So, this is it. Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is finally out. Well, what’s the verdict? Is it good? Bad? Horrible, even? The results may surprise you. It’s time to take a look at what makes one of FromSoftware’s best Soulslike titles “tick” as we delve deeper into the shadows.
STORY
Delving deeper into the greater depths of Elden Ring’s already extensive story, developing upon that and keeping it on the same level as the base game is not an easy feat. The story kicks off from a section of where it left off, centering around the elusive Miquella, as well as his demigod half-brothers Radahn and Mogh.
To access the DLC in the first place, the player must have first beaten both Radahn and Mohg prior. This is due to the fact that they are, by extension, connected to Shadow of the Erdtree’s main narrative through Miquella.
The Tarnished must then navigate to the Cocoon of the Empyrean grace site where Miquella’s body resides, placed within what looks like an egg. A knight would already be waiting next to the cocoon for you to interact with. This is what she has to say:
“Ahh, were you guided here by Kindly Miquella? I am Leda, and like you, I was guided by faith along his honorable path. Touch the withered arm, and you too will be transported. To the realm of shadow, where Miquella the Kind now dwells.”
This dialogue briefly hints to the player their goal. The main objective is to pursue after Miquella through his “footsteps” laid out for you within the realm of shadow. Upon following her instructions, you would then be warped into the realm and free to do as you wish within the new, open-world setting.
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay in Shadow of the Erdtree can only be described as stellar. The visuals, sound effects, boss designs, weapon designs, spell designs… you name it. Everything was done insanely well, and feels and looks incredible.
Not only that, but the DLC map is almost unfathomably large. To put it into scale, the size of the map, while clearly smaller than the base game, can be its own game in itself. The original map was huge, and this one is still vastly large.
There are lots of twists and secret areas along the map that you may find yourself a bit of trouble figuring out, but nothing too drastic that might leave you scratching your head for long. At worst, you might have to look up one or two locations if they’re really giving you trouble to find, but for the main story bosses and where you have to go, it feels way more straightforward than some of the optional, more hidden bosses.
The music is just about as theatrical and awe-inspiring as the main game, if not more in some cases. Some of the original soundtracks are downright atmospheric within certain areas, giving you the exact perfect feel for what it’s trying to invoke within the player. Whether it’s fear, courage, haste, or even cheerfulness, the game has it all and certainly did not disappoint there.
The elephant in the room, however, are the ranging performance issues for the PC release and the difficulty regarding it all. Speaking from experience, I used to run the game on max graphical settings during the base game’s launch with no issues, although had to lower my settings for the first time in order to run the DLC properly.
In FromSoftware’s defense, it only spent two years developing Shadow of the Erdtree compared to the five years spent on the base game, a comparison that might be concerning or self-explanatory for why the DLC might have some issues.
On the bright side, it doesn’t entirely hinder the experience for most players that could have ran the base game just fine with the recommended specs — in other words, it’s not an immediate deal-breaker. You may have to tweak some of your graphical settings a bit lower to accommodate for your hardware, or you may run the game just fine and have no issues whatsoever.
Despite my own experience of having a clean run during launch for the base game, people have complained in the past about the game’s performance during that period as well, so it’s nothing new. To fix this, the game went through numerous patches within the timespan of the initial release in 2022 to the DLC as of recent. Many tweaks and optimizations were made within that time, so it’s fair to think that they will inevitably do the same with Shadow of the Erdtree eventually.
Difficulty-wise, though? That may be a tough pill to swallow. As someone who’s played Souls games for about a decade by now… yeah, Shadow of the Erdtree on release was tough. The difficulty complaints would have been unwarranted for the base game that was much more heavily balanced, and only needed a few changes. But for the DLC, it’s another thing outright. Simply put, it is hard. To place a measure on how hard it is compared to the base game would be a slightly troublesome task.
To put it this way, for players with a standard build; no heavy armor, just medium and a sufficient amount of points in vigor (health) — you already run the risk of being “three-shotted” by just a regular enemy. Not necessarily a boss, mind you, but a regular enemy you might find in any of the areas you explore as long as they have the proper capacity for fighting, weapon or not.
This was never a problem in the base game, unless you entered into an area you weren’t supposed to go to yet, which the open-world nature of Elden Ring gave free liberty on. With Shadow of the Erdtree, it’s prevalent in almost every area… but with a catch.
The developers may have realized this in advance, because there’s actually a mechanic within the DLC itself to reduce the already harsh difficulty, as comically as that sounds. These come in the form of Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes. These are collectibles that you can find within the Land of Shadow that, upon resting at any site of grace, can be utilized and activated.
For the former, it increases the damage you deal and reduces the damage you receive. And for the latter, it has the same effect for any spirits you summon. To cut a long story short, they assist the player with the infamous difficulty problem the more the player collects and activates them both throughout their journey.
While the blessings do help, they do not in fact remove the difficulty problem altogether, yet some is often considered better than none. It may be a controversial system, all things considered… but the option is there for the player to choose to use or not.
CRITICISMS
Returning to the main drawbacks mentioned, the cons for the DLC aren’t that many in number, but the significance of them leaves much to be desired.
For the difficulty, FromSoftware has not been that unkind in the past to not nerf things they deemed unfit against the player. Even major aspects of the game like bosses such as Starscourge Radahn for instance have been nerfed in the past before. It’s not to say that nerfing the DLC that many have waited so long for is the only solution to the problem, but it is a direct one.
The base game bosses for Elden Ring have been said to be overtuned compared to other Souls titles before, even by veterans of the genre. This was never an unpopular opinion, but a new one for Shadow of the Erdtree may be that they took the overtuning “too far.” This is basically to say that the bosses in Shadow of the Erdtree can feel like they leave little to no openings at times for players to reasonably attack, and then dodge away before the next enemy attack comes if needed.
This can be an immense problem as, even if the attack patterns for a boss are learned, it just becomes tedious and a potentially overwhelming task to find tiny frame windows where you can safely sneak an attack in without risking damage during each and every interaction. The fault would then not be on the player, but the design of the bosses themselves and how much room they leave for human error.
As previously referenced, the game has always had solutions for immense difficulty in multiplayer summons and spirit summons. But the underlying problem is that these do not immediately hotfix or remedy the situation in most cases, unless you have your build specifically tuned to face a boss or something of the sort.
Most players will be fairly casual with this regard, and may only fine tune a few components on their build if needed for a boss fight rather than change the entire thing just for one boss, especially when there are plenty others to face as well.
For the story, it’s very elaborate and not simply laid out for you like always. You have to piece together details through questlines, item descriptions, lines of dialogue spoken, and so on. This is just in the usual Soulslike fashion by FromSoft, it’s nothing new in how they deliver this.
What the story is sorely lacking this time around for the DLC however would be a proper, conclusive end that rivals, or even surpasses the one found in the base game. This is meant to be the only expansion for Elden Ring, where FromSoftware most likely will be moving on to other projects after this.
A lot of people, including myself, have claimed that upon finishing the final boss of the DLC, it just doesn’t do that for them. It doesn’t give that feeling of finality, a great end… but rather something missing from that.
Whether intentional or not, it’s a valid fault that needs to be taken into account, despite it potentially being subjective due to just being about the story. Some people might like it, others may not… but the most positive thing I can conclusively say about it is that it adds to the game’s already expansive lore and makes it something that fans can speculate about for many years to come.
SUMMARY
Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC expansion is nothing short of superb. The game showcases a wide variety of everything, inclusive of adding new characters, areas, weapons, spells and more for the Tarnished to utilize in their journey. Its features rival and sometimes even dwarf aspects of the base game, but the same can be said in the inverse. At launch, there are major issues with regards to the difficulty and performance of the expansion, but these problems are likely to be addressed and fixed appropriately within the future.
The story for the DLC is a bit underwhelming, but it does still tie into the overall narrative of the game nicely, even though the base story could be considered much better in being more comprehensive and well grounded.
Nevertheless, it’s definitely worth giving a try even if you’re unfamiliar with the Soulslike genre, and even more worth it if you’re familiar with the genre based on just the sheer amount of extra content it provides in addition to the base game already. It leaves no shortage of activities, where everything can be considered a new experience and at times challenge to test your abilities. And while the base game is without a doubt a 10, I would have to settle on giving Shadow of the Erdtree something lower for its flaws, but otherwise fantastic execution.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is out now for PC, priced at $39.99. It is available for purchase on Steam. The DLC is also available on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One.
The Review
Superb
