OK, so you don’t have a lot of time to do all the preparation you wanted to do before Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC launches on June 21. Don’t worry though, if you think you need an extra challenge to hone your skills before heading into Shadowlands, there’s a mod that can help.
Just in case you didn’t know already, there are actually some steps you need to take to access the DLC when it’s released – that is, you’ll be doing these steps after it’s released if you haven’t already. Okay, now that that’s out of the way, this is something you definitely don’t need to experience before the DLC, but should try out for a few laughs anyway.
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The mod, simply called “The Capitalism Mod,” is the work of modder thefifthmatt, who’s responsible for a lot of the fun Elden Ring randomizers you might have seen streamers playing with over the past year or so. After all, what could be more fun than not knowing which enemies or items you’ll run into when you’re traversing various locations for the third, fourth, or hundredth time?
While it essentially does a similar job, the Capitalist mode, created for an intentionally difficult challenge hosted by Elden Ring master LilAggy, makes things difficult not by swapping out enemies for stronger ones, but by punishing you for everything you do while playing the game. Yes, it “takes runes from you when you move, spend stamina, take damage, deal damage, or exist,” and “if your runes reach 0, you become stuck or die.”
How does this reflect capitalism, you might ask? Thefifthmatt explains: “The soul has become a highly applicable metaphor for primitive capital accumulation (the Dark Soul is literally closed), but it also incentivizes people to maximize hoarding and capital accumulation for their own sake, at the expense of other rational behaviors.”
“The mod’s mechanics also bear similarities to real-world attempts to apply these incentives through microtransactions and in-game currency,” they said, adding, “Admittedly, there are no productive relationships in this mod, but if you really wanted to, you could imagine Marika extracting surplus value from you.”
So, there you have it. If you’re looking for a guide on completing any of the quests in The Betweenworld after re-entering the game and completing the preparations for Shadows of Edeltri, be sure to check out our recently updated series of guides on everything from reaching Morgwen’s Palace to obtaining Adura’s Moon Blade.
