Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Review

Played on Xbox Series X

Developed by FromSoftware

Released 21st June 2024

At the time of writing this, The Game Awards is yet to happen and I am fully aware that this DLC got nominated for Game of the Year. Am I late to the party by only just playing and reviewing this now? Yep, but I still want to give my thoughts on it given just how much of a sucker I am for FromSoftware's games. Announced back in February of 2023, everybody was excited about what FromSoftware would cook up for 2022's Game of the Year winner, especially as they needed to uphold their track record of releasing expansions several leagues above the base game. For this DLC, there is a total of 8 new Weapon categories, 70 new Weapons, 10 new Shields, 39 new Talismans, 14 new Sorceries, 28 new Incantations, 20 new Spirit Ashes, 25 new Ashes of War, 30 new Armor Sets and 83 new bosses spread across a gigantic new map that spans 13 new areas. If you can't tell, 'Shadow of the Erdtree' is large enough to count as a whole new game, an 'Elden Ring' sequel of sorts, and is why it has been nominated as Game of the Year by The Game Awards. Even though I can't entirely agree with this judgement, I cannot deny that 'Shadow of the Erdtree' came out swinging and very much satisfied many of us players, to the point that I've played it 3 times since its release.

Story

The story of this expansion takes place within the Land of Shadow, where you, the Tarnished, follow the footsteps of Miquella and their supposed abduction, thwarting any plans they had to ascend to godhood. With the base game's great world structure, it felt surprising to find out that George R.R. Martin (the author of the books that would later be adapted into Game of Thrones) didn't write any new foundations of lore, but instead, Miyazaki and his team took part of his mythos they hadn't yet touched, and they explored in that direction. This makes the story of the base game feel more whole and complete, and to continue off that epic fantasy that 'Elden Ring' had built up in such a nuanced fashion is a guaranteed success.

The whole DLC does feel slightly underwhelming compared to the base game as it feels like not much happens narratively and the lore behind the NPCs, bosses and more don't have as intriguing backgrounds as I found the base game to have. Still great, but not what I anticipated. The cryptic yet straightforward approach in storytelling is still present and fun, but at times I didn't completely connect with it as I didn't have much to latch onto it outside of Miquella "not being who they seem to be", which is basically the entire plot of this DLC and you can decipher the rest within the first 10 minutes of talking to NPCs. These issues are nothing but nitpicks on a world and story that is absolutely fantastical to immersive yourself into, but I still feel like I should mention it so that the DLC, or at least the story, doesn't come across as "perfect" - because it isn't. Not everyone will be as compelled to pursue Miquella while some will absolutely love it, and I'm a clear example of the former.

Gameplay

The gameplay is (unsurprisingly) no different from the base game - light attack, heavy attack, powerstancing, rolling, summoning and riding your horse Torrent, using flasks, using spells, crafting consumables, etc. However, a big thing with 'Elden Ring' is the almost overwhelming amount of versatility you can have in your build choices, where you can play any character with any playstyle you want and this DLC accommodates this. As mentioned, this DLC adds a lot of new weapons and armour sets and the nice thing about this game's range of options is that despite my choice in builds being tailored more towards Strength or Faith, I was still able to interact with most of the items you can discover in the expansion as the usage requirements were low enough for such. The better part is how they're all so amazing and fun to use, showing that FromSoftware can hold itself up to the very high bar they set for themselves 2 years prior. Whether it was investing in martial art Hand-to-Hand combat, playing around with weaponised Perfume Bottles, or a katana of darkness, they essientally opened up a whole new realm of possibilities in how you want to play around in 'Elden Ring'.

Unfortunately, the exploration part of the game didn't receive as much of this love as I found it to be significantly less magical and less enticing than before. It might be because my fill for exploring was satisfied with the base game, or because the areas aren't designed as well as before. What I mean by this is how there are so many more empty areas with little to do in them; husks of what could've been, and while the beauty of some of these areas can be enough to entice you to explore them, the fact that only a mediocre field boss or an entrance to an underwhelming dungeon occupy such large portions of these areas is what created this distaste in adventure that the base game was able to successfully cultivate. Exploring them is still fun, but just nowhere near the degree it was supposed to be. Also, Abyssal Forest had such a cool concept and a disappointing execution.

For the enemy design, FromSoftware continues their streak of well-designed enemies with awesome, yet annoyingly difficult, movesets that simultaneously feel like a skill check and a big middle finger to your progress, which is what so many people, myself included, love about their enemy designs.

As for the biggest addition to the DLC, the Scadutree fragments have divided people quite a bit. To explain, as you traverse the Land of Shadow, you'll find these consumables called Scadutree fragments which increase your health, defences, damage etc, by a multiplier effect, with max Scadutree fragment level leading to a 2x increase. On one hand, it serves as the perfect balancing option for players having over levelled in preparation for the DLC, as plenty of the enemies and bosses here have been drastically scaled upwards in terms of health and damage and the Scadutree fragments help get you onto their level and negate their overinflated stats. On the other hand, having to scour across the whole map to find these fragments just to have a chance against the already difficult bosses and to have a slither of a better chance to survive their near-one-shot hits feels like tedium at its worst, creating a time-consuming cycle that can break up the momentum of discovering one area as you're forced to abandon it and find someplace else. I understand both arguments but I'm all for the Scadutree implementation as it encouraged that sense of exploring and finding new ways of getting stronger, no different than the base game did when you entered an over levelled area. Is it less creative and fun than finding new gear or levelling your stats individually? Yes. Is it annoying on replays to have to search for them all again? Yes. Is it a bad system? Definitely not, and is the best possible system they could've implemented for something like 'Elden Ring' where the difficulty feels so fluctuating.

Bossfights

The bossfights here are amazing, but they don't live up to the base game's quality in either lore, design or gameplay. In my 'Elden Ring' review, I separated the section into field bosses and the Remembrance (main) bosses as they felt so drastically different. Here, I'll mainly focus on the Remembrance bosses as they're definitely the highlight, but I will still acknowledge the field bosses to a certain degree. As I said, the bossfights don't meet the standard set before. They're not bad encounters and are still definitely entertaining in their own right, but they don't satisfy that FromSoftware ingenuity, being more on par with bossfights from other Souls-likes.

Divine Beast Dancing Lion, Rellana and Messmer are impeccable fights that achieved that aforementioned greatness, feeling like a song-and-dance duel between them and their erratic yet controlled strikes. Other bosses felt overwhelmingly lacklustre as their designs and arenas are simply gorgeous, and have lore that made me giddy upon arrival to their arenas, but then the actual fight was so "standard" and didn't really do much for me in terms of quenching my prior excitement: Midra, Metyr, Putrescent Knight are all offenders of this. The best boss was easily Bayle the Dread, to summarise: cool ass dragon known as the embodiment of evil that shoots lasers and thunder and is balanced to be difficult but fun and has an attached sidequest that makes fighting him feel even more exhilarating. Then you have the poorly-designed hitbox bosses like Commander Gaius and Radahn.

Oh boy, Radahn. Having defeated him pre-nerf feels like a badge of honour greater than a medal given for active military service. This boss feels so conflicting as even though the lore here is great, the design is great and most of the attacks are great, the poorly made hitboxes and that god-forbidden second phase steal so much of the joy this boss fight could've given people. My main complaint with Malenia was that she has too much utility for a boss of that calibre and while it may seem like Radahn has the same issue, he doesn't. Instead of having a combo of regenerating health, scarlet rot, a near-indefensible special move, hyperarmour etc; he kind of just swings his greatswords around. Outside of the gravity magic seen in the base game and one blood flame attack, he doesn't have too much to berate you with, but his speed and power make this fight so fun. At least until phase 2 hits. Miquella's lasers from space heaven or whatever make all of his previously fun attacks just annoying and turn this marathon-paced fight into another marathon where you need to sprint like a damn gazelle if you want to make it out alive. These secondary hits cross into "too much utility" territory. I hate how this ultimately ruins an otherwise impeccable finale to the DLC with his design clearly being made for difficulty's sake rather than enjoyability.

As for the field bosses, I prefer them greatly more than the base games as they felt more refreshing and less repetitive given how the expansion is smaller in scale and so the need to copy and paste these bosses (and remove their specialness) was in lesser demand.

Characters

I found the characters of the DLC to be a big step down compared to the base game. While 'Elden Ring' housed some of the better-written characters in FromSoftware's portfolio of NPCs, 'Shadow of the Erdtree' barely has any compelling characters. There's Igon who's an exception to this due to voice actor Richard Lintern's impeccable emotion and performance, and the overall grandness that Igon builds for the Bayle the Dread boss fight, but outside of this, there isn't anyone else. Dryleaf Dane was cool (I guess) with the martial arts but failed to deliver in any other aspect of his character. Moore was interesting for the 5 lines of dialogue he had, Count Ymir got progressively less interesting as his quest went on, and the rest of the characters simply didn't do enough to be remembered. The side quests, dialogue, design or flair of their caricature just don't feel as diverse and developed as the base game had, making my time with the characters quite lacklustre.

Atmosphere

The atmosphere is brilliant. It's no surprise that FromSoftware offers some of the best soundtracks out there with these beautiful war anthems backed by an orchestra or choir. And in the spirit of the base game having a wonderfully diverse map, this expansion continues so in as great of a way. Despite the emptiness in some areas, they did an amazing job having so many different ecosystems of areas that all feel unique, yet a part of the same cohesive world. The Cerulean Coast's mesmerising layout of its blues, the raw harshness of the Jagged Peak, the heavenly-plagued Enir-Ilim; so many of these areas offer that awing moment of just looking at its design and being optically transcended.

Story - 7.5/10

Gameplay - 8.5/10

Bossfights - 7.5/10

Characters - 6.5/10

Atmosphere - 9.5/10

Great

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