Time for the Legacy Dungeons, which had to be their own list since they (and the criteria for judging them) are so much different from the open world areas. Smaller dungeons (catacombs, caves, etc) of the more cut+paste variety aren't going to be on here, nor will the smaller copied-over DLC dungeons like the forges and the prisons. Any dungeon that's large enough to have more than one grace point probably qualifies to be on here.
I'll be ranking them using the criteria of how atmospheric they are, how much fun they are, how unique they are, and how good the level design is. Level design is one area where Fromsoft excels, so nothing on this list is "bad" in that sense.
#21. Leyndell Sewers - I hate sewer dungeons and I hate this place. It's purely optional and only really noteworthy for two things: Getting the secret Frenzied Flame ending of the game, or getting the Lord of Blood's Exultation (the best talisman in the game for Blood builds). I always get lost in the pipe maze portion of the area, most of the enemies are a PITA to deal with, and there's just no appeal to this dungeon. In a regular game, it'd be a slightly below-average dungeon, in this game it's the worst.
#20. Castle Sol - A fairly basic castle, this is more or less a postgame area at the far north of the map. It's got a great aesthetic with the ice and snow, and I'd love to rate it higher. However, it's an incredibly obnoxious dungeon, with overpowered enemies that can turn invisible (or teleport, uncertain), relentless giant beasts that won't get off of you, and a gank squad of a boss fight with three foes charging you right out of the gate. It's a frustrating zone that I generally beeline through quickly just to not have to deal with it. Cainhurst Castle, this ain't.
#19. Stone Coffin Fissure (DLC) - A dungeon I didn't even know existed until right before press time when I was doing research. This is a well-hidden abyssal dungeon that is sprawling and goes under the ocean. St. Trina, an incredibly important lore character, finally shows up here. I wish they did more with her (and Miquella in general) though. As for this area, I'm pretty sure this is cut content from Dark Souls 3 because it feels almost exactly like a DLC area from that game. The boss arena is even identical to Darkeater Midir's room. The whole place is mysterious, when you put all of this together. But is it a good dungeon? Ehh, not really. There's probably a reason it got cut from Dark Souls 3. It's drawn-out, linear, and a bit empty, with laser-firing turrets that are a real hassle to deal with. It's still among the most interesting and mysterious places in the DLC. It just isn't a good dungeon.
#18. Mohgwyn Palace - A super-deadly underworld fortress full of blood. Basically a postgame dungeon with a postgame boss. While I liked the aesthetic design a lot, this place is hampered by how abundant the enemies are. Fighting through dozens of those rolling albunaric guys gets old quickly, there are an excessive amount of fodder enemies, and the giant skeletons that can one-shot you with their kamehameha waves have probably killed me more than any other regular enemy in the game. Basically this is a great dungeon that isn't fun, if that makes sense. With a few tweaks, it could jump about ten spots on this list easily. Oh well.
#17. Shaded Castle - Has a lot of the same problems as Castle Sol, except more of a mid-game version of it (so it's easier to get strong enough to overpower the place). Overtuned enemies, tons of poison swamps (because the fans demand more poison swamps), and a boss who basically cheats by throwing his sword across the room like a boomerang. This place is really strong aesthetically, with a unique dilapidated look and an abundance of statues. The boss keeps a nice painting of Malenia in his room, not sure why. The aesthetic of this place, and the fact that it's not TOO tedious to traverse, puts it above the last few.
#16. Redmane Castle - The worst of the major Great Rune dungeons by a mile, this is a fairly basic castle with some very obnoxious enemies in it. Even just the run-up to it is annoying, with siege equipment bombarding your character the entire way. The boss of this zone is one of the best boss fights in the game: The Radahn Festival, where you and a bunch of the game's NPCs fight Radahn on what looks like the surface of Mars. That boss fight can't save the dungeon itself from being mid, though. Get here late enough in the main story and they'll just let you skip Redmane Castle outright; not much is being missed.
#15. Castle Morne - Stormveil Castle's under-study, this is the first really major dungeon that most new players take on. It's tall and impressive, posing a good challenge to players just starting out. There's a lot of lore about this place in the surrounding parts of Limgrave, and you can clearly see just walking into the front courtyard that an epic battle went down with numerous casualties. It's a dark, intimidating place that I wish there was a lot more of, because it takes about 5 minutes to traverse. (Editor's Note: Just before press time, I found that there's a grace point right before the Leonine Misbegotten fight. All of my previous playthroughs I had to run back from the top of the tower. Damn, finding new things all the time.)
#14. Castle Ensis (DLC) - There's nothing particularly wrong with this zone; it's just sort of...there. It's completely upstaged by Shadow Keep looming behind it, and comes off more like it's just the outer gatehouse for that zone. With a somewhat generic layout and somewhat generic enemies, this is basically Stormveil Castle if it were made by regular developers. The main gimmick here is that most of the fodder enemies can cast sorcery spells, which makes it a bit more challenging/exciting than the typical castle. Also, Rellana is a great boss fight, which bumps this place up a bit.
#13. Caria Manor - I love how misty and forested this place is. 20 years ago I'd have probably put this in my top five just based off of feelings. At this point in time, though, it isn't the most fun place to traverse, with the hand enemies and the assassin ambushes being particular irritants. Still, it looks gorgeous and it has a fantastic boss fight at the end. The misty crystal-filled hills behind it are a nice reward for getting to the end, even if you can't do much there early on.
#12. Nokron, Eternal City - An incredibly mysterious underworld city lit up by starlight. This is the home of the Mimic Tear and some of the more important loot in the game, with transforming liquid metal enemies forming the main resistance you face. I really liked this zone on pretty much every level and always find it fun to revisit. However, it's over quickly and I wish there were more to it.
#11. Nokstella, Eternal City - Nokron's big brother (sister?) is this ruined starlit cityscape. It's bigger and has steeper challenges to tackle / better rewards to find. Make sure to slay every rolling metal boulder to get all the Larval Tears. More than most areas in the game, this is one place where I'm always struck by some degree of awe when I first arrive there. This city existing under the world just hits you with how big the game actually is.
#10. Crumbling Farum Azula - A death trap of a final dungeon, and an incredible-looking flying fortress. I liked the various dragon fights in this zone, and the extremely good loot hidden in various out of the way places. It was a hell of a crawl. However, it has the same "excessively dangerous" thing going for it that Mohgwyn does, and there's some frustration to be found. At least there are no one-shotting Kamehameha skeletons here. Considering it's the final dungeon of the game's main story, I'd expect it to put up a fight. It's a place worth thoroughly sacking, and every dungeon from here on out has pretty much crossed over from good to great tier.
#9. Midra's Manse (DLC) - This is a claustrophobic haunted house, and it does that very well, containing lots of hidden passages and ghost enemies to menace you all throughout. Particularly liked how the mansion gets more and more dilapidated as you progress through it, as if it's falling apart on you in real time (almost like an obscure reference to P.T.). The boss was also pretty great, with his Frenzied Flame based offense. I'd say the Frenzied Flame element was vastly underutilized in this game in general. I might be overrating this place a bit, but I liked it and it was different.
#8. Volcano Manor - This is a sprawling dungeon with multiple floors, lots of secret areas, and deadly foes. Originally this was ranked quite a bit lower until I took some time to mull over it and realized what a good dungeon it actually is. It's a bit linear, but it has a bunch of distinct areas that really feel like a legitimate castle town when you put it all together. Add the lava aesthetic and the possibility for some interesting platforming (I like jumping across the rooftops) and this very tough zone can quickly become a fun zone to mess around in.
#7. Raya Lucaria Academy - This place looms over Liurnia, and from the outside it looks incredible. Truly one of the standout locations of the game. A lot of people would probably rank it a lot higher than this. However, as a dungeon crawl, I had a fair amount of issues with this place. The spell-slinging enemies can turn into a sniper-fest, for one thing. A lot of the foes in here seem designed to be more annoying than challenging. I can't ever seem to avoid that iron ball that rolls down the steps at the end, and it's either that or deal with the Iron Maiden nearby. At least the boss fight is gorgeous. A lot of my issue with this place likely stems from the fact that it's always the second legacy dungeon I do, and Stormveil sets such a high bar.
#6. Shadow Keep (DLC) - Basically what I'd imagine the tower of Mordor to look like. This is the center dungeon of the DLC (even though it isn't the last or highest-level by any means) and the goal you see on the horizon right from the word go. This is a dungeon I wasn't crazy about for a while, but it grew on me. It's a massive zone full of shortcuts, pathways to hidden areas (even entire hidden zones), and enough meat to almost be a chapter of the game unto itself. The only thing keeping it out of the top five was that I didn't really have fun with it on the first time through. The Storehouse tower ascent was a bit tedious, with lots of those flippy fire mages and an often-unclear path forward.
#5. Stormveil Castle - Outside the killbox that is the front gate ramp (someone on the dev team got a laugh out of that), this is a nearly perfectly-designed dungeon. Plenty of secrets, a very realistic layout, and multiple paths that can be taken through it. Did I mention the secrets? There are so many secrets to find here that it gets kind of ridiculous. If someone wanted me to point at the perfect D&D-style dungeon in Elden Ring it'd probably be this. It's a good crawl.
#4. Belurat, Tower Settlement (DLC) - The first legacy dungeon of the DLC. More or less the DLC's answer to Leyndell visually, this is an impressive cityscape. This could have ranked very high on the list, but it's a fairly short zone (despite how expansive it looks from a distance). It doesn't take long at all to book it through the zone and reach the Divine Lion (which is an awesome boss). This is a super-memorable and interesting place that I just wish there was more of.
#3. Miquella's Haligtree - The optional super-dungeon of the base game could have probably been sold separately as DLC (along with Consecrated Snowfield) and nobody would have batted an eye. Instead, they just added it into the game, on top of the smorgasbord of other zones they went above and beyond creating. This is a dangerous zone, but it's also a total blast. While most dungeons have you climbing up to reach the end, this one is a long descent with a number of distinct-looking areas. At the bottom is the infamous Malenia, and along the way are numerous secrets, unique equipment, and high-powered smithing stones.
#2. Enir-Ilim (DLC) - Basically Part 2 of Belurat, the higher domain. The final area of the DLC, this place is golden and magical. Everything here is a challenge, there are a bunch of interesting secrets to find (one of which takes you on a long path around the outside of the towers to find one of the best weapons in the game, Euphoria), and it was just a blast from start to finish. The only thing holding this down is that it's a fairly short area compared to most of the others on the list. If Enir-Ilim were combined with Belurat to be one big dungeon, it would be #1 on this list. However, Belurat is designed to be played early in the DLC, while Enir-Ilim is designed to be played at the very end (and sealed until late). So they're completely different in terms of difficulty and scaling, despite all being part of the same physical structure. Regardless, there is nothing else in the game like these two areas, and this higher domain is the most striking and unique.
Fun Fact: Enur-Ilim is physically a reference to the Tower of Babel, and the name is similar to the Babylonian phrase for "gate of the gods". Which makes sense, given that this is where Miquella makes his attempt to ascend into divinity.
#1. Leyndell, Royal Capitol - While a lot of this game feels like other Fromsoft works, Leyndell is the main zone that feels like "quintessential Elden Ring". As in, something they couldn't have made in any other game before now. More than any other zone except maybe Liurnia, this area feels unique and new to this game and gives it that extra identity of its own. This place is incredibly expansive, with a bunch of distinct areas and a lot of visual storytelling. While I wish it were a little less deadly to walk around in, this fallen city is a fascinating locale from both a design perspective and a lore perspective. This is the dungeon crawl of dungeon crawls, with numerous secrets and bosses to fight.
Ranking the Dark Souls II Areas
Ranking the Dark Souls III Areas
Ranking the Elden Ring Overworld Areas
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