It’s a magnificent piece of art, and does exactly what a DLC should do: accents the main game without feeling out of balance with the original’s level of flash, flair and creativity...The characters, landscapes and goals are all impactful in the right way, and truly there’s no other DLC in recent memory that has captured that essence. Devotees of Elden Ring will adore it, and who knows: maybe it will be just the right incentive for folks who haven’t finished the main game to get their characters into gear.
Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree is absolutely worth the cost of its significantly difficult entry point. When exploring the vast reaches of the Shadow Realm, it is impossible to deny how FromSoftware managed to capitalize on Elden Ring‘s immense thrill of discovery and challenge. Shadow of the Erdtree is a full expansion of the masterful vision that represents the culmination of the developer’s work, one that raises the standard even higher, one that feels unimaginable to best. But if there’s studio that can do it, it’s the one who made Elden Ring.
One of the best expansions I ever playedThis makesThe game I love how they made the world of this expansion still haven't beat it yet but I'm loving every minute of it. It's beautiful atmosphere and it really expands on the story and puts the story a little bit more together also it helps you understand the whole picture a little bit more.
Shadow of the Tree is a real game in its own right, generous, powerful, with almost perfect execution. It manages to completely separate itself from Elden Ring, with an identity of its own and an extremely careful atmosphere. Despite a somewhat "light" ending and a slight imbalance in terms of bosses, we emerge from this adventure with a feeling of exhilaration specific to great journeys. Yet another monument to be added to the long list of From Software masterpieces, a delight of incredible violence, a definitely enchanting journey. Masterful!
Beware a big bump in difficulty, but Shadow of the Erdtree is a must-play for Elden Ring-fans. It improves on the base game in every way. The new Lands of Shadow are beautiful and a joy to explore, there are a lot of exciting new weapons and spells to find, and the new boss fights are absolutely epic.
This is a jewel of a response, one that catches the firelight in different ways depending on how you approach it, but always dazzles. [Issue#400, p.102]
Shadow of the Erdtree is more about adding a bit of spice to a perfect recipe than a different main course, though the portions will sure have players fooled, as they tack another few dozen hours onto Elden Ring’s already enormous playtime.
By doubling down on what made the base game so sublime, FromSoftware has crafted an Elden Ring expansion that's just as great as it is familiar. Shadow of the Erdtree delivers more of the same style of content you loved two years ago rather than introducing new ways to engage. That's enough to consider it a fantastic expansion, though it's hard not to feel like you're just going through the motions again. With a new land to explore, a fresh set of bosses to fight, and extra lore to consume, it's so much more Elden Ring.
A fantastic DLC to a great game. The world building, art direction, level design, and boss design are all top notch. Just like the base game, the world here is full of jaw dropping locations that will take your breath away. The gargantuan scale of many of the areas is matched by the brilliant level design which emphasizes verticality and rewards exploring off the beaten path through hidden entrances to new areas that can only be accessed as a result of thorough exploration. Shadow Keep in particular is one of the most spectacular levels I have ever seen in a video game with its foreboding visual design, masterful use of environmental storytelling, and sprawling non linearity. The only criticism I could make of the world design is that the methods to access certain areas sometimes feel too far off the beaten path to the point where they are way too unintuitive for the player to find on their own without looking up a guide. The overall boss roster in this DLC is exceptional. While there are certainly some stinker bosses which are not at all fun to learn, most of the main story bosses are among the finest of any of FromSoft’s work. Many of them have great build up through the levels preceding them, a learning curve that is very steep but fair for the player to get better at, and unforgettable visual spectacle that is incredible to behold. I would also be remiss if I didn’t make mention of the absolutely phenomenal soundtrack for the boss fights that does wonders to heighten the adrenaline fueled intensity of many of the boss encounters. The boss fights are also complimented well by the various new effective weapons, Ashes of War, and Talismans which give the player many viable options to deal with the at times overwhelming challenge posed by the boss fights. Overall, if you enjoyed Elden Ring’s base game, you will undoubtedly love this DLC. It has taken everything great about the base game and amplified it to 11. I personally could not ask for a better expansion.
The DLC starts out well enough but that excitement slowly whimpers out and dies. The bosses aren’t all that fun to fight and it has little to do with artificial difficulty or the fragment system. So many of them just feel so uninspired or copies of previous bosses we’ve seen in the past. The locations are pretty albeit empty and devoid of anything interesting enough to justify exploration. The world map doesn’t help either, the current system not supporting areas with multiple layers of verticality. So many areas and bosses feel like they have so much to offer at first but are often shallow and making you wish for it to just be over already.
Jogo excelente, maravilhoso, muito gostoso de jogar. Mas infelizmente perdi a vontade de continuar. Estou no último boss e o desafio é totalmente bizarro, não há outra palavra para definir aquela aberração, parece que hoje em dia o objetivo dos desenvolvedores é fazer jogos cada vez mais difíceis e deixar de lado a diversão. Podem dizer o que quiserem mas aquele último boss não é justo nem um pouco, passei por todos os outros, sem maiores dificuldades, não digo que foi fácil, mas pelo menos foi justo, até mesmo o gaius, que é o pior boss que já tiveram a capacidade de criar, mas ainda assim foi uma luta justa. E eu não vejo como isso pode satisfazer as pessoas, vejo videos no youtube de pessoas extremamente estressadas por causa do jogo, tudo bem que se sentem aliviadas e até felizes depois que passam um desafio, mas a quantidade de sofrimento que têm que passar para se alcançar esse objetivo é gigante. Eu falo por mim mesmo, quando a dificuldade é exagerada como é o caso desse último boss, eu não sinto nem um pingo de prazer ou satisfação em completar o objetivo, morrer 100, 200, 300 vezes para um boss não é o que eu consideraria diversão. Acredito que os desenvolvedores deveriam repensar seus conceitos e talvez se lembrem que games foram inventados para distrair, dar prazer e alegria, na minha opinião esqueceram completamente o que é isso. E digo mais, posso até tentar finalizar o jogo, se o fizer, quero tentar sem driblar a dificuldade do jogo, sem usar glitchs, invocações, magias, magos... pois jogo apenas com um tipo de build sempre, dex e não vou usar nada além das cinzas de guerra para vencer, mas podem ter certeza que nunca mais jogo ele e com toda certeza não vou me sentir nem um pouco feliz, ele apenas vai entrar para minha lista de jogos que finalizei, o jogo base era e foi justo, a dlc com seu boss final não tem nada de justiça. Tenho 40 anos e estou velho demais para ficar me estressando com uma coisa que deveria me proporcionar bem estar e satisfação.
Ps: as lutas contra a Rellana e o Messmer, além de serem justas foram as melhores lutas da dlc, mesmo com algumas hit box toscas. A movimentação dos dois é maravilhosa, uma das coisas que mais me impressionaram em elden ring foi a movimentação, muitas vezes é simplesmente maravilhoso ver a fluidez de movimentos. É estonteante.
Please, just a remake of Bloodborne.
Don't touch Bloodborne otherwise.
We (and by "we" I mean "I" ) don't need a Bloodborne 2 with the current design direction.
Great world building. Great artistic direction.
Extremely unfun bosses, copypasted general characteristics with just the animations to differentiate one from another.
The description "High Health, High Damage, Immune to stagger, Huge posture bars, long combos, constant aoe attacks, very little windup animations OR extremely delayed attacks (no middle ground ) , attacking through blinding effects" applies to a great number of them. I could be literally describing any one of more than ten bosses. You are replaying the same idea over and over and over, and only differentiate animations.
Please, please, never return to Bloodborne. Just a remake of the original masterpiece will suffice.
Maybe I'm just burnt out on the formula -- I've been a big fan since Demon's Souls -- but I struggled to enjoy my time with this DLC. It slots into the base game perhaps a bit too well, in that it's chock full of huge grassy fields of nameless tombstones and ghostly enemies, and not much else. I couldn't help but feel reminded about how the final few areas of the base game ran out of steam (excluding Miquella's Haligtree, which was excellent.) The general level design is frustratingly vertical, but the vistas are still as beautiful as they ever were. The new leveling mechanic, which only applies within the confines of the DLC area, was immediately a turnoff. I did enjoy 2 or 3 of the new bosses, and vehemently disliked the rest (including the final boss, who was a pretty big letdown for a number of reasons.) Only one of them really stuck with me as a quality encounter with genuine difficulty that rewards your perseverance (if you've been watching the pre-release trailers, you can probably guess who I'm talking about.) Otherwise, they are either boring pushovers or horribly over-tuned for the sake of... what? So people on social media will opine about how soooo hard the game is? So you feel you got your money's worth? Without spoiling anything, I found most of the bosses extremely uninteresting, visually and thematically -- some of the weakest, laziest encounters in the entire Soulsborne catalog. It pains me to think that this DLC was just a huge cash grab; finally a ding to my steel-clad confidence in Fromsoft games/expansions. I await their next game with bated breath -- "automatic pre-order" is indefinitely off the table. Be prepared for lots of reskins, dragons (always a real treat!), and Mimic Tear lookalikes... and there are a whole lot of them here. "Quantity over quality" a la Dark Souls 2 comes to mind. The Bloodstarved Beast model from Bloodborne even makes a cameo to help pad the boss count. Ultimately, I think this is a good way to assess whether or not you should buy this: did you finish the base game and feel hungry for more of the same? If so, buy this. Did you excitedly trek all the way through Bloodborne's 60 million chalice dungeons to Queen Yharnam, smiling all along the way as you fought boring reskin boss after boring reskin boss? You're gonna love it. If you felt satisfied finishing the base game with little to no desire to revisit it, hard pass.
SummaryRise, Tarnished, and let us walk a new path together.
An upcoming expansion for ELDEN RING, Shadow of the Erdtree, is currently in development.
We hope you look forward to new adventures in the Lands Between.