Elden Ring: Shadow of The Erdtree Is The Greatest DLC of All Time

The Gate of Divinity, whose price of access is in blood and suffering, including yours.

After having played over 100 hours and beaten almost every boss (some of them twice), I can safely say that I am whelmed by this expansion pack. In fact, I am in awe. This is not an expansion in the traditional sense. It is, for all intents and purposes, another game. A refined, focused version of the original Elden Ring everyone loved. There is no precedent for an expansion like this. There may never be another one like it. Shadow of The Erdtree surpasses every bar ever set for such an endeavor.

The story was surprisingly stark and perhaps even depraved. The violence was extreme and intense. The vibes were high. It was incredibly immersive. I don’t know what else to say. This expansion is just awesome.

Deep in the Jagged Peak, the war between Dragons and Drake’s remains.

INTO THE LAND OF SHADOW

You enter The Land of Shadow through Miquella’s Cocoon, located in Mohgwyn Dynasty Palace, where you will be greeted by an NPC named Needle-Knight Leda. She tells you to go on ahead and follow Miquella. Enter the Land of Shadow. She will be right behind. And so you set upon your crusade…

When you first arrive, you are on a large expanse of discolored grass. The Gravesite Plains. A giant, ominous, messed up tree overlooks everything. This is the Scadutree, the heart of the Land of Shadow. Immediately something feels off. The sky is shrouded with these weird black curtain things. Off in the distance is a giant fire totem, known as a Furnace Golem. Odds are you attacked it and immediately died.

The Gravesite Plains are the first area you will enter. It’s also a great view.

It becomes clear at this moment that the Land of Shadow is a different type of place. It is more brutal, more violent and somehow more rugged than The Lands Between, a place that has all three of those traits in spades. The enemies hit harder, they attack without regard for their own lives and as we uncover the lore, we learn that they are all fighting for or against something they consider greater than themselves. There is a mercilessness here that makes the self interested NPCs we meet in The Lands Between seem tame. Though it’s the same game, same universe, same continent even, the world feels very different.

As we explore the Land of Shadow we quickly figure out a few things. One, every enemy in this game hits hard as hell. Two, this expansion is huge. When you look at it on a map it seems reasonable, but this is where they test your topographical reading skills. Upon close inspection, you realize everything is stacked on top of each other. Elden Ring maps don’t account for verticality in this way, so this is a neat way of making you think you’re getting less than you are. Like, you can see the top of the mountain. You can’t see the layers of forests and paths and caverns beneath said mountain. There’s places that you don’t think you can get to, only to find that you can, and others that, upon first glance, don’t appear to exist on the map. At one point you’re location PIN is literally under the ocean.

So basically the Land of Shadow is this big, mountainous, largely vertical landmass/island. And you can touch every part of it, more or less. If you can see it you can go there. Otherwise it will be ocean/water, or a endless chasm. Don’t go to those. Except for these two specific chasms that you actually are supposed to jump into. It’s complicated. Also, there theories that this landmass is actually supposed to go in that hole in the middle of the map of the original game but has been magically removed (as in sent to another dimension or something because there is ocean present at both areas where the two landmasses should border. But it does fit almost perfectly.)

There’s all kinds of biomes here. Allllll kinds. The Gravesite Plains is….a plains area with tall grass and some spooky birds. It’s kind of just a range to ride around in. The Scadu Altus is like a woodlands plains. There’s more going on here. It’s related to the Altus Plateau from the main game somehow, in fact it may be a continuation of the overall region. The Ruins of Ancient Rahn is a two layered area with a nice forest at the bottom and jungle esque ruins at the top. The Southern Coast is dominated by beautiful flower fields, such as on the Cerulean Coast, or Charo’s Hidden Grave. Truly stunning designs. In a crater on the coast is a fascinating purple themed area called The Fissure. The Abyss…..we don’t talk about the Abyss (well, maybe later.)

The Finger Ruins are just one sign that this land is impossibly ancient and holds mysteries critical to the world of Elden Ring.

The map is so expansive and free that it’s easy to get lost and conversely, easy to skip through or past entire areas. Oh look, I found a pile of rocks. You smash them and then later find out you just bypassed a whole boss area. It’s nifty and dynamic approach to world design really increased the replay value in my opinion. But it can absolutely be overwhelming. You might check the end of a rampart, find a ladder, go down it, find a hiddel wall, go further down… And further down. Find a river. Go down the river. Further down the river….into a dungeon….then….. I digress. The point is, as awesome as this map is, on your first run through it might be frustrating to try and get anything done because of how complex and sprawling this map is.

One of the key mechanics of Shadow of The Erdtree is the Scadutree/Revered Spirit Ash system. It’s a way of scaling the expansion so super leveled players from the base game don’t have a big advantage, while under leveled players aren’t behind by being under leveled. Basically, you have to find these items called Scadutree Fragments. When you initially arrive at the Lands of Shadow you will be debuffed. Every Scadutree level you gain (because like, Golden Seeds, you will need 1, then 2, then 3) raises all of your stats by 5% while you are in the expansion. So by Scadutree level 20, you are at the same power level as you are at the end of the base game in the expansion. Revered Spirit Ashes are similar, except they upgrade your spirit ash. This is much more important than you think, as many of the bosses in this expansion are built around cooperation of some sort.

Finding these things the first time around sucks. It really does. They could be anywhere, but not everywhere. In fact, in my experience they are all in clusters. You can grab five here, three or four there, five more there, two down that hole. There’s a few that are super hard to find, but if you know where to go, you can find enough of these to play the expansion normally (not getting 2 shot) in like 15 minutes. This makes replaying the expansion a blast actually. But that first time around, you’re going into gritty boss fights under equipped. And that’s when the expansion really shows it’s difficulty.

There are some places that are best left forgotten..

WHAT IS KIND MIQUELLA DOING HERE?

There are a series of crosses spread across the map. Crosses of Miquella, they are called, and each one contains a piece of Miquella that he divested. Miquella’s eye, his arm, his love, etc. It’s kind of gnarly. You don’t understand why he’s doing this either. It feels like a very strange decision. But you continue on and you keep finding these crosses. They’re everywhere. They’re also very useful to figure out how relevant a path is. Because in general, if a Cross of Miquella is in a location, you’re somewhere story relevant. Some of these badass out of way bonus locations? No Cross.

Either way, you pretty quickly figure out the gist. There’s NPCs at a lot of these crosses and they tell you, piece by piece, the backstory. Basically, the vast majority of them are a part of a group. “A band of warriors” who have followed Miquella into the Land of Shadow. Each of them different in their own way, their own backstories and motivations, united by their “love of Miquella.” Or so they think…..

Basically, you’re big goal is to find Miquella. And along the way, you will discover a bunch of other horrible, horrible truths that will change the way you see the game world. It’s kind of like White Lotus season 2, which I will discuss soon- every twist and turn just makes everything more and more disturbing. Like, there’s no point where you’ll be like “oh here’s some normalcy.” Surprise! Secret concentration camp! Land of Shadows is so depressing and the way it’s depressing are all tied up in Miquella’s story.

Deep in the Hinterlands hidden away is a dark and sad secret.

I think some of the hardest parts of the DLC are dealing with the complex story ideas it presents, such as cycles of violence, trauma, abuse….genocide. I mean it’s absolutely brutal and it mirrors our own reality in ways that make you think long after you’ve turned your console (which is statistically probably a Playstation) off. I find myself hungrily delving into the lore, because as tragic as it might be, it’s some of this engaging storytelling in a game. It’s almost all environmental, with the exception of some meaty cutscene hooks. That being said, some people have complained that there aren’t as many cutscenes. I’m not one of them.

I’m gonna write a more detailed article explaining the lore tidbits in the DLC, which will probably go up sometimes in the next few weeks, if I can ever get my schedule straight. For now, the big thing you should now, is that a key arc here is: finding out someone you thought highly of is actually not a great person. In fact, they might be bad. The biggest theme by far would be generational trauma and how children often end up repeating the sins of the father.

The Scadutree, guarded by the ominous Shadow Keep, is the heart of the Land of Shadow.

MIQUELLA’S CRUSADE

Let’s talk about some bosses and the general difficulty of this DLC. It’s hard, duh. But I think the bosses are some of the best overall. Even the harder ones are kind of cool and the easier ones are really cool. There’s relevant lore to almost all of them and you feel like you’ve done something in the context of the world when you defeat them. I found them be challenging in different ways too and this made it where no playstyle was overly dominant (except bleed, which has always been pretty dominant.)

This is a weird thing to point out maybe, but the colors and designs are very different boss to boss. Each boss kind of has their own hue and their own small gimmick that makes them interesting to fight. The Frenzied Flame boss, Mithra is orange themed and his arena is wooden and old. Messmer is red on old stone. That stupid Hippo-Porcupine is gray and in water. There’s a lot of attention to the atmosphere’s of these fights. And again, the lore behind them is really neat in most cases. It has good amount of bosses, roughly 11 major bosses and then 10+ minibosses that each present some fun, occasionally annoying challenges. I had fun with them. I really did.

You’re gonna ask about the final boss, who is sort of a reskin, but it’s basically a Prime Mode reskin of a main game boss. Some people found this disappointing. I get it. But I actually kind of liked. Not the fight necessarily. I thought it was too hard and I haven’t beaten it without summons. But it’s still a fun fight for the portion you can reasonably survive. It’s also a very good depiction of fighting something you have very little chance of killing. The concept of “fighting a god” is always tough to pull off, which is most games do it by relying on some form of gimmick. Having a just head-on brawl that pits your power against theirs is compelling and cool, especially you can probably kick ass for the first half of the fight.

At the top of this very interesting tower/castle is a gate to godhood itself.

To conclude though, this DLC really is the greatest ever. I mean, it’s absolutely loaded with content and has elite level and boss design. It executes on almost every phase consistently. There was no real weak points in my opinion and I think the general critical consensus is that there isn’t many flaws across the board. It’s a fantastic piece of gaming that is a microcosm of the main game and refines many of it’s strengths while also forging an identity of it’s own. The story is interesting and more upfront this time. The exploration offers a lot to do while also having a more streamlined main path. If you loved Elden Ring you’ll love this DLC. And the scale makes it basically a sequel.

Prior to this, I would say my favorite DLC was Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare. I loved the way that expansion changed the game world and added new mechanics that just made sense. This DLC does a similar thing for Elden Ring. It’s scope and depth enrich an already legendary experience and as a whole package I think it’s hard to find a better mix of quality and quantity anywhere in gaming right now. This is a Perfect 10 if I’ve ever seen one. It arguable re-invents what a DLC can be, just like how Elden Ring reinvented our expectations for open world gaming.

Is it hard? Yes. Is it rewarding? Also yes. If you liked the main game, you’ll like this at least as much, if not more. Anything worth doing is worth doing twice. And I believe your journey in the Lands of Shadow will be just as powerful of an experience as your journey in the Lands Between.