With how unfathomably large Elden Ring was, it feels inevitable that its expansion Shadow of the Erdtree was also going to be surprisingly big, in retrospect. Even so, the scale of it is staggering. Expansions like this aren’t something you see often, and for good reason. It’s hardly reasonable to expect DLC to be the size of a full-length game. And as is tradition with any new Souls-style game from From Software, Callum and Eduardo got together for a quick chat to share their thoughts.
Callum: In some ways, I think Shadow of the Erdtree is a better Elden Ring than the base game. The smaller map is welcome, maintaining the awe of the open world but placing it in a much more reasonably sized space. It’s still huge overall – they effectively made an entirely new game in terms of scale, which is absurd – but in comparison to Elden Ring proper, it’s nowhere near as massive.
Which is good! For as spectacular as Elden Ring was, the sheer size of the world was a weakness as much as it was a strength. It’s simply too big! As much as I enjoyed exploring every inch of The Lands Between and how well From Software was able to adapt their design to a massive space, Shadow of the Erdtree shows that a more focused design is still superior. The comparatively smaller space makes the areas between proper dungeons stronger because they don’t have to be massive stretches of land filled with stuff to do. They can just be a brief diversion or a dungeon in and of themselves. In its best moments, it feels like a Souls game pre-Elden Ring with how areas flow together and how intricate the big main dungeons are.
But Shadow of the Erdtree also indulges in Elden Ring’s worst tendencies. It’s an expansion that, like the endgame of Elden Ring proper, crafts its challenge in a way that sometimes borders on tedium. Bosses run the gamut of satisfying, grandiose foes that offer incredible spectacle to those that are more of a chore to fight than anything, that render any sort of help (NPC summons and spirit ashes, mainly) moot with how ineffective they seemingly are. These expansions always are targeted toward the most die-hard players, those who relish the chance to tango with the greatest challenges the developers can craft, but Shadow of the Erdtree feels excessive in its worst moments. Elden Ring’s final stretch was already pushing against the limits of this style of action and Shadow of the Erdtree definitely leans farther in that direction.
That said, I did enjoy it on the whole. The highs outweigh the lows, for sure. Was a treat to return to Elden Ring and explore another new zone. What you did think?
Eduardo: I agree with most of your points. If not for some of the cheaper bosses, this could have been a much better expansion overall. I dug how well the world is put together and how areas loop into one another in a way that makes exploring extremely satisfying to do, 30+ hours in and I still haven’t figured out all the paths there are to be taken in the new map!
Also, I appreciated how that side of the game has gotten some love from From in the way that Shadow of the Erdtree treats leveling up. I for one am a bit past the grind that is gaining points in order to get further down the levels in the Souslike endgame. Having the opportunity to power myself up through other means was a welcome change of pace, and in that, being tied to actually finding items in place of simply fighting mobs over and over hoping not to lose it all in the process has been great. It’s a clever solution to an issue that these games have had for well over a decade at this point.
I too took issue with how big the original content for Elden Ring was. Sometimes it got to be too much. This DLC, while still relatively large, feels more contained and somewhat linear, which helps make it manageable in comparison. Still, there’s plenty of side content just waiting to be found, so to those that love to bask in the search for more stuff to squeeze out of their games, there’s plenty of that to do here. In regards to the challenge that you’ve mentioned, outside of the handful of bosses that felt like going too much in one direction difficulty-wise, I managed to do much better in this than base Elden Ring, even going as far as relying only on my ashes and the occasional summoned NPC to take care of things. Only annoying part, really, was going too far into the story and losing access to outside NPC help because of that, which happened to me less than halfway into my personal Shadow of the Erdtree‘s runtime.
Speaking of story, how did you like the DLC’s? It definitely felt more cohesive and straightforward than what we’re used to seeing coming from the studio! I’m curious to hear your thoughts since I know you were able to do some of the questlines that I missed…
Callum: I like that you have a cast of characters who are actively engaged in the main plot as well. Usually these expansions’ stories are so small that whoever you do meet either has a minor role or doesn’t get much screen time. Elden Ring was already doing this to some degree with Ranni’s questline and everything at the Volcano Manor, where you were directly interacting with a group of people and following more involved and direct stories than you usually get from these games, but Shadow of the Erdtree, by making them active participants in the main story, makes for a more satisfying and interesting arc.
Like, the way the group goes from being united in a single cause to immediately disbanding once the charm Miquella placed on them is broken is already so much more than you usually get from these games. That it starts by positioning them as comrades as you learn why Miquella traveled here, tracing his path through the Shadow Lands seeing how much of himself he’s discarded along the way, only to suddenly abandon that premise in a very sudden — and very cool — event is so much more direct than I would expect from one of these games.
The turn is very quick, too! Leda’s first instinct is to start killing her former allies without remorse, seeing the charm’s removal as a good thing. She even goes so far as to ask you who she should go after first. Almost everyone else, conversely, is suddenly having to grapple with what they’re doing here and how to proceed. Only the Hornsent is more or less unaffected — so long as Miquella fulfills his promise to aid him in getting revenge, he’ll gladly follow.
There’s some particularly fun moments that occur when you summon some select characters for boss fights that really add a lot. Summoning Igon when fighting Bayle is an obvious highlight (“Curse you, Bayle!”). Adds so much to the massive spectacle of that boss. Likewise bringing the Hornsent in against Messmer gives the fight more weight given the history between the Hornsent’s people and Messmer. Or during the brawl right before the final boss, where Ansbach will exchange words with Freyja if she ended up taking Leda’s side in that fight. It all makes the summons more meaningful because they aren’t just another body on the field, a random character with no real presence in the world, but have personal investment in what’s happening, are active participants in the story and have that reflected in the fights themselves.
As much as I enjoy the lighter touch From Software takes with these games regarding plot and storytelling, it’s refreshing to see them be more direct on occasion. Sekiro and Armored Core VI were already strong examples of what they can do when they do decide to take a more traditional approach and to see them apply that here is great. That you can still easily miss all these moments because of how opaque questlines are in these games is a shame, because there’s some really good stuff here.
The final boss falls kinda flat, though. Fighting Radahn again is fine, I guess, but I feel like the fight before it — the free-for-all between you and whatever allies you have and Leda and whoever’s sided with her — is a far more climatic and narratively satisfying. To see some of your former allies, many of whom you could have summoned for fights across the DLC, now stand before you as adversaries is tragic. It may not have the same raw spectacle as a proper boss fight, but it works well as a capstone to the plot threads leading up to finally finding Miquella. The final boss by comparison just doesn’t have that sort of impact. Didn’t really feel excited or intrigued or anything except indifferent. It’s an appropriately challenging fight (one that is kinda annoying due to how the NPC summons and spirit ashes don’t seem to provide much help at all), but as a finale to the story, it was underwhelming.
Did you feel the same? I feel like most other expansions they’ve made have had a suitably satisfying finale, both story-wise and the final bosses themselves. Chalk it up to Shadow of the Erdtree being so much bigger than their previous works, I guess, but I was much more muted on the end than I expected.
Eduardo: I did! I was happy to see what was done story-wise in this DLC and hope that future From games take a more active approach like we saw in Shadow of the Erdtree. Sadly, I played through most of the content before the actual release, so I missed a lot of the time-sensitive questlines and such, but managed to have a blast seeing all the interactions between the NPCs taking place. As for the fights themselves, I’d have to agree with you on the final one — it’s a bit of a letdown after an otherwise fantastic rogue’s gallery you square off against in this. Still, seeing that it’s a redo of Radahn’s fight when he was on top of his game was a good surprise, even if the actual battle is so cheap and overall frustrating to get over.
I get what you said about this having a weaker ending than other DLCs, but considering that the base game had a similar issue, not to mention the immense scope of this content when compared to From’s previous post-release content packs. I guess I didn’t feel too disappointed with what we got out of this, I must be used to their approach to closing off their games with less of a bang than the actual combat scenarios you engage with all throughout. This is easily one of the most impressive pieces of gameplay that they’ve done, that’s for sure, but then again, I’m curious to see From taking a more contained approach if that’s a possibility with whatever they got cooking.
Callum: See, I thought the base game ended fine, in retrospect. The Elden Beast notwithstanding, that final gauntlet of Maliketh, Godfrey, and Radagon was good as far as final bosses go. A bit much to have those fights happen so quickly in succession (especially paired with how brutal the final areas of the game are), but a good finish on the whole. They’ve always been able to craft a strong finale, even if sometimes it’s a bit more subdued like Dark Souls and Dark Souls II were. Gwyn and Nashandra weren’t particularly memorable fights, sure (though going straight into Nashandra after defeating another boss did give it a nice surprise factor), but they did at least feel like an appropriate end.
I think it just sticks out because Shadow of the Erdtree is so big. An expansion that’s the length of an entire videogame does change things. You spend that long on one thing, the final note tends to stick out more. It’s sort of the same problem Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has: it’s very long, and I enjoyed the majority of the game, but the finale… oof. (Granted, Rebirth’s case is more complicated than Shadow of the Erdtree, but I digress.)
But the good does outweigh the bad. As underwhelming as it is at the end, there’s so many good moments throughout. Arriving on the Cerulean Coast in the dead of night, welcomed by a field of glowing blue flowers gently swaying in the breeze, blue sparks of light drifting through the air. Scaling the Jagged Peak, the sudden red skies transforming into an ever more powerful storm the higher I climbed, a gauntlet of dragons guarding the path forward. The eerie atmosphere of the Abyssal Woods, sparsely populated yet full of a constant, inescapable sense of dread. From Software’s world design is always top notch and this is no exception.
Or even just the main dungeons. Belurat Tower and its winding streets; the Shadow Keep and the sheer number of pathways that split off it, constantly leading in new unexpected directions; or the Ancient Ruins of Rauh, which effectively turn an entire region into a dungeon. Hell, even some of the smaller ones like the goals and the forges and the caves and crypts (which, while I enjoyed those in the base game, did start feeling a touch stale by the end) are a step up from the base game. As much as Elden Ring’s open world was lauded, the points where it adopts that classic focused level design are incredible. Just tons of great stuff throughout.
When I said Shadow of the Erdtree is in some ways a better Elden Ring, this is what I mean. Everything feels much more focused. It still does the open world exploration well, but a comparatively smaller landmass makes every inch more dense and feel more meaningful. Returning to Elden Ring in this fashion was definitely the best way to do so. If they do eventually decide to make a proper sequel (they’ve said they have no plans at the moment, so who knows; seems inevitable, though), I would hope they stick to Shadow of the Erdtree’s approach instead of the base game. Another hundred-plus hour excursion is something I’m not sure I want.
Callum Rakestraw is the Reviews Editor at Entertainium. You can follow him on Cohost at @crakestraw.
Eduardo Reboucas is a jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none when it comes to videogames and someone who likes talking about them a whole lot. You can find him over at X at @EduardoReb.
