Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree - Collector's Edition

Like the base game did before it, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree raises the bar for single-player DLC expansions. It takes everything that made the base game such a landmark RPG, condenses it into a relatively compact 20-25 hour campaign, and provides fantastic new challenges for heavily invested fans to chew on.

From Software's expansion for Elden Ring offers an entire new game's worth of content, all of which is exceptionally executed.

Much of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is more of the same gruelling beauty - but a shift to explict storytelling and signposting means its essence as a living, evolving shared text is lost.

A masterfully designed expansion to one of the best action RPGs of the last decade that not only complements the base game but expands its thematic and systemic scope even further.

Even 40-plus hours in, I’m still figuring out how to tackle a particularly nasty dragon. And despite cursing all the bosses I’ve felled so far, as they’ve beaten me into submission dozens of times, I’m looking forward to going back and starting it all over at some point, ready to take on the challenge again.

Perhaps more interesting than the bosses are the moments where FromSoftware stretches the limitations of its mechanics and nearly reaches whole new genres.

The boring but ultimately correct shorthand to summarize Shadow of the Erdtree is that it’s more Elden Ring. The incredible sense of discovery, fantastic dungeon design, entertainingly deep combat, and intriguing lore and characters that defined From Software’s 2022 masterpiece all apply to this expansion.

A knotty, dense expansion that's home to some of the best moments in Elden Ring, but also some of its most frustrating.

So, while the start of Shadow of the Erdtree can come off as a regression, really, the DLC as a whole is FromSoftware flexing all of its creative muscles - including some it hasn’t used in a while and others it might be building up for the future. The depth of storytelling in the Lands of Shadow, as well as the new weapons, spells and items (all of which add to the lore themselves, of course), only better your experience of the Lands Between, and make for a worthy upgrade to what is already an unforgettable adventure.

I think that’s the biggest point here, is that even though my expectations were high, Shadow of the Erdtree still managed to exceed them. From Software probably could have just added more Elden Ring and that would have been solid enough, but instead, Shadow of the Erdtree is yet another innovative iteration of the genre.