Posted by Elden Ring‘s DLC Shadow of the Erdtree has been out for a few weeks now, and while I haven’t fully beaten it yet, I’m super close. So close that I felt like I could finally sit down and share my thoughts on the DLC. I had a great time during my first, and only, playthrough of Elden Ring. I spent over 100 hours running all over the Lands Between killing every single boss, completing as many questlines as possible, and collecting as many items as I could. As of earlier today, I’ve invested a good 50 or so hours into the DLC. It’s a good DLC and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
Elden Ring is not a very story heavy game. There’s a ton of lore and story to be found, but it’s all tucked away in items and the environment and optional dialogue. The same is true of the DLC, but at times the story is more overt. Some character questlines are a lot more linear and straightforward, in part because the DLC is more linear and straightforward. At least to an extent. The central story is that Miquella, one of the only demigods you don’t kill in the base game, traveled to the Land of Shadow and called a band of followers to join him. The player encounters these NPCs and works with them, at least at first. As the DLC progresses, Miquella’s charm over them breaks and their true personalities come out. Some are zealous defenders of Miquella, while others are more sympathetic to your cause: killing Miquella and stopping him from doing whatever it is that he’s doing. The story is fine. Truth be told, Elden Ring isn’t a game I play for the story. I play it for the exploration, aesthetics, and sometimes the combat. So how does the DLC stack up in those regards?
Shadow of the Erdtree is massive. Almost overwhelmingly so. I remember when I first loaded into the new area and opened my map, I was a little disappointed with how small it looked. Then I played more of the DLC, collected more maps, and got a better idea of what I was working with. As I mentioned above, I’ve spent a good 50+ hours in the DLC. That’s more time than I spend in a lot of games. The amount of content in this DLC is incredibly impressive. A common complaint I’ve seen is that a lot of the world feels empty and pointless. I disagree for the most part. One night, I decided to explore an offshoot pathway in the Shadow Keep Legacy Dungeon that led to a winding pathway down a river. The area was far from empty. Sure I wasn’t finding an item every five feet, but I found plenty of Sites of Grace, enemies, an optional boss, a small area with some meaningful items, and a dungeon that led into a whole other area of the game. There’s a lot to do and explore in the Land of Shadow. That being said, some areas can be lackluster, like the Abyssal Woods. Aesthetically, this area is awesome. In terms of gameplay, I spent too much time running around and finding nothing or struggling to find hidden pathways where there might be something. The other issue is that a lot of the items feel randomly placed. Sure there are plenty of weapons, armor, spells, ashes of war, spirit summons, and other consumables that are placed logically, but there’s some serious gameplay whiplash when I find a smithing stone (2) in one room of a dungeon, then I kill the boss and it drops an ancient dragon smithing stone. A lot of the upgrade materials feel really awkwardly and haphazardly placed. It’s not enough to ruin the DLC for me by any means, but I can’t deny that it feels silly at times. That being said, the exploration is easily my favorite part of the DLC. Combing area after area for bosses, items, and secrets is easily some of the most fun and satisfying time I’ve had with the DLC. It’s also crazy to me how much of it is optional. If you just want to beat the DLC, all you actually have to do is kill a measly three bosses. That means the DLC has around 40 optional bosses.
Pivoting to level design, I must say it’s all very well done. The areas feel very distinct, and while there are a lot of castles, castles are pretty cool and each one feels different enough. Some of the smaller ones out in the world feel a little similar, but the Legacy Dungeons all feel different enough. The atmosphere created in some of these locations, such as the Abyssal Woods or the Jagged Peak leading up to Bayle the Dread is absolutely incredible. Aesthetically, the enemies and level design is great. The quality of the content is also a notable step-up when compared with the base game. Catacombs and other dungeons return in the DLC, but they don’t feel like the same basic format of enter dungeon, clear three rooms, pull a lever, backtrack and fight boss. The dungeons are a bit more linear, but they have tons of branching pathways with all sorts of items and secrets tucked away. Some of them, namely the gaols, are very impressive visually. The level of care and quality put into these side dungeons easily puts even the best side dungeon in the base game to shame.
Turning to the combat, and especially the bosses, is where things really get dicey. Combat with basic enemies feels fine. It’s what I expected it to be and doesn’t feel too bad, though there are some places where the enemy placement feels particularly cruel. Bosses are… something. The DLC introduces its own leveling system in the form of Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes, both of which are used to increase your damage and damage reduction and that of your spirit summons respectively. I personally didn’t mind the system, especially because I loved exploring the world so I always felt rewarded when I found them. I can see the complaints that collecting them all to do the DLC is a bit frustrating, and I expect it’ll be tedious when I eventually decide to run around and track down the last few that I’m missing. Returning to the bosses, they’re a mixed bag. Elden Ring is a very fast paced game when compared with its predecessors. While the base game had some tough fights, they all tended to match the player in terms of appropriate speed, damage, and visual flair. The DLC ups the ante to the point that sometimes the game stops being playable. I have not reached the final boss yet, but I’ve heard that he in particular will tank framerates and has some absolutely egregious visual clutter. To put my experiences into perspective, I’ve been playing the DLC on an Xbox Series X and I personally haven’t run into any performance issues. While watching my brother fight Messmer on his Xbox One X, some of Messmer’s attack would cause his framerate to dip, which made the fight a lot harder than it was for me. I have killed every single boss and cleared every dungeon and Legacy Dungeon with the exception of the final boss and Legacy Dungeon. There are a lot of bosses in this DLC. Some of them are fodder like the Demi-Human Queen, some of them are really satisfying like Messmer and Midra, and some of them are comedically awful like Commander Gaius. I’ve beaten all of these bosses with a mix of soloing them myself, using spirit ashes, and using NPC summons. In my opinion, the boss fights is where the DLC falls apart a little bit, and I’ll use Commander Gaius as my example. Commander Gaius is a bad fight. He’s faster than you, absolutely massive, has long sweeping combos with multiple hitboxes that feel unfair to dodge, he has both melee and ranged attacks, he’s relentlessly aggressive, and he has a lot of health. He does everything well and has no weaknesses. He feels unfair to fight because everything about him just feels overtuned. Maybe I fought him too early and I didn’t have enough Scadutree Fragments, but I’d already beaten Messmer so I don’t think my Scadutree level was the problem. A lot of bosses also have objectively broken hitboxes, namely with grab attacks. I am not exaggerating when I say that during my fight with Bayle, he used his grab attack and I dodged out of its visual range so that I was nowhere near him only to watch as my character teleported into the attack and took damage. Grab attacks in particular feel REALLY bad, and most bosses have one, and it’s almost always a one shot. By and large I find the DLC a challenge, but it’s not impossibly difficult like so many people online are making it out to be. That being said, I can’t deny that some fights feel incredibly imbalanced. Also to further contextualize my experience, when I started the DLC I was level 171 playing as an Intelligence sorcery build with the Darkmoon Greatsword. I’ve been able to overcome every challenge the DLC has thrown at me, both on my own and with the help of spirit summons or NPCs.
Shadow of the Erdtree also introduces a ton of new armor, weapons, ashes of war, spirit summons, and crystal tears for the Flask of Wondrous Physick. My build has largely stayed the same, but I have picked up some new spells and weapons that I’m either using now or intend to use down the line, like a staff that scales with both Intelligence and Faith and would allow me to cast both sorceries and incantations. Just like in the base game, some of the new equipment feels really strong while other stuff does not. For example, I bought the spell Fleeting Microcosm from an NPC and it absolutely destroys any enemy that can be staggered relatively easy, especially invader NPCS, but I also used Commander Gaius’ Remembrance to pick up the spell Blades of Stone and its range, damage, casting time, memory slot cost, and FP cost all leave something to be desired. There’s a lot of cool new stuff in the DLC, but there are also a lot of duds.
SPOILERS END
In conclusion, I really do enjoy Shadow of the Erdtree. I think that the exploration and level design is Elden Ring at its best. The open world, side dungeons, and Legacy Dungeons are all incredibly fun to explore. The DLC also introduces some awesome new items that I hope to take advantage of during other playthroughs or with different builds. The bosses are a mixed bag. Some of them feel unfair because the emphasis is placed more on spectacle than on fairness and functionality. As a result, some bosses feel awful to fight. All I have left is the final boss, and I’ve heard he’s one of the worst offenders of artificial difficulty: high damage, overly aggressive, long combos, and absurd visual clutter. Maybe next week I’ll follow up with my thoughts on him, assuming I’m able to beat him. Overall though, Shadow of the Erdtree is a fantastic expansion. It’s more than worth $40 for a pack of content arguably larger than a lot of AAA games.
Broad Scope Entertainment 