Got It Made

So, in an unusual development, I am writing up a review of a game I did not finish. My brother generously gifted me "Shadow of the Erdtree", the long-anticipated expansion to Elden Ring. I made it to the final boss and have died a ridiculous number of times, so rather than letting my positive feelings get overwashed with frustration I think I'll call this the end. The journey has been so fantastic that I still want to capture my thoughts and opinions!

MINI SPOILERS

I've mostly avoided information about the expansion heading into it; the one review I did read was Gene Park's typically excellent writeup in the Washington Post, and I caught a couple of drive-by comments in social media.

The consensus is correct that this is a significant amount of new content; it's shorter than the base game, but long enough to plausibly be a stand-alone came in its own right. For the most part it's more of the stuff from Elden Ring and not so much new mechanics: new lands to explore, dungeons and legacy dungeons, bosses, weapons, spells, spirit ashes, ashes of war, remembrances, NPCs, quests, and so on. The main adjustment from the base game is a parallel leveling mechanic: you can still gain XP and levels as usual, but a more important progression is collecting Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes, which respectively buff your character and your summons, but only within the new areas of the DLC. There aren't any more Golden Seeds or Sacred Tears to increase your Flask potency or uses. You might be able to do some stuff here from the late-mid or mid-late game, but I doubt you could beat it (at least at my skill level) before coming close to finishing the base game.

From my limited pre-playing information, I had gotten the impression that there's less exploration in the DLC, but that is not the case: there's still plenty of terrain to roam around in, random points of interest to discover, beautiful vistas to see. I'm really glad, since the free-roaming open world was probably my single favorite aspect of the base game.

There are fewer basic dungeons in the expansion, which is mildly disappointing - those were my second-favorite part of the base game, and I really adored the rhythm of finding, exploring, and defeating a mid-sized chunk of content in a single play-session. There are still a few here, but it feels like there are as many of the massive Legacy Dungeons as the simple basic dungeons. Legacy dungeons are cool, but can also feel overwhelming to navigate.

There have been a few patches between the time the game came out and when I played it, and I think I'm glad I waited; from what I've read, the difficulty was very overtuned on release. By the time that I played it fit the "tough but fair" mode that I've come to expect from Elden Ring. As a sorcerer, my MO is to stay at range and try to nuke down enemies before they can reach me; for boss fights, I typically use my Greatshield Soldier Ashes to try and keep the boss occupied while I take care of business. This isn't always feasible, which keeps things fun and interesting.

One aspect that was present in the base game but far more pronounced here is the creative use of vertical space. Looking at the map can be very deceiving; two areas may look close together, but be separated by thousands of vertical feet, and you may need to travel to the other side of the map to find a way to climb up or down to the right level and then retrace your steps.

I was occasionally frustrated by just how to find certain areas of the map. This was true in the base game as well; I don't think I ever would have found the Consecrated Snowfields or Mohg's Palace without looking up online guides. In Shadow of the Erdtree, I reached the final boss with roughly half the map still undiscovered. I was able to organically find a few of the routes by revisiting and re-exploring nearby places, but needed to search online for a few others.

When I did reach those unexplored places, they generally were much more barren than the rest of the game. There are quite a few huge areas that might only have a single treasure or a boss and nothing else. Still, even if there isn't a ton of gameplay they are still visually really distinct and fun to explore.

MEGA SPOILERS

The writing also maintains the high standards of the base game. The lore is very opaque and vague, which I adore. But there are a few stretches that seem significantly clearer than the base game, particularly Count Ymir and the various knights following Miquella.

Some things seem to reference and build on existing lore from the base game. You can meet the Lord of Frenzied Flame, and there's a chain of dragon encounters that refers to Placidusax. The main story, of course, revolves around Miquella, who is frequently referenced in Elden Ring but never seen. It seems that Miquella has the ability to inspire love, which sounds wholesome but unsurprisingly has an ominous overtone in the context of this game.

Giving some more detail to what I said before: I've cleared most of the game that I'm aware of, though I haven't been following any guides and I'm sure there are things I'm missing. I've reached level 18 for the Scadutree Blessing and level 9 for the Revered Spirit Blessing. There was one dungeon with a miserable Death mechanic that I nope'd out on. I haven't been able to defeat the huge Sunflower thing or Promised Consort Radahn; for Radahn, I've gotten to the second phase a couple of times but haven't gotten close to beating them.

END SPOILERS

I still haven't decided whether to head back and play the previous FromSoftware games in the Dark Souls franchise, but Elden Ring has been such a fantastic experience that I remain tempted to do so. Apparently they have a long-standing reputation for meaty and enjoyable expansions, and it's great to see them maintaining and expanding that faculty here. I think Shadow of the Erdtree is more than worth the price, and it's given me many weeks of gaming fun that I think I'll still remember fondly even without having finished it.