Ah yes, it’s that time again is it? Time for all of us to collectively bang our heads against the same wall with one half peering at the other and whispering the same old catch phrase: “git gud”. It’s been almost 2 years since I closed the books on original playthrough of Elden Ring, something I both loathed and enjoyed as I was playing my way through it. I wasn’t sure if the DLC was going to capture my attention in much the same way as coming back to games after such a long hiatus is always a trepidatious affair for me. After shaking off the cobwebs, getting bodied by regular mobs and doing my usual refresher on the Fextralife wiki I was back baby, ready to soak myself in this world once again. Whilst I may have ended my journey somewhat unceremoniously, more on that in a bit, I still think Shadow of Erdtree adds a lot to the world of Elden Ring. It’s a shame that this is going to be the only DLC for the game as honestly the world still feels like it has a lot more to give.
Taking place around the mid-way point in your original Elden Ring journey Shadow of the Erdtree sees you embark on a journey to the Lands of Shadow after you defeat Mohg, Lord of Blood. He had been keeping his half-brother, Miquella, trapped in his palace in the hopes of ascending him to godhood and becoming his king consort. Upon Mohg’s defeat however you’re greeted by Needle Knight Leda, a devout follower of her Kindly Miquella. She asks if you’re another one of the faithful, following Miquella on his journey to cast off his empyrean lineage and bring about another age of abundance. Should you wish to join her on this quest all you need do is touch Kindly Miquella’s arm and venture forth into the land of shadow.
Elden Ring looks the same as it did before with the new environments feeling familiar yet distinct from their Lands Between counterparts. I had some…weird issues when I first spun it up as, for some reason, it was playing in full glorious widescreen mode for a time. This seemed to be accompanied by some substantial performance issues though and eventually the game righted itself by reverting back to the standard constrained view you see here. It’s a shame really as the game looked amazing in full widescreen mode, something I wanted to keep until I realised I was risking getting banned from online play if I attempted some of the solutions out there. I can’t really imagine the reason FromSoftware has for doing this but if they haven’t changed it by now they never will.
Shadow of the Erdtree is very much the same experience as the base game save for a few key differences. To be sure there’s new weapon classes, spells, items and all the usual stuff you’d expect to see in an expansion like this, enough to give you endless builds to theorycraft and test for endless hours should you wish. The only fundamental difference between the two comes from the use of Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes. In essence everything in the Lands of Shadow hits far, far harder than anything in the base game which means you’re probably going to be floored by base enemies right from the start. However these fragments increase your damage and resistances by a flat amount, allowing you more easily go toe to toe with them.
This is what led many to complain about the apparent spike in difficulty that the game seemingly throws at you right off the bat, something that definitely came as a shock to many players. However, depending on how you feel about “cheesing” games like this, it’s something that’s pretty easily remedied by simply gathering all the fragments you can before you start the game in earnest. I snagged about 10 of the bastards before I really began and found that was a pretty happy medium between outright exploiting the system and providing some challenge.
I was pleasantly surprised that my current build was still extremely viable, given how much I’d read about most of the standard game elements not holding a candle to their DLC brethren. To be sure there’s a number of wonderfully broken builds available to you, many of which have been enabled by interactions that likely weren’t 100% intended by the developers. But you shouldn’t be rushing to change your build unnecessarily as, if you’re like me, you’ve got a lot of muscle memory built up in your preferred build and that’s a lot more valuable than potentially one-shotting a particular boss using the meme build of the day.
Shadow of the Erdtree feels a lot more linear in its construction, to the point where I didn’t feel the need to consult a guide too often about where I should be focusing my attention next in order to progress the story. Indeed most of the time I was usually looking up how to get to places for a particular item that I wanted to get as when it came time to track down the next campaign boss I was usually only a short distance away from them. Of course there’s numerous areas to explore that are off the beaten course and you could easily spend double the time I did in the game just exploring them all.
I will admit to losing all my steam for the DLC when I got to the final boss. Up until that point I felt like the game and I were on the same wavelength: there were bosses I was 100% prepared for and others I wasn’t. For the latter, like Mesmer, I’d jump out of the fight for a couple hours to grind up some levels, maybe chase a few more scadutree fragments, and come back to a fight that was much more approachable. The last boss though? It’s clear I was nowhere near where I needed to be and reading the forums on it showed I was chronically under levelled for it. So with the prospect of having to farm for many hours to get where I needed to be to beat the fight I gave up, leaving it as a challenge undone. Will I ever go back to it? Maybe, but honestly when guides on the boss are telling you to backup saves just so you can try out dozens of builds on him I get the feeling that the challenge is for a type of person that just isn’t me anymore.
I will say though that going back through the base game, freshly imbued with dozens more levels in me, to get some key items was definitely one of the more enjoyable parts of my Shadow of the Erdtree experience. There were a couple sections I simply didn’t go to during my initial run (Volcano Manor was one) and absolutely breezing through them was definitely a lot of fun.
The story is, as it always is, somewhat vague with the real meat of it hidden in the flavour text of spells, weapons and other items. To be sure though I’ve enjoyed trawling through the wiki’s, watching lore videos and just generally trying to understand what the hell was actually going on with everyone involved in this story. I did make a point of doing more of the quests this time around which definitely gave the world a bit more colour than it did last time around. I can easily see how this wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, however.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is exactly what everyone was wanting: more of the same, but just different enough to keep us all interested. There might be some polish here and there that comes over the coming months but, largely, I think they’ve got everything right with this expansion. Like last time though I don’t think I’ll be going back as I’m happy with where I got to and I don’t feel the need to achieve anything more in the game. It is a shame that this is likely the only DLC we’ll ever get but, hopefully, that means another genre defining soulsborne title is on its way.
Rating: 9.5/10
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC right now for $59.99. Game was played on the PC with a total playtime of 19.8 hours, bringing the total playtime in Elden Ring to 74.8 hours and 69% of the achievements unlocked.
