The supposed QA playtester leak has been circulated a lot, but I, and a few other prominent dataminers I've discussed it with, are all pretty skeptical of it. One of the most telling faults is that it claims Gundyr was once called Oceiros and was housed in the boss room that Oceiros is in now. It's true that Gundyr was once in that boss room, but not only is Gundyr's AI reference name "Gunda", his param data is called Gundyr, other Pus of Man enemies are referred to with _Gunda or _Gundyr in their data, and even the boss room is called the Gundyr room. This is part of what makes it seem like the leak was just going off known info, the screenshot of Gundyr in the boss room, and then fabricating something that they thought made sense, the supposed name change. The verifiable information included in the leak is all things that had been shown by dataminers like myself or Lance before the leak was published, but nothing new it put forward seems to have anything backing it up.

I, legitimately, did not realize these were giant versions of the Batwing Demon until you made the direct comparison. I just thought they were generic demons! Makes sense that the gate to the oldest town is blocked by the oldest guardians of said gate.

Whether it was real or not, how cool would it have been to aim the ballista to shoot down a demon flying around the Smoldering Lake, that would be dope. Knocking it down could potentially trigger a boss fight with it, reminiscent to Gough shooting down Kalameet in DS1.

I always thought it was weird how the Old Demon King fight, representing the last of the great demons, was introduced with so little fanfare, even before the main demon ruins area. And it also seemed weird that, after this battle against the king, which is clearly supposed to represent the 'end' of the demons as a threat, you just find some more demons in the dlc. So if your telling me you were supposed to fight the Bat Demon first, then progress through the Ruins and finally face the King, that would make a lot more sense to me.

The unused OST for the crimson bat is one of the most beautiful in the entire game. It’s worth listening to.

It always felt to me that the dreg heap area from the ringed city, was comprised of ideas they wanted to do in the base game but was cut for time. The fact that the kiln of the first flame in vanilla is just a few warp points (complete with an excessive amount of bonfires for an area you don’t fight any enemies in) and a short walk to the boss arena. The idea of traveling through the ruins of the eras to get back to the ruins of ds1’s fire link shrine always felt like it would have been more appropriate for the main game than the dlc.

Now it’s being sold as dlc again nearly a decade later

This is why I love when games get DLC's. Because there's a chance that they'll reintroduce previously cut content that they couldn't add in due to time constraints.

Zullie, do you know if there are bosses in DS1 who have being-plunging-attacked animations who could not normally be plunging attacked since there's no high point in their arena?

0:48 asserting dominance

The resurrection of the demon prince in phase two has got to be one of the biggest "oh shit!" moments in the entire game. It just looks so cool.

I always thought it was awesome how their fight took place in the remnants of the Fire Link Shrine. Perhaps the Demon Prince represents an attempt of Demonkind to utilize the First Flame for themselves, since their species was already well into decline. That might also help explain why Prince Lorian had to battle him, to preserve the first flame for Lothric.
Edit: just another thought I had was that the Demon Prince himself even appears like an "embered" form of the twin demons, so maybe there's something to that as well.

Not including the big crossbow in a bossfight is another understandable change.

The demons have suffered enough, they don't deserve to get the Pursuer treatment on top of everything else.

Heh.

This fight remains my favourite fight in the entire Soulsborne series. The music, the location, the fkin transformation into a Balrog of Mordor. What an amazing introduction into the last DLC

I loved the fight with the Demon Prince and his retinue in 3. It was a fun challenge to overcome to FINALLY get to this beautiful sunlit ringed city, and the soundtrack piece worked so well for the fight too.

Man I didn’t realize how much the Goron mines theme from twilight princess set me on edge

Just like running a D&D campaign! "Reuse" the stuff the players never got to see in the first place

The image of one of the demons standing over the Batwing demon looks like it should be a holiday card

The Great Bat is almost certainly a reference to the Crimson Bat in Glorantha, a giant monster used by the Lunar Empire to defeat armies, with the ability to eat souls. We know Miyazaki has some knowledge of Glorantha, through the old Dragon Pass boardgame he keeps in his office.

I see a lot of similarities to one or several of God Hand from Berserk