to know that there was DLC; I can imagine situations where first-time players don't even know to look.
I had never even been to that part of the map or met Dusk prior, despite killing the hydra (which is itself optional). It's not even clear you can get out there because the player has likely already died by falling off the cliff while fighting the hydra. There is almost nothing in the level design to point out that small, weird, dead-end corner of the map, and I'd run through that area to take the ladder several times. If I had gone out there right after killing the hydra, it still would have been obscure. Out of context, Dusk does not scream "DLC" at all. "Oolacile" is just another lore word to a first-time player. It has no special significance.
The DLC is packaged with the game. You do not buy it separately. I have never seen the DLC trailer, never read any news about it, and never seen any thumbnail or screenshots of the DLC on a store page. All of that knowledge is metagaming, and it's seemingly difficult for people who are deep in Souls and have run through the game multiple times and anticipated the DLC as it came out to understand how obscure the trigger is without their foreknowledge.
In that context, to me the only flaw is that the golem isn't spawned automatically as soon as you kill the Hydra, requiring a reload. That players have to go back there after reloading the area after killing the Hydra is the real issue. Not thinking of exploring that part of the map is on the player, imo.
But that's more of a technical issue, since they still didn't change how their engine works up to Sekiro, they just started writing around it. So, for example, an NPC will do a step of their quest, and ask you to return later. What the designers are hoping is that later involves an area load, a death or a bonfire teleport, but what the game is actually telling you, under that NPC dialogue, is "reload this area and talk to this NPC again". If they couldn't fix it in 8 years and with a ton more budget than they had at the time, they wouldn't fix it for that DLC. It's still a valid issue, but less of a design one, in my opinion.
As for it being packaged with the game, to me that only makes the complaints even weaker. What about the Painted World, or Ash Lake? Should they also be easier because there weren't trailers for them? Eh, I really disagree. And I can't imagine how someone playing offline would ever find the entrance to Ash Lake. I guess if you're checking for Mimics by attacking with a large weapon or magic instead of just looking at them, but that's still locking short weapon offline players out of it, and I still have no issues with it. Secrets are fun.
Sure, Oolacile doesn't scream DLC by itself, but the Pendant talking about Oolacile screams Dusk, which will take you to the DLC. If you did meet Dusk, talked to her, read the descriptions of her items, you would know what to do when you get the Broken Pendant. Even if you weren't expecting an entire DLC area with multiple bosses and all, you'd at the very least expect new dialogue and more of her quest. It would be worth checking. I was very disappointed when Yuria didn't have any new dialogue for getting some of the end DLC rewards in Dark Souls 3, because checking was a natural reaction, even if I would never expect another secret area from it.
The two solid issues I can agree with are:
1) No proper communication to check the Duke's Archives. If they were the only other place with golems, that would maybe be fine, but there are golems in Darkroot as well. They should have added an NPC to firelink, or more lines to the Crestfallen Warrior, that would become a note with the dialogue in case he was already dead in your current save. Similar to Gael, in a way, but not as straightforward to the point of "you just talk to him and start the DLC". That was rectified in every DLC since, though, so they did listen to the complaint.
2) The golem containing Dusk doesn't spawn right away. This is more of a technical issue with their engine that they still couldn't solve up to their most recent game. I do hope they find a better way of handling it, though I also hope it won't make it so the quests with NPCs asking for time actually make you have to wait, and reloads can't get around it, that would be a major pain in the ass. This is more of an issue for new players, since OG players had an entire year to figure out about Dusk, but it's still an issue.
If possible, I would change these two things, but I wouldn't change a single thing about the amount of steps required to access the DLC. And while I wouldn't mind changing the Duke's Archive step to somewhere more convenient to access, I also don't think it's important to.
I remember looking it up when the PtD Edition came out on PC (forever thank Durante/ DSfix for making it a great experience).
However I'm finally about to begin Bloodborne GOTY today's afternoon, anything I should know first?
Bloodborne's DLC is much easier to access, just keep in mind that the game throws you straight to NG+, much like Dark Souls 1. If you want to make sure to experience everything on your first playthrough, check before moving on with what is obviously the game's ending.
There's one specific boss fight that requires some quests to be done in order to fight it. It would be major spoilers, though, so it depends on just how much you mind spoiler vs potentially missing on a boss. I didn't do that boss fight on my first playthrough myself, ended up missing it and doing on NG+.
It's not a particularly good fight either, it's worth it more for lore significance and the soundtrack, the fight is whatever and the arena is reused.
I believe From literally told players how to do it in the press release and patch notes. At least that's what they did with the DLC for Bloodborne and Three.
I'm pretty sure From had a blog post explaining it, but it was potentially only in japanese, not sure if Bandai Namco did the same for western audiences.
