Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC met with mixed reviews due to technical issues and its difficulty
Shadow of the Erdtree, the highly-anticipated expansion for FromSoftware’s Elden Ring, was released last week, and while many have praised its world and gameplay, PC players have taken to Steam to criticize its performance and overwhelming difficulty.
The details:
Despite receiving rave reviews from critics, 15,137 of the 42,718 Steam reviews for Shadow of the Erdtree are negative, giving the expansion a "mixed" rating. Most of these complaints are about its performance on PC, with major frame rate drops, crashes, and visual and audio glitches resulting in frustrating fights, leading to some users being unable to play the DLC entirely. The PS5 and Xbox versions of the game have similar issues, with frame rates dropping below 30 FPS at certain points.
However, some negative reviews target the expansion's difficulty, with its bosses being significantly more difficult than those in the base game. Director Hidetaka Miyazaki warned players ahead of release that FromSoft has "kind of really pushed the envelope in terms of what we think can be withstood by the player," while Bandai Namco has suggested players collect "Scadutree fragments" used in its new progression system to combat the high damage output of the DLC's enemies.
Soulsbourne games are notorious for their difficulty, and their DLCs are typically designed for players who have completed the main game and are looking for an even tougher challenge. Although many players are struggling with Shadow of the Erdtree, it appears that FromSoft has no plans to make its games easier in the future, with Miyazaki recently stating that lowering the difficulty of Elden Ring would "break the game" entirely due to its design.
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