ELDEN RING Shadow of the Erdtree is Fromsoftware’s newest piece of DLC for the critically acclaimed game ELDEN RING. The DLC goes into an entirely new area separate from the base game and offers a higher difficulty scaling when compared to the base game. While this may polarize the fanbase due to its difficulty it is a staple part in how Fromsoftware makes DLCs. In regards to the overall feel of the DLC, it fits into the world of the Elden Ring from a story perspective and offers players a deeper look into revealing more of the backstory of the game. Moreover, to access the DLC players will need to defeat Mohg, The Lord of Blood at Mohgwyn palace to even get in.
Gameplay wise the DLC does not add in too much except the addition of some new bosses, sorceries, etc. These new additions to the game while impressive offer a lot more in terms of player agency and control. The increase in player agency comes through in the form of customizability and new quest lines in the DLC that can impact the overall narrative experience. As to delve a bit more into the customizability for the game they added in several new armors, weapons, ashes of war, sorceries, incantations, and talismans. Moreover, these new items provide a fresh breath of air to the game and allow for some impressive visual elements to some attacks. By doing so allows players to think of new builds to play the game with and experiment the new items. Furthermore, these new items might have some weird scaling with one particular sorcery requiring a decently high faith stat. This oddity can be surmised from the lore which the game revolves around greatly. This is even found in how the player interacts with the new buff system in game where players will need to find various Scadutree fragments in order to level up the new system. As for how this focus on lore affects gameplay is that certain quest related characters can aid in fighting various bosses.
This focus on lore is felt throughout this DLC from the environment, regular enemies, and even bosses. Without revealing too many spoilers the new area uncovers some of the backstory on Elden Ring as a whole as to how it became the way it is. The new map can be explored in a couple of hours especially when trying to figure out some of the hidden areas and secrets scattered throughout the map. As for the bosses they all provide a decent challenge and add to the overall story as a whole painting a larger picture as to why Queen Marika made her choices in the story overall. Furthermore, aside from Queen Marika, the story for the DLC revolves around Miquella one of the children of Queen Marika as the player interacts with a bunch of their followers willing or otherwise. These followers can be talked to and interacted with like any other non-player character and some can be summoned for certain boss fights. This makes player interaction feel a lot better from a story telling perspective allowing the player to feel like they are apart of something greater. Furthermore, this approach to storytelling on FromSoftware’s part feels like they have improved on the quality of their writing allowing for more interactivity.
With ELDEN RING Shadow of the Erdtree is a difficult DLC and its good that it is locked behind a decently difficult boss for a good reason as to let the players know that this area is going to be difficult. The gameplay while remaining the same offers players new strategies to utilize in their fight to become Elden Lord. Furthermore, it provides player with a new way on how to interact with exploration by placing various key items throughout the world that buff the player. However, this DLC is very lore focused and fits in with the rest of the game itself while also expanding upon it filling in some of the gaps players have had questions to. FromSoftware has done a wonderful job in making this DLC and with the length of the development cycle has made the game worth the wait making it a solid 10/10.
NOTE: The following is the ELDEN RING Shadow of the Erdtree blurb for PS5 from Nick Navarro:
Jumping back into the world of ELDEN RING was an amazing but troublesome adjustment. “Shadow of the Erdtree” is a substantially large piece of DLC and it’s more of what all fans love. Since I hadn’t played in quite a while I was rather rusty and took me a while to get my sea legs to be worthy enough to battle the new bosses that were in store for me. The internet got upset at how difficult the game was, while it very much is, it’s of course supposed to be. The trick is to actually explore the map and get your character stronger before just going gung-ho and fighting one boss after the next. The set pieces and new characters are absolutely jaw-droppingly gorgeous and the many of the bosses are exceptionally memorable. While this DLC is just more of what we got, what we got originally was a masterpiece and this just further solidifies that.
Related: Reviews by Kyle Manila
I would describe myself when interacting with games as a strategist with a pension for stealth and loud explosions.
Gaming since I was given an original Nintendo as a kid. I love great storytelling and unique ingenuity. When both collide in a single game, I'm a happy gamer. Twitter/IG @NickNavarro87
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