Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Review - FromSoft's Greatest Hits (2024)

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree feels like a well-executed victory lap for FromSoftware. This isn't just Elden Ring DLC for the sake of it; it's a greatest hits album of poison swamps, mountain ledges, sweeping vistas, and entire gimmicks ripped straight from the company's back catalog. As someone who beat the main game's story three times in full (once as Elden Lord, once for Ranni, and once for the Frenzied Flame) in addition to my main NG+4 character, I was incredibly curious as to what else FromSoftware had planned for Shadow of the Erdtree to tie off Elden Ring. After more than 60 hours, I haven't been disappointed.

There's a lot of Dark Souls in Shadow of the Erdtree, most notably in its level design. Structural callbacks to areas like The Duke's Archives and New Londo Ruins are littered throughout, and longtime players who still remember how to reach one particular Dark Souls boss will be in for multiple treats. Enemy design contains echoes of the past, too - of course you fight a boss that is part beautiful woman, part giant insect at some point. Why wouldn't you?

Living In Elden Ring's Shadow

DLC That Expands The World Without Changing It Too Much

See Also

From Demon's Souls to Elden Ring: Every FromSoftware Soulsborne Game Ranked Easiest to HardestAn interview with FromSoftware’s Hidetaka Miyazaki10 best FromSoftware games you should die with todayElden Ring sold me on the FromSoftware fan experience

That's not to say there's nothing new under the Erdtree in Elden Ring's DLC. The expansion boasts plenty of new weapons, Spirit Ashes, Ashes of War, spells, and outfits to find (including my new favorite piece of headware, pictured above, which is dropped from one of Shadow of the Erdtree's early bosses). There are dozens of new enemies to encounter, a great lineup of boss battles to both locate and overcome, and some of the most beautiful locations FromSoftware has ever produced. After hours upon hours of being worried that the whole DLC was going to take place in the heavily advertised yellow, hazy landscape of ghostly graves, discovering a coastal shore littered with glowing blue flowers literally had me gasping and smiling with relief.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

9/ 10

Pros

• More of what FromSoft does best
• Lots of exploration opportunities
• New gear and items
• Hours of playability

Cons

• Some framerate issues with Quality Mode on PS5

It's tradition at this point for FromSoftware's soulslike DLC offerings to challenge players even more than the base game, but like Elden Ring before it, Shadow of the Erdtree's difficulty is a bit of a mixed bag. In my original Elden Ring review I called the game "FromSoft's most accessible title yet" and the same holds true here, with the majority of the game's enemies and bosses feeling more build- than skill-dependent. Bleed builds are still OP in Shadow of the Erdtree, and keeping a +10 Mimic Tear in your back pocket is still a reliable fail-safe for the game's most difficult battles. That being said, you will definitely want to be in the level 120-130 range before starting the DLC.

At a certain point in Shadow of the Erdtree I became stuck on one particular boss fight for quite a while, long enough to finally decide "Alright, let's just go somewhere else and try again later." After a bit of exploring down roads I hadn't yet taken, I reached another large area and, trying to keep spoilers to a minimum, continued through it until reaching both the end boss of that location and the beginning of another, brand-new dungeon. Checking my map, I then realized there was yet another place I hadn't yet explored that was just sitting there out in the open. A dozen hours later I returned to that original troublesome boss fight and, armed with more experience and more Shadow Realm Blessings, made satisfying work of it.

The Good And Bad Of The Erdtree

Minor Technical Issues Don't Ruin Good Game Design

Those Shadow Realm Blessings are what help to balance Shadow of the Erdtree's difficulty without breaking the base game too much, and their implementation is excellent. Simply put, there are two different items (Revered Spirit Ashes and Scadutree Fragments) which increase damage reduction and attack power for both your Spirit Ash summons and yourself respectively, but ONLY while you are in the Shadow Realm Elden Ring's DLC takes place in. When you fast travel back to the Lands Between, these bonuses are no longer active. This allows Shadow of the Erdtree to mirror Elden Ring's Sacred Tear/Golden Seed progression system, where players would gain both more and stronger flasks as they worked their way deeper into the game, without giving away too many permanent upgrades.

The majority of my Elden Ring experience in the past had been on PC, but I played Shadow of the Erdtree on PS5 for this review. I never experienced any issues playing with ray tracing turned on while progressing through the main story, but once I reached the DLC there were some pretty noticeable texture pop-in issues, stuttering, and framerate drops that eventually forced me to switch the game back to Performance Mode instead of Quality. After playing through all of Armored Core 6, FromSoft's last title, which includes arguably even higher levels of things happening on screen without causing the PS5 any such framerate issues, it was a little surprising.

The biggest negative thing I can say about Shadow of the Erdtree is that nothing has completely blown my mind like finding Nokron for the first time did. The most exciting reveals won't be mentioned here, but if Shadow of the Erdtree suffers from anything it's the sheer scope and scale of its own base game. Elden Ring is recursive sprawling on a grand scale, massive enough on its own to qualify as two or three separate games already, and in contrast Shadow of the Erdtree feels like a tighter, more compressed world - a world that's still basically the size of Atlus Plateau + Liurnia, to be clear, but denser.

Shadow Of The Erdtree Is FromSoftware's Victory Lap: Review Score & Final Thoughts

Elden Ring's DLC Gives Players More Of What They Love

Overall, this is a good thing. One of the main complaints players had about Elden Ring was that one of the final areas in the late game, Mountaintop of the Giants, both felt too empty and too difficult at the same time. It seemed like a less polished part of the world than places like Caelid and Limgrave did, and the jump in difficulty did little to encourage exploration. I started a new character specifically for this review, and before entering the DLC I progressed the main story through defeating Renalla, Morgott, Radahn, and Mohg. Once I unlocked the lift that takes players to the Mountaintop of the Giants, I stopped following the main path. Later, after about 30 hours in Shadow of the Erdtree, I went back to the Mountaintop with the confidence that only 50 more levels can give you and enjoyed it immensely.

If you love Elden Ring it's hard not to recommend Shadow of the Erdtree. New NPCs, items, questlines, enemies (fans of Jarburg, brace yourselves), and everything else you'd expect from a FromSoftware expansion are all to be found here. The $40 price tag seems steep but feels fair when considering the amount of content on offer and I know for a fact that, despite the frankly unhealthy number of hours I've put into the game already, there's still a lot more I have not found yet. Shadow of the Erdtree is an excellent expansion of Elden Ring's world - just turn off ray tracing before hopping in.