FromSoftware has once again delivered a critical darling in Shadow of the Erdtree, its gargantuan DLC expansion for Elden Ring. But while it has received glowing adoration from professional critics, a not-insignificant slice of players have rallied against Shadow of the Erdtree’s difficulty. Perceiving its enemies and bosses to be so challenging that they make the game unfair, some fans have review bombed the DLC on Steam and even crafted mods for the PC version that make the experience easier.
And so comes the inevitable question – is Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree too difficult? Has FromSoftware finally gone too far? The answer, at least according to the various journalists and Souls content creators I’ve spoken to, is no. However, the answer to Erdtree’s steep challenge lies in much more than that age-old, condescending advice of ‘git gud’.
A Challenge Too Far?
“I was surprised to see people passing judgement on the difficulty so quickly,” says VaatiVidya, the YouTuber known for his meticulously researched FromSoft lore videos, about the review bombing. “If you're up against something difficult, you need time to explore different areas or come up with a different strategy, and I think many critics were overlooking that.”
It’s easy to characterise some of that backlash as naivety. It is entirely unsurprising that Shadow of the Erdtree is difficult. Elden Ring is difficult, and so this DLC – locked behind two of the base game’s most challenging bosses – was bound to be a hurdle designed for the most dedicated fans. FromSoftware’s approach to DLC has always been to cater to those hardened players. In a list of the studio’s most punishing bosses, fearsome DLC foes such as Sister Friede, The Orphan of Kos, Ludwig The Holy Blade, and Darkeater Midir will all inevitably rise to the top. But it’s not just the bosses. Pushing forward through Dark Souls 3’s Ringed City and Bloodborne’s Fishing Hamlet is an uphill struggle thanks to tricky enemy placement and ‘mid-tier’ monstrosities that are practically bosses without ceremony. Such areas demand complete mastery of your abilities. There is no way to be ‘relaxed’ in FromSoftware’s expansions. By being more punishing than its parent game, Shadow of the Erdtree is merely following tradition.
There is something Elden Ring has that Dark Souls or Bloodborne never had, though: mass popularity. “I think the reality is that Elden Ring is the most successful game FromSoftware has ever released, and introduced literally millions of newcomers to the genre who’ve never played a FromSoftware game before,” says Matt Kim, IGN’s senior features editor. “Which means they’ve effectively dove straight into the hardest DLC the studio has ever produced. But there’s a progression here that they may have missed, with the Elden Ring DLC being harder than the Dark Souls 3 DLC, which was harder than the Bloodborne DLC which was harder than — you get my point."
Newcomers have been raised on what is the most approachable Souls-style game the developer has ever made – one with strong NPC allies available at beck and call, incredibly powerful magic and weapon skills, and an open structure that allows you to bypass bosses until you’re suitably ready. All this also exists in Shadow of the Erdtree, but so do the aforementioned increased difficulty traditions. And so fans have quickly discovered that the medieval superheroes they built and perfected, with stats stacked higher than skyscrapers thanks to countless hours spent grinding out runes, are now far from the devastating powerhouses they once were.
“People have come up with builds that can shred [the base game’s] hardest bosses without breaking a sweat,” says Mitchell Saltzman, who reviewed Shadow of the Erdtree for IGN. “All of the weapons and talismans to complete those builds have been painstakingly mapped out and can be relatively easy to obtain, and there are rune farming spots that can skyrocket a player's level by the hundreds in just a handful of hours. So FromSoftware had to make this DLC difficult to account for all of the above.”
But while many a FromSoft veteran will have entered Shadow of the Erdtree with full understanding of this, they may have been surprised at just how quickly the height of that challenge smacks you in the face. When you stumble across the Western Nameless Mausoleum, the first optional location in Erdtree’s Land of Shadow, you’re forced into a fight with the Blackgaol Knight – a foe equally skilled at ranged and close combat. Inside his arena you are prohibited from summoning Spirit Ashes, Elden Ring’s NPC allies, and so you’re entirely on the backfoot. It’s like going back to level one all over again. And, in a way, you are. Progression works differently in this expansion. Your stat levels, earned over hundreds of hours by spending hard-earned runes, are… not exactly useless here, but less impactful. Instead, your ability to inflict and resist damage comes from Scadutree Fragments, a new collectible that increases your stats.
A Blessing or a Curse?
“A big part of the issue seems to be people not understanding the Scadutree Fragment mechanic, whereby your character gets stronger from the process of wide exploration,” explains VaatiVidya.
Scadutree Fragments fit together to make Scadutree Blessings, which when used at a Site of Grace buff your character’s ability to both inflict and resist damage. The logic behind them makes a lot of sense: those aforementioned boss-shredding builds could steamroll through the DLC, bypassing the artistic intent of its many bosses and challenges. And so to ensure everyone experiences Shadow of the Erdtree as intended, FromSoft has put everyone back on a roughly even playing field from which only Scadutree Blessings will raise you up. In short: they made you start again from scratch.
“I think the Scadutree Blessing system is actually a pretty smart solution that allows Shadow of the Erdtree to be difficult right from the start, but also allow people to overcome that difficulty by doing the thing that Elden Ring has always been about: exploration, discovery, and being rewarded for your curiosity,” says Saltzman. “There are a ton of Scadutree Fragments that can be obtained right from the very start of the game, without even having to fight any of the big bosses that players seem to be getting stuck on.”
It is worth considering how that system impacts Elden Ring’s values of exploration and discovery, though. In the base game, simply playing is enough to acquire the runes needed to level up and become more powerful. But by locking increased stat power behind specific items located in specific places, Shadow of the Erdtree has arguably turned the entire experience into something of a scavenger hunt. The effect of this will vary depending on taste; for some, this further encourages exploration of a world that frequently rewards the curious. For others, it may turn any reward that isn’t a Scadutree Fragment into a disappointment, or even a waste of time.
I’ve been getting a vibe check on people’s reactions to the DLC, and the one thing I keep seeing is people underestimating the impact of Scadutree Blessings. These make a MASSIVE difference and you CAN come back later. No, you don’t need to kill the lion or Rellana at the start. pic.twitter.com/B6ZGivK1yh
— Iron Pineapple (@IronPineapple_) June 22, 2024
Personally, I agree with Saltzman’s views on the Scadurtree Blessing. But while the system is certainly mechanically sound, it does function very differently to what players are used to. For those trained on not just Elden Ring but FromSoft’s historic reliance on traditional levelling, it may not be immediately clear just how vital to the experience the Scadutree Blessing truly is. A tool tip does explain that the blessing “bolsters the recipient’s abilities to deal and negate damage,” but – in FromSoft tradition – there’s little further information on the system to be found within the game itself. It’s been down to the community, guides writers, and even the Bandai Namco X/Twitter account to emphasise the Scadutree Blessing’s importance. It’s therefore understandable that many people outside of those circles may have missed the very system designed to aid with Shadow of the Erdtree’s escalating difficulty.
Beyond the Golden Path
Another, less obvious contributor to Shadow of the Erdtree’s apparent difficulty is the community focus on boss fights. While these spectacular showdowns are Elden Ring’s centrepieces, it’s important to remember that they are the spine of the experience rather than the body. With so much discussion in the community around conquering each foe and getting closer to the final boss, it’s easy to be caught up in the need to speedrun through the chain of major fights. Down that path lies not just frustration, but a distraction away from a wider world that holds the many tools required to achieve an easier victory.
“I don’t enjoy spending four hours learning a boss,” says Daniel Krupa, IGN’s former Prepare to Try loremaster and founder of the Souls-focussed YouTube channel RKG. “I love exploring these worlds and piecing together the stories they tell, and I’ll do everything I can to make that easier. I’ll horde equipment, constantly reconfigure my Talismans, and over-level my weapons as quickly as I can. I still wouldn’t say I’m good at these games, but over the years, I’ve learned enough to survive.
“It’s what I always tell people who are interested in these games but put-off by the perceived difficulty,” he adds. “Yes, there’s no in-built ‘easy mode’ but you can make your experience far less punishing.”
“The online community has always been a huge help in this regard,” says VaatiVidya. “Making it clear how your build can be optimised, or telling you which things are overpowered. For example, the Mimic Tear summon, or the Blasphemous Blade. As the days go by, even more powerful things are being found in the DLC to make use of. If you're truly struggling, you can use these to move the difficulty level of the DLC more in line with your ideal level of challenge.”
Remix and Retry
Shadow of the Erdtree is full to bursting with a variety of exciting new weapons and talismans that can either boost your existing build or encourage a new one entirely. As a long-time Moonveil user with high intelligence and dexterity stats, I was delighted to discover the DLC features a thrusting sword that can be used to cast spells. That’s a game changer, and has entirely altered my tactics when it comes to combat. But I know it won’t be a catch-all solution to every boss down the line, and that being open to experimentation is more valuable than ever in this expansion.
“I’ve got to the final boss,” says Krupa. “Yes, it’s tough – but I’m choosing not to suffer. I’ve always seen bosses in these games as problems to be solved, rather than gruelling challenges to overcome. So I’ll go explore the Cerulean Coast some more, and maybe I’ll find something that will help.”
“I had a great experience against the final boss,” says VaatiVidya. “I had trouble, and so I switched up my build to incorporate a greatshield and Scarlet Rot [...] I like when bosses force you to switch up your strategy…however I wish an infinite source of Larval Tears could have been made available in the DLC, so people could have more freedom to test out different strategies.”
There are just 18 Larval Tears in Elden Ring – the item that allows you to reallocate your stats – while Shadow of the Erdtree adds at least another nine. But that’s still a very limited number of times you can completely rebuild your character’s stats. It makes exploring other gameplay avenues a risky business. Sure, a new weapon may sound like the key to defeating a boss, but if respeccing your character to use it results in yet more defeat, then it’s a waste of precious resources.
“They've made more Larval Tears available in the open world as they spawn at night time, which is great, but I personally would have loved if these could have respawned infinitely as a resource for players to make use of to overcome difficulty,” says VaatiVidya. Such a system would bring Elden Ring in line with other build craft-focused RPGs like Diablo 4, which allows for infinite reallocation of skill points and thus promotes freeform experimentation. It’s easy to see how Elden Ring could benefit from this, not just in regards to its difficulty, but in allowing players to experience its incredibly broad range of weapon types and approaches.
Legitimate Concerns
It’s clear that the key to success in Shadow of the Erdtree is the exact same as it was in its parent game: explore the world and the world will provide the answer. Elden Ring is not a boss rush, it is an open world game, and that structure is key to overcoming what can initially seem an overwhelming difficulty spike.
Despite this, everyone I’ve spoken to acknowledges just how challenging Shadow of the Erdtree is, especially in its later hours. “FromSoftware definitely skirts the line between fair and unfair with some of the later boss designs in particular,” wrote Saltzman in our review, while Kim tells me that he thinks “FromSoftware pushed the envelope further in Shadow of the Erdtree, particularly with the final boss”.
That challenge scales with your New Game+ progress, too. If you’re on your second, third, perhaps even fourth or fifth run on the game, then your character will suffer more than those using a fresh save file. A future balance patch could potentially address this. “I've heard some complaints from a lot of people struggling on their NG+ characters, so I guess I could also see the effects of NG+ being toned down as it applies to the DLC areas,” VaatiVidya says.
There’s also the issue of Elden Ring’s performance. Digital Foundry notes that, two-and-a-half years on from launch, the game still suffers from long-standing technical issues. Shadow of the Erdtree has come with no stability fixes. When perfect parries and desperate dodges are part of the game’s core fabric, an unstable frame rate is just as much the enemy as Messmer the Impaler. Without fixinging such long-standing performance woes on all platforms, FromSoftware is sadly leaving players vulnerable to frustrating defeats. These issues may not be an intentional increase in difficulty, but they can contribute all the same.
So far, there’s no indication that FromSoftware has any intention of reducing Shadow of the Erdtree’s difficulty. However, the studio has already responded to the playerbase: in the DLC’s first update, the buff provided by Scadutree Blessings has been increased for the first 10 you obtain. That’s half of the maximum blessing count. To balance this adjustment, the latter 10 will offer more gradual buffs, leading up to a slightly increased final blessing. The overall effect is that the initial areas of the DLC will feel more achievable, but the actual difficulty of the expansion overall remains the same. Of course, that additional level of ease will only be available if you actually engage with the Scadutree Blessings in the first place. Ignore that and you’ll still face the same issues that seemingly triggered the review bombing in the first place.
So, Shadow of the Erdtree is hard. We know it. You know it. FromSoftware knows it. As to if it’s too hard… well, that’s naturally a subjective topic. But from a purely design standpoint, the DLC’s approach continues in the lineage of both Elden Ring and its FromSoftware predecessors.
“It's not too hard,” concludes Satlzman. “Use the tools the game gives you, go explore, find Scadutree Fragments. You can do it. I believe in you.”
Matt Purslow is IGN's Senior Features Editor.
