Elden Ring’s “Shadow of the Erdtree” DLC calls the Tarnished back to the Lands Between for another epic adventure filled with unbeatable bosses and a fascinating backstory about the demigod Miquella, the last of Marika’s children who went missing in the main Elden Ring game.
Shadow of the Erdtree’s story follows the Tarnished to the mysterious Lands of Shadow, a brand new region said to be the same size as Limgrave and include the Weeping Peninsula. But ahead of the official release date, one simple question looms: How do I start playing Elden Ring’s new DLC?
in short, You need to defeat two key bosses to enter the DLC areathey’re already well into the base game. Here’s what you need to do.
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How to start the Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC
To start the new DLC for Elden Ring, You need to defeat Blood Lord Mohg and General Starscourge Radahn in Mohgwyn’s PalaceYou can then approach the area behind Mohg’s boss arena and interact with the objects there to travel to the Shadowlands.
Radahn is one of the main bosses in Elden Ring, and one of the most feared. Triggering him can be tricky, but the most reliable way is to progress through Ranni’s quest (either through her introduction in Rogier’s quest, or by directly volunteering to visit her in Ranni’s Rise) until she sends you to the Radahn Festival in Caelid. You can then head to Redmane Castle, the easternmost of Caelid, and fight your way to the end, but instead of fighting the usual double Crucible Knight and Misbegotten Warrior, you’ll find an assembled group to fight Radahn with.
You don’t necessarily need to team up with Ranni, as Radhan’s Festival will naturally begin once you reach Altus Plateau, and heading to the Siofra River with Blaidd is technically slower than quickly running through the lava dragon via the ruins-strewn cliffs to get to Altus early. But Ranni’s quest is one of the best in the game, with a ton of great characters, so it makes sense to follow it, especially if this is your first run.
Mohg is a little harder to track down, but given his connection to the demigod Miquella, he’s crucial to the DLC. Also, we’re talking about the “Blood Lord” version of Mohg found in Mohgwyn’s Palace. no A “foreshadowing” found in an underground shelter.
There are two ways to face him in the end, the first is to reach the Mogwen Palace via the teleporter in the Sacred Snowfields. However, this takes a long time. It is much easier to complete the quest for Vale (he is the man in white you immediately meet upon entering the Underworld) and obtain the Pureblood Knight’s Medal, which will teleport you to the Mogwen Palace from anywhere.
You can now also complete Varre’s quest completely offline by interacting with the red invasion sign in the Writheblood Ruins. You can then fight your way out of the palace and confront the Blood Lord himself.
If you’ve completed your first playthrough of Elden Ring (or if you’ve already played through New Game+ a few times in depth), these two bosses should look familiar to you. However, you’ll also notice that they are fairly late-game bosses.
Don’t make the mistake of trudging into the game on launch day with a new character or a new save file and expecting to jump straight into Shadow of the Erdtree. If you want to start the DLC on day one, you’ll need to modify your save file to the point where you defeat Mohg and Radahn, but not past the point of no return at the end of the game.
But you also need to consider the difficulty. Since Shadow of the Erdtree is included in the main Elden Ring game, it is considered the endgame content of the game. In our DLC preview, the character’s level is set to 150it’s still a challenge. Obviously you can underestimate or overestimate this target as a de facto difficulty modifier.
However, there is apparently another way to gain power that is exclusive to the Scadutree DLC and only works in Shadowlands; that is the Scadutree Blessing. It works similarly to collecting Gold Seeds to improve your flasks in the base game, but will buff your damage and damage resistance. Using these items will help bridge the level gap when you reach Shadowlands and make your experience in Scadutree a little easier; if you so wish, of course.
In any case, Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC will be released on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation on June 21st – see you there, Tarnished.
