Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree | Review (2024)

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is my favorite DLC expansion of all time. While it has some missteps, the overall package is one of the most content-rich, beautifully made, and enjoyable experiences that I have ever played. Your tarnished will venture to the Realm of Shadow, after defeating Star scourge Radhan and Mohg the Lord of Blood during the game’s main campaign. Following the trail of the eternally young Miquella the Kind you will encounter new allies, enormous numbers of new foes, and gain knowledge on the lore George R.R. Martin put together in ways I never hoped possible.

The Realm of Shadow

To enter this DLC you’ll want to be at least level 150 in the base game or 200 in new game +. While enemies here aren’t quite Haligtree or true endgame level they’re buffed beyond that due to a new leveling system that works within The Realm of Shadow. The Scadutree is like the Yang to the Erdtree’s Ying. Within it enemies are super-powered and you’ll need Scadutree Fragments to bolster yourself and Revered Spirit Ashes to strengthen your mount and summons, lest ye get your sh*t pushed in. You’re on the trail of Miquella the Kind, who seeks to ascend to Godhood in a long-term plan hatched with his twin Malenia. Along the way, you’ll meet those in Miquella’s thrall, as this God of love has ensnared their hearts with his false touch.

If all of that was complete gibberish to you then this expansion is not aimed at you, yet. Elden Ring is a massive game, with some playing for a thousand hours and still finding new places, bosses, and items. I finished Shadow of the Erdtree in roughly 25 hours though I know of many who hit 40 or more before rolling credits on the main quest. The expansion cannot be accessed until you’ve defeated a tough endgame boss, which most will never find without a guide, and it all is FromSoftware through and through. The Realm of Shadow is enormous, featuring vertically in every zone that takes a large map and makes it mind-bogglingly large for an expansion.

As always I’ll do my best to keep things as spoiler-lite/free as possible so I’ll state that the main quest is extremely straightforward in how to complete it but you will miss so much and have far more difficulty in doing so if you attempt to mainline it. Difficulty has been a hot topic issue and while I had my issues with the final boss I think on the whole the expansion was tough but fair. The main mechanic you need to interact with is the Shadow Realm buffs. If you do not get your personal and summon blessings up as often as possible the expansion will feel overly difficult.

If you are not an endgame build you will not be prepared for the incoming damage and outgoing requirements on most fights. There are a lot of side quests, one “main” quest, and two almost main quests that greatly enhance the main one. There is another point of no return for many of these quests so make sure before you go setting fire to anything that you focus on them, trust me it is worth it.

Exploration and Combat

Shadow of the Erdtree keeps up From’s love of mixing easy-to-follow golden paths and obtuse, obfuscated optional areas. Few games are as rewarding as Elden Ring is when it comes to exploration. Shadow of the Erdtree mostly hits the same notes, though with a few areas that feel completely barren and as far as I can tell have zero to do in them. They are few and far between, and it did occasionally happen in the base game but not to this extent as far as my shoddy memory goes.

Finding Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes are but two of the reasons to explore. Shadow of the Erdtree is a constant barrage of new armor, weaponry, items, and spells in the most satisfying of ways. Unlike Borderlands 3, I never once felt overwhelmed by choice when it came to my main gear. The game does still have far too many consumable/use items and I ended up ignoring most as the controls to use them are still frustrating on a controller though. When it comes to build choices the expansion gives dozens of viable new setups, until the final boss. I wouldn’t be shocked if that fight is tweaked a bit in the coming weeks.

My favorite weapon was a boss’s spear that mixed fast close-range hits using its art, a strong shield poker with its main, and a ranged fire bomb with the right trigger. I ended up swording and poking a lot while swapping to a pair of beautiful fire and magic swords that another boss dropped. The only limit to my imagination on how to clear 99.9% of the expansion was a lack of runes and smithing stones. Luckily the game helps you here by having nearly every enemy in the game seemingly having a chance to drop all but the top-level Ancient Dragon ones. If you know Elden Ring’s combat and have an endgame-ready build then know that as long as you scour the map for the Shadow Realm buffs then you’re in for incredibly difficult but fair combat. There are new types like straight-up Martial Arts which, like most things, were great for all of the expansion content except that damned final boss.

Unmatched Beauty

FromSoftware is not the most technologically focused developer. There are multiple times in the expansion where even the most powerful of PCs seem to have framerate struggles. I played entirely on Series X for the expansion in performance mode and it was mostly stable. A few times things dipped down in the heaviest of combat, but my God is it gorgeous. The texture work can be rough up close, sure, but the art style and lighting are sublime. Shadow of the Erdtree features some of the most beautiful vistas you will ever see in any form of media. I cannot overstate how good-looking areas in this title can be. The diversity in locales is wild, with each having its own major color and lighting palates. The animation move sets on both new enemies and your own weaponry are some of the best the studio has done, as well.

This is, once again, matched by a gorgeous soundtrack that riffs off of and evolves the game’s main theme. This is an expansion and not a sequel so I didn’t expect anything radically different. You’ll get lots of huge sweeping orchestral tracks with the occasional chanting style singing that helps the new areas and boss encounters feel suitably epic. The voice acting features a few performances that go so crazily over the top that I couldn’t help but fall in love with its ridiculousness. A crazed old dragon hunter yelling like he was narrating Moby Dick, losing his mind the entire time I was talking to him, and then summoning him in for the fight only for him to lose his sh*t, even more, was so entertaining that I went and found others reacting to it on live streams. Across the board, it’s the typically excellent FromSoftware mix of weird writing and stoic, high-level voice acting.

The expansion was solid for me, with zero online disconnects and no major bugs that I encountered. That has been typical for them as of late and is always greatly appreciated. This is a late review as expansions can be a bit of a pain for publishers and PR companies to set up. Xbox requires your hardware to be specifically whitelisted to gain access to the new build early and I imagine after setting that up dozens of times they may have grown a wee bit tired of doing any more. Still thanks to Bandai Namco and their PR for supplying a review code once the DLC has launched.

Wrapping Things Up

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is my favorite expansion ever. Supplanting the twins of The Witcher 3: Blood & Wine, and Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, there is more to do here than most games twice over. Outside of an over-tuned final boss, I have zero major gripes and dozens of things I adore. It’s not easy, it’s not meant to be, but it is amazing.