Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Review

I absolutely love Elden Ring, and I love FromSoftware games in general – I quite literally have an Artorias tattoo on my shin. Elden Ring is, in my opinion, sort of the pinnacle of the design philosophies so far, and while I appreciate it’s not completely perfect, I do think it’s very close. With all of this in mind, I’m very split on Shadow of the Erdtree, and it’s causing me no end of pain.

Shadow of the Erdtree opens up with another stunning reveal. You chat to a mysterious NPC, and then get warped to the new time and/or place with a new world about to open up before you once more. This time, instead of Limgrave’s almost hopeful horizon, you’re in a strange field filled with spectral tombstones and the sight of some seriously gnarly trees in one direction and a big flaming Wickerman boss in another. It’s a truly excellent beginning, and I have a great deal of love for this specific moment.

From there, as is the case with the main game, you can go anywhere and try to fight anything you encounter. You can absolutely wander up to some bosses in the overworld or head to one of the new big dungeons and throw the gauntlet down, but you really shouldn’t. That’s because of something called Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ash. Revered Spirit Ash basically powers up your spirit summons, and Scadutree Fragments boost your offensive and defensive powers. These only work in the DLC, and they’re clearly introduced as a way to try and add a progression system into this new area so you still get that difficulty that many of us love from FromSoftware games.

I think it’s a good concept, but I also don’t think it’s especially well-implemented, and nor do I believe it fits with the rest of the game’s design. Don’t get me wrong, I’m looking forward to watching DLC speedruns that don’t use a single one of these items because they play these games as a full-time job, but good gravy is that not viable for the rest of us. The result is that, until you gather these upgrade, you get killed in one or two hits by nearly everything. It doesn’t matter if you’ve built a character with 99 vigour and the heaviest armour ever created because you’re still going to get smashed into pieces; they’ll just be bigger and better-armoured pieces.

It feels as though Shadow of the Erdtree basically adds a multiplier to enemy attacks and HP using a dial, and then every time you upgrade your Scadutree thing, that dial it turned down a bit. Frankly, I think it’s been turned too high to begin with. You’re heavily incentivised to engage with as little in the world as possible until you’ve gathered a few Scadutree Fragments and made yourself more powerful. It’s not what I want from the Elden Ring. I want to be able to level up if I fancy being overpowered or walk into a fight in my undies with nought but my fists if I feel like I want God to fear me. It’s about player choice, and I feel like these new mechanics are antithetical to that.

The good news is that the world is truly stunning. FromSoftware has an understanding of environmental design that dwarfs nearly every other group of artists in existence, and it shines through constantly in Shadow of the Erdtree. If you’re a fan of stopping to take photos, then you may well never leave this DLC, because it’s not only absurdly varied, but also consistently breathtaking. It definitely helps pull you along and makes you want to stay engaged.

Then there’s all the new weapons, talismans, spells, and so on. I was incredibly excited about the hand-to-hand arts, especially as the world’s biggest fan of the Bone Fist from Dark Souls 2, but I can’t help but feel like the Elden Ring take on the punchy martial artist doesn’t quite hit the mark. I do think that most of this is because the fist weapons are already so satisfying though, so it’s not all bad.

Outside of that, you’ve got an unreasonable number of new weapons, including other new weapon types, new spells, new armours, and even new spirits to summon. Fine-tuning your build is always a joy in Elden Ring, and all of these new options unlock, well, new options, so I’m a huge fan of that. Unfortunately, though, we’ve now got to move on to my biggest gripe: the story.

What it boils down to is that the final boss feels like it was generated by a randomiser, and the ending cutscene felt like the world’s most disappointing ice cream. I’d been looking forward to it throughout all of the tough boss fights and all of the awe-inspiring scenery, and then I got an ice cream that was actually sugar-free, made from beetroot, and I clearly saw the person who served it to me scratch their butt before using their hand to scoop it into a slightly damp tub. It’s not a good ending.