The recently released Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, caused quite a stir among the community. Almost immediately after its launch, it scored 95/100 points on Metacritic, and became the highest-rated DLC to date.
However, the player community is split in half. One group considers Shadow of the Erdtree as the best DLC ever produced by From Software. Meanwhile, the other group speaks extremely negatively about the new content and its difficulty.
In this regard, I will join with those who have overall liked the DLC, and I’m here to tell you why.
https://youtu.be/M-Xh4vbs6go
The expansions for every From Software game have always been more difficult than the original, and Elden Ring is even more so by the sheer lore explanation. In Shadow of the Erdtree, players get into the Realm of Shadow. To accomplish such a feat, the Tarnished need to defeat Radan, who is a fairly serious opponent, and Mogh. After defeating the latter, you need to interact with the cocoon at the edge of the boss arena to be sent to the Realm of Shadow.
The first thing you will see after entering the new location is a very beautiful landscape, which at first glance (and based on the developers’ words) is similar in scale to Limgrave, the very first location of the base game.
However, it is an illusion, in reality the location and thus the DLC itself are much bigger due to the introduced verticality. The atmosphere of the new zone is closer to that of Dark Souls or Demon Souls, a gloomy, uncomfortable but eye-catching place, that tickles the further interest to explore it in as much detail as possible.
The reduction in terms of size and the emphasis on verticality benefitted the DLC greatly. The locations do not feel empty, nor do you have to run around looking for something interesting. Instead, it will find you on its own.
The huge number of riddles and detours forces you to constantly turn your head around and poke into every corner. As you are meandering your way to a castle seen on the far edge of the horizon, you can easily stumble on a cave that will take you to a completely different location.
Some paths are so non-obvious that I only learned about them when talking with other players, and getting surprised at them being located in zones that I believed to have fully explored already. It took me roughly 50 hours to explore the entirety of the DLC locations, and I still feel like I’m missing some things.
A small negative side is that the way the locations are filled with content feels chaotic to the max. Often, when you reach some kind of hard-to-reach area, you will simply run into some enemies from the base game or find something useless.
An important innovation and motivation for exploration are the amplifiers scattered throughout the expansion area. Scadutree fragments increase the player’s attack and defense, while revered spirit ash will empower the summons.
In total, you can get 20 levels of enhancement for the character, and 10 for the spirits. This innovation made it possible to keep the progression fresh both for the new players and for fully leveled-up veteran Tarnished.
It is impossible to rush bosses, sooner or later it will become too painful even for the most skilled players, so I highly recommend collecting as many buffs as possible. The DLC also introduces numerous new types of weapons and armor, which allows you to expand the already impressive number of builds for both PvP and Pve. Or continue to use Rivers of Blood or Bloodhound’s Fang – even after the nerfs, they are still just as effective.
Let’s discuss the most juicy part of the expansion: bosses. In my opinion, the DLC bosses are the best that From Software has ever done in their games. The boss battles turned out to be both incredibly complex and beautiful at the same time.
However, you won’t get a cheap suckerpunch out of nowhere. The bosses are as clear as possible. Gone are the half-hour swings that catch you in an attack at the most inopportune moment, the movements are easy to read, and often the boss enemies have only one or two attacks that are truly difficult to adapt to. The aggression with which they come swinging can be frightening at first. The speed and the number of attacks in a series are just off the charts for some bosses. You can hardly manage to deal a couple of blows between their combinations.
But over time, having adapted to the pace of the battle and the boss’s moveset, you can notice that everything is not so bad, and at the moment of some attacks the boss is completely defenseless. Then the battles turn into almost anime-like scenes where the stakes are high, and the smallest mistake can lead to your inglorious defeat.
One such battle for me was facing Messmer the Impaler. I spent the entire night, and five hours later managed to defeat him without taking next to any damage. Victory over him brought indescribable feelings, something similar to what I experienced while playing Sekiro. His signature taunt when killing the player is ingrained in my brain just like Malenia’s phrase once was.
The final boss is the apotheosis of difficulty, the crowning point of both Elden Ring and bosses in From Software games in general. I can’t even imagine how you can make the battle even more difficult and still enjoy the victory. At the same time, the boss is not undefeatable, and there are already videos on YouTube of how people get him using dance mats and other creative ways.
The biggest drawback of the boss fights, in addition to the extreme difficulty that is, is the camera that doesn’t always adequately respond to the bosses’ movements, which makes their attacks difficult to read and can lead to insta-death.
There are a couple of bosses that can be the playthrough breakers and cause even the veteran Tarnished to hang up their weapons and leave the game for good. They lock you in an arena that is too small for their bulk, and continuously push you, without a chance to slow down and breathe. It stands out from the general picture of boss fights of the game, and feels out of place.
The first such boss is the battle behemoth that greets you at the entrance to one of the castles, and it gives you exactly one chance to dodge it after entering the arena. If you hesitate, it’s time to start over. If you dodge successfully, you’ll get a barrage of AoE attacks while being pinned in a tight corner at the entrance. The second boss has similar properties going for him, but the rider sitting on top of him makes everything even worse. If you recall the previous From Software games, it is roughly similar to the fiery bull from Sekiro, which caused me the same feelings. But at least that could be stopped with a prosthesis, while in Elden Ring it’s pure pain.
Talking about the plot can take an entire article of its own, so let’s just go over the surface of what is happening in the DLC. The plot tells about Mikella’s path through the Realm of Shadow in search of gaining divinity. Mikella wants to overthrow the ancient Golden Order and begin an era of prosperity that will have no strife and war. The price, however, is the total control over all living things. We have to follow in Mikella’s footsteps to find and kill him, putting an end to one of the last gods.
The expansion gives answers to some questions that have tormented players even during the base game playthrough. It also tells the story of Mikella’s past and reveals a little bit more of the Furious Flame and the god of Rot. A real gift for the fans of lore, as evidenced by the already released videos on Youtube that go over the new info.
The unexpected travelers that you will meet from time to time are united by their search for Mikella. Sooner or later they find their own goals, and helping them reveals new details of the plot and lore of this world.
To sum it up, Shadow of Erdtree is a great expansion, almost a game within a game, that brings back the feeling of being a pioneer and the joy of overcoming complex challenges. The level design, the soundtrack, the boss battles, even the lore is top-notch once again.
The optimization brings it down a bit, and performance drops noticeably in some spots. Fans of From Software should definitely check out the expansion.
Pros:
- A huge location with advanced verticality
- Boss fights and their difficulty
- Lore expanded
- More weapons, armor and spells
- Dark fantasy aesthetics are on point
Cons:
- Somewhat forced world exploration for the level maximization
- Several boss fights feel out of place
- The camera in some battles goes insane
- Incomprehensible repetition of non-unique bosses from the base game
