Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC has slumped to “mixed” user ratings on Steam after players reported disappointment with the difficulty and performance issues on the PC version.
The overall score from around 15,000 players indicates that the critically acclaimed DLC stumbled on the PC version, with most players commenting favorably on the game’s great presentation and world-building. FPS Limitation, Stutteringand “A boss with a lot of jerky roll-catch moves and physically nonsensical moves.”.
“I love running around in a big empty space for 20 minutes picking up random consumables that I’ll never use against a boss that’s insanely annoying to fight. It’s a pretty miserable experience,” one disgruntled player said. Dirty.
“The game is literally unplayable,” he added. another“I’ve been trying to open the game since it was released, but no matter what I do I can’t. There are many other people with the same problem, but there is still no definitive solution, just random individual solutions given by different people. Yes, I’ve tried everything.”
“It’s like they just threw all the base game assets into a blender and pulsed it a few times.” Expressed an opinion Another disappointed player said, “It’s still fun to overcome the challenges, but I was hoping for something more innovative from this DLC and it’s definitely not worth the $40.”
After corroborating the summary, Claim They said they’ve “played FromSoft’s other Souls (even Armored Core VI), played through all of them multiple times (except Demon’s Souls), and also platinumed Sekiro, DS3, DS1, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, and Rise of P (the best non-FromSoft Soul),” with another player on Steam saying, “With the current state of the DLC, I can’t really recommend it.”
“The world design and colours are really beautiful, and the enemy designs are great, but there are major balancing issues. Currently, even with 60 vitality, you’ll be killed in two hits by almost every enemy that isn’t pure fodder (such as the classic Wandering Noble in the base game), and the shards of the Skada tree (only during the DLC) that are supposed to increase your damage and defences aren’t very useful, being mostly locked behind bosses.
“You just have to ‘get good’ at it. Normally I wouldn’t really care, but in this case I have a big problem with it – and that is the enemy (more specifically boss) design. It seems to follow a philosophy that is applied to an even bigger (and worse) degree later in the game, where every enemy deals huge damage, has loads of health, and has infinite combos that leave almost no openings, then start the combo all over again.”
If you’re struggling to get to the DLC, don’t worry: Elden Ring pros are here to help players defeat the two main bosses and give their companion Tarnished access to the Shadow of the Erdtree.
Because Shadow of the Erdtree can’t be accessed until you’ve defeated both Starscourge Radahn and Mohg, Lord of Blood (a surprising number of Elden Ring players have yet to accomplish this), Elden Ring experts are donating their time and expertise to take down powerful foes and help players dive into the new content.
From Software’s Soulsborne is notoriously difficult to complete, but creator Hidetaka Miyazaki recently said that turning down the challenge would “destroy the game itself.”
“If you really want the whole world to play your game, you can just make it harder and harder, but that wasn’t the right approach,” he says. “If we had taken that approach, I don’t think the game would have turned out the way it did, because the sense of accomplishment that players get from overcoming these hurdles is such a fundamental part of the gaming experience. When you make it harder, you take away that joy. I think it kills the game.”
“While I still have a lot of fondness for Elden Ring and my time spent in its world, I’m not sure I share the same warmth with Shadow of the Eldtree,” contributor Alexis wrote in Eurogamer’s review of Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Eldtree.