Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree received positive reviews, but Steam reviews painted a different picture.
After a long wait, Elden Ring’s much-anticipated DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, has finally arrived, and critics have generally been raving about it – our own James gave it a perfect score, and many other reviews have been equally positive. But despite all the praise from critics, the DLC currently has a “Mixed” rating on Steam. There are a lot of positive reviews, but some users have found it to be quite problematic. One review noted that the DLC constantly experienced “micro-stutters and frame drops” and recommended waiting for performance improvements before purchasing. Another reviewer also pointed out the performance issues with the DLC, saying that while the base game ran fine, one specific enemy felt “more like a slideshow.”
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However, it’s not just performance that people are complaining about. Everyone knows that FromSoftware’s games are hard, it’s their whole thing, but a lot of players seem to feel that this DLC is a bit too hard. One player left a long negative review of the DLC, writing that the game’s combat doesn’t lend itself to fast-paced boss fights that are more suited to games like Sekiro or Bloodborne, but that Elden Ring’s slow-paced Dark Souls-style combat doesn’t fit it either.
Another negative review did say that the DLC is “amazing and well worth exploring. Like the base game, the world is one of the best and most beautiful in all of fantasy,” however in terms of combat, they wrote, “The blurry and odd movements seem designed to be played for the sake of catching unless you memorize the odd timing of each attack. Why? A huge health bar is fine by me, but only if the combat is fun.”
There are plenty of other reviews that feel the same way (over 11,000 of the 29,000 reviews are negative), but FromSoftware does regularly update its games with tweaks and fixes, so maybe it won’t be such a frustrating experience over time. The base game was just recently updated to make the final boss a little easier, so you never know what changes the DLC will bring.
