I think it's rational optimism. ER dwarfs every soulsborne release to date, and I think its DLC will scale in a similar ratio. A lot of the fundamentals to world building are in place, and the scope of the world map lends itself to multiple expansions, not just one. You don't hire George R. R. Martin to write a backstory and not attempt to milk it. This DLC and hopefully successive expansions will be substantial.
The main game, no matter how everyone sucked up to it, had serious pacing issues and the you go where ever you want - because it's open world halleluja - idea is not working when you can literally do whatever you want, since there was zero balancing in the game. Once you cleared a lot of side missions/dungeons you became so powerful and high leveled, that a first seen boss can be walked over on the first try. And when I walked over the 3rd boss or so, and the filler enemies proved to be a bigger challenge I had enough. It was a good game for like 100 hours, then it went south. The visuals are unparalleled though.
So make the dlc a 3-4 day core experience, that's 16 hours max (I calculate with 4 hours per day) not counting the time it takes to retry the bosses. Fuck these overly elongated games. Everyone is pursuing these marathon like playtimes.
Easy mode for us old fucks who suck at games and just want to enjoy ourselves?lol
The whole game was easy mode. If you want anything easier watch on youtube the story montage videos.