Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC evaluation – the king of Soulslikes

It’s not easy coming back to Elden Ring after two years away. Like many that completed the original we started a New Game+ and played only a few hours of that before finally moving onto other games. Then we realised in a panic, that to start this long-awaited expansion we’d need access to the domain of Mohg, Lord of Blood, which takes a considerable amount of time and effort to reach, even the second time around.

With most other games we’d have resented the restrictive requirements, and the thought of having to fight through tough bosses all over again, but we can’t pretend we didn’t enjoy every moment of it. Apart from anything, it was good practice for not only re-familiarising ourselves with the controls but the game’s unyielding attitude.

We started Shadow Of The Erdtree with a sturdy level 178 character, who had no trouble beating existing bosses a second time in New Game+. However, the moment we came across a new enemy in the expansion we were immediately confounded and died again, and again, and again, until they were beaten. Which was marvellous.

Although the term is relative when talking about FromSoftware games, Elden Ring is widely considered the easiest of their recent titles. But with DLC like this they no doubt feel that they’re dealing with a more hardcore audience. Even so, its difficulty is hard to quantify, as there’s no way to know what level character people might be playing with (although you’d imagine around 100 to get as far as Mohg) and right from the start the enemies range greatly in terms of their robustness.

A lot of the more minor opponents are pure cannon fodder (even though we still ended up getting killed by a dog the minute we started getting cocky) and yet many of the new enemies are extremely difficult, like the dancing grotesque that pounces on you as soon as you enter the new Land of Shadow.

The first mini-dungeon is very easy to find and is clearly meant as a statement of just how difficult the expansion can get, as its machinegun-owning occupant shoots you down with disarming ease. We quickly retreated outside, only to run into a giant walking brazier (of the sort that you can see in the trailers) that shoots colossal chunks of molten fire at you from miles away.

Take everything slowly and sensibly though and you can start to pick up the many new items the expansion introduces, including several new weapon types, such as thrusting shields, perfume bottles, great katanas, and martial arts. There are new spells (the new Heal from Afar is very handy for anyone wanting to play the part of healer in co-op), new skills, and new Ashes of War – as well as new talismans and new crystal tears for the Flask of Wondrous Physick.

Most people playing the expansion have probably already maxed out their health flasks and other upgrades, but the Land of Shadow provides new collectables which can increase your damage and defence, and that of your Spirit Ashes, but which has no effect when you’re back in the Lands Between.

The occasional cut scene gives a vague sense of what’s driving the story, which involves the Golden Order trying to purge the original inhabitants of the world, but as usual for From the details can only be discerned from reading item descriptions, which, also as usual, are purposefully ambiguous.

However, there are a number of friendly new characters who are attempting to do the godlike Miquella’s bidding, following his golden signs across the landscape to try and discover where he’s gone. Most have a quest associated with them, as they perform a similar to role to the characters in the Roundtable Hold, but there’s lots of other strange and dangerous sorts too, including dragon worshippers and Lovecraftian style cultists.

As well as the new open world area and many smaller, optional dungeons there are also three new legacy dungeons, which are the equivalent of something like Stormveil Castle in the main game. The level design for these is excellent, with one particularly clever one having multiple entrances so that it feels very non-linear – From games are often compared to Castlevania but this is perhaps the closest they’ve come yet.

The only real disappointment is that rather than fixing the glitch where it takes an extra second for ground textures to load in, once you respawn, it seems to take even longer now. We’re also confused as to whether the game even tells you what to do to start the expansion. We got a PR message when we started, so maybe in the final release that will change to an explanation that you need to defeat Mohg, but otherwise nothing else tells you where to go or why.

You could argue that Shadow Of The Erdtree doesn’t introduce anything substantially new but there are far more new weapon types, and weird new items, than you’d normally expect for a mere expansion. Although it’s hard to tell for sure, the map feels like roughly a fifth the size of the main game – which is exactly what From promised.

Wild invention is not something you would ever reasonably expect from an expansion, but this goes above and beyond in terms of the sheer amount of content and the size of the map. There are dozens of new enemies and bosses, and all are exactly as well designed as you’d expect of From.

Shadow Of The Erdtree offers few hints about From’s future but it does cement the fact that they’re currently at the very top of their game and it’s difficult to see how they’ll ever top the monumental achievement that Elden Ring has now become.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £34.99
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Developer: FromSoftware
Release Date: 21st June 2024
Age Rating: 16