Elden Ring DLC falls to a "mixed" Steam rating as PC players complain about difficulty and performance
"I love running for 20 minutes with absolutely nothing, [and take on] bosses that are insanely tedious to fight."
Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC has fallen to a "mixed" user rating on Steam after players logged their disappointment with difficulty and the PC version's performance issues.
An aggregate score of almost 15,000 players has seen the critically acclaimed DLC stumble on PC, and whilst most players comment favourably on the game's stunning presentation and world building, others take issue with the capped FPS, stuttering, and "bosses with jerky roll-catch movements and a plethora of physically nonsensical moves".
"I love running for 20 minutes in an open area with absolutely nothing to pick up random consumables that I'll never use against bosses that are insanely tedious to fight. Very miserable experience," said one unhappy Tarnished.
"Game is literally unplayable," added another. "I've been trying since launch to open the game and I can't no matter what I do. I see many others having the same issue and there are no solid fixes yet just random individual fixes for every different person.Yes I have tried EVERYTHING."
"Kinda just feels like they just put all of the assets from the base game in a blender and hit pulse a few times," opined another disappointed player. "It is still fun overcoming the challenges, but I was hoping for more innovation out of this DLC and it's certainly not worth $40."
After backing up their summary with claims they had "played every other FromSoft souls (and Armored Core VI too) and did multiple playthroughs in every one of them (except Demon Souls) and also got the platinum on Sekiro, DS3, DS1, Bloodborne, Elden Ring and Lies of P too (the best souls not by From)", another player on Steam said, "In the current state of the DLC I can't really recommend it.
"While the world design and colours are really beautiful and a lot of enemy designs too, there's a big problem with balancing. Right now, even with 60 vigor, you get bishotted by nearly every enemy that's not pure fodder (like the classical wandering nobles in the base game) and the Scadutree fragments that should make your damage and defense increase (exclusively while in the DLC) don't help that much and are mostly locked behind bosses.
"You just have to 'git gud'. That normally wouldn't bother me much, but in this case, there's a big problem. It's the enemy (but more specifically, the bosses) design. It seems to follow the philosophy that – especially applied in the later parts of the game to an even greater (and worse) extent – every enemy does a lot of damage, has a ton of health, and has endless combos that leave nearly no openings, to then start all over again with their combos."
If you're having trouble even getting to the DLC, fear not: Elden Ring pros are helping players beat two key bosses to enable fellow Tarnished access Shadow of the Erdtree.
As Shadow of the Erdtree isn't accessible until you've taken out both Starscourge Radahn and Mohg, Lord of Blood – something a surprisingly high number of Elden Ring players have yet to do – Elden Ring experts are offering their time and expertise to fell the great enemies to help players jump into the new content.
FromSoftware's Soulsborne games are notoriously difficult to beat, but creator Hidetaka Miyazaki recently said it would "break the game itself" to turn down the challenge.
"If we really wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down more and more. But that wasn't the right approach," he said. "Had we taken that approach, I don't think the game would have done what it did, because the sense of achievement that players gain from overcoming these hurdles is such a fundamental part of the experience. Turning down difficulty would strip the game of that joy - which, in my eyes, would break the game itself."
"I am still impossibly fond of Elden Ring and my time spent in its grasp, but I'm just not sure if I can share the same fullness of warmth with Shadow of the Erdtree," contributor Alexis wrote in Eurogamer's Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree review.