Shadow of the Erdtree is another critical darling from the creators of Dark Souls – but not everyone is loving the massive expansion to Elden Ring. That ‘Mixed’ recent review rating says everything when it comes to the community’s response, and we’re going to pick this DLC apart. Here are 10 reasons you hated the Elden Ring DLC.
#1 It’s Way Too Hard
Everyone that’s played the Elden Ring DLC has felt the same sinking feeling right at the start of the new area. After a little exploration, you might walk up to a really big bridge and fight a few Messmer Soldiers. Soldiers are the easiest enemies in Elden Ring, so obviously these low-tier chumps are the perfect early enemies to practice on. You’re having fun running around and exploring the Gravesite Plains until one of those Messmer Soldiers kills you in one hit. One hit.
You followed all the guides online. Leveled up your Vigor to 40 so you had plenty of HP. You’re high level with lots of good gear. You’ve finished every major boss in the base game with little or no trouble. Now basic enemies are killing your character in one or two hits. That’s the sickening feeling that you’re playing something that’s been overtuned to infinity.
But, you’ll quickly learn that the expansion isn’t nearly as difficult as it seems. We certainly did, but lots of knee jerk reactions to the start of Shadow of the Erdtree didn’t pause to use every useful feature available to you. The Scadutree Fragments and their blessing makes even the toughest challenges possible. If you really search for these fragments, even tough bosses like Rellana become a breeze. If you rush straight to the major bosses and don’t bother exploring, the Realm of Shadow is a nightmare. Stop and search for gold crosses or other useful upgrades, and you’ll breeze through most of the challenges. It’s very different from other Souls games because your level really isn’t that important.
Yes, we’re judging if you think Shadow of the Erdtree is too hard. If you’re not using all the tools the game is literally throwing at you, begging you to use to make the challenge easier, then you only have yourself to blame. So you can hate us for saying “skill issue” on this one, but the rest of the entries on the list? Maybe you’re right to complain. And we’ll start with one of the biggest problems and very likely one of the first ways you’ll die.
#2 Furnace Golems
While exploring the starting Gravesite Plain, you’ll quickly encounter one of the massive Furnace Golems – enormous walking bonfires that will always be a pain to fight. These enemies can kill your mount instantly early in your adventure, then kill you just as quickly with their giant fire area-of-effect stomps. If you’re far away they’ll launch tracking fireballs to chase you, or shoot out a whirlwind of fire that’s guaranteed to kill you in some locations – like on the giant Rauh Ancient Ruins bridge. The Furnace Golems are insurmountable enemies that never get any easier to beat.
And they’re all over the DLC. These things guard some of the most important paths, and you’re always better off just running straight past them. The first time they appear, you might consider fighting them. Of course you should! They’re giant enemies blocking the way forward. But, no, they’re just a nuisance that you’ll be better off skipping. Ignoring these things is heartbreaking, but killing them takes so long – some players claim using magic spells makes killing them easier, but we’re not about magic builds. So they’re going to burn our butts every time.
You might actually want to kill these things too. The Furnace Golems drop new Crystal or Cracked Tears for your Physick. Some of them are really good too! But most of you won’t ever find out – the only reason to kill a Furnace Golem is out of curiosity, and even then it’s going to take a lot of time to whittle them down. Why bother when running is the safest option.
#3 Where The Heck Do I Go
This is true of every Souls game, but Shadow of the Erdtree pushes that feeling to the next level – everywhere you look, there’s a new interesting sight that you just can’t reach. The Realm of Shadow is easily the most complicated, layered location in Elden Ring, and seeing a far-off ruin down at the bottom of a giant gorge might make you wonder when you’ll ever reach that area – and so many areas are so hidden.
Let’s talk about navigation. The first area you’ll encounter is Belarut, Tower Settlement – most of us will go here first, but there’s literally no reason to visit this location. The legacy dungeon never has a purpose, other than to kill you over and over because you’re not even remotely prepared to fight the Divine Beast Dancing Lion boss at the top. For my money, this boss blows Relanna out of the water in difficulty, and you’ll probably think you need to beat it. Nope. No reason to fight it. Just another chance to self-flagellate.
And there are so many other paths. Getting to the Abyssal Woods requires finding illusory walls, while the Hinterlands in the northeast are only accessible by using a gesture on a statue. This is all so absurd, aggravating, and probably one of our favorite aspects of the expansion. Look, I just love finding meaningful secrets that lead to exciting new areas, but I also totally understand why players might get sick of the constant cryptic progression.
#4 Curseblades
While we’re talking about Belarut, we can’t ignore one of the most diabolical new enemies in the DLC. The Furnace Golems are bad, but the Curseblades are worse. These whirling dancer enemies were prominently teased in early art for the expansion – they’re armed with circular blades and they attack in extremely unconventional patterns, unleashing spinning attacks that just never stop. The Curseblades might be the most difficult random enemies in the game, and if you manage to kill one, you’re probably hoping they never respawn again. At least the Furnace Golems have the good sense to stay dead. Curseblades respawn and reappear in multiple awful spots all over the DLC – and you’re probably better off running past them too.
The first Curseblade you’ll encounter is right at the end of Belarut, before the Divine Beast Dancing Dragon boss arena. The Curseblade ambushes you on a giant set of spiral stairs, making the fight even more confusing – and seeing a special enemy like that, we assumed we needed to kill it. Silly us. There’s a Site of Grace right past it. Save yourselves a lot of trouble. Just run past this thing.
#5 Fog Rift Catacombs
Everyone loves the Hero’s Tombs right? That’s sarcasm. Nobody likes the Hero’s Tombs. Elden Ring introduced us to mini-dungeons that are packed with obnoxious traps, rolling chariots and lava. The Catacombs kind of serve the same purpose, in that they exist solely to punish us for trying to enjoy the DLC. The Fog Rift Catacombs is the first most of us will find, and it’s also a completely punishing slog.
The dungeon is full of spike traps. You’ll need to sprint under, take cover and ride on different ceiling spike traps just to progress, and later you’ll need to make blind jumps while dodging into unseen alcoves to avoid being crushed. While you’re exploring, annoying statue imp enemies are everywhere and just waiting to ambush you – there are diabolical traps like holes to fall through in alcoves for hiding, that lead to long sections full of even more monsters.
The worst part comes when you have to sprint through a giant chamber while a wizard throws magic at you, dodging spike traps that keep falling. This isn’t even the worst of the Catacombs – the Darklight Catacombs are another diabolical, long trudge through inky blackness as you try to navigate areas filled with giant cannon monsters. Then there are the basilisk statues that infect you with death whenever you’re in their field of view. And there’s nothing you can do to stop them.
#6 Those Invincible Enemies
If you were brave enough to navigate the Darklight Catacombs, then you probably reached the vast Abyssal Woods location at the very lowest area of the Realm of Shadow. This spooky forest is also where you’ll meet one of the most diabolical enemies in the game – and I have to admit, I love these guys. Lots of people don’t because they break a fundamental rule of any Souls game. You can’t actually fight them. You can’t kill them by swinging your sword or sneaking up on them or dropping a magic missile on their ugly heads.
These things are called Aging Untouchables – or maybe just Aged Ones – both names are used, but they’re all appropriate. These weird monsters are hunched figures with walking sticks, slowly fumbling around the woods with giant bulbous heads made of glowing orange grape-like eyes. The nest of glowing bulbs on their heads glow brightly when they’ve spotted you, working kind of like an alert system in a stealth game. The only way to survive is to sneak right past them – or parry them. If you parry them, you’ll be able to deal damage like normal. But the parry timing is extremely wonky. Even when you know the staff attack is coming, actually parrying it is tricky – and the Aged Ones kill in a single hit. Thankfully there are only a handful of these enemies in the Abyssal Woods and they don’t appear again, but we’re also pretty into them. A full-on FromSoft horror game would be amazing. Just polish these guys up a little better next time.
#7 Ancient Dragon Senessax
We’ve already complained too much that Shadow of the Erdtree is too hard – which we’re only slightly serious about. Yes, the DLC expects so much more from the player even compared to other Soulsborne games, but it’s also giving you tools and tricks to beat every obstacle if you actually use them. Bosses like Bayle on the Jagged Peaks area are seemingly impossible at first, but if you swap weapons and use a spear you can throw from afar to deal high damage to Bayle’s head, the fight becomes very possible.
And none of that is true of Ancient Dragon Senessax. This giant dragon field boss appears blocking the path to Bayle, and by almost every metric this guy is actually harder than his boss – Senessax is a giant dragon in a tiny cave area that shoots AOE attacks everywhere, making him ridiculously hard to fight. Like, not really difficult to fight. Just very, very hard. Targeting his head is almost impossible, and you just can’t dodge his attacks. Some players recommend following a predictable route of sprinting under his legs, attacking, then running far away and repeating. If Senessax is about to unleash an attack, you’re already dead. Just try to fight this guy. Bayle has the decency to move around and look cool. Senessax is just a giant pain. We still haven’t killed Senessax and beating the last boss wasn’t even that big of a problem – but we’ve got a lot more to say about the final boss. We’re saving that discussion for later.
#8 Only Three Duplicates
And here’s another real big problem in the DLC. There are so many amazing bosses in Shadow of the Erdtree – unbelievable fights we’ll never forget. Creatures like the Scadutree Avatar, the Mother of Fingers and the Lord of the Frenzied Flame will easily top our favorite bosses lists for years to come, but there’s one problem with this embarrassment of riches.
There aren’t enough Remembrance Duplication shrines! In the base Elden Ring game, there are 15 Remembrances and 7 Walking Mausoleums in the original game. Walking Mausoleums could be used to duplicate one Remembrance, which allows you to make a copy of a boss soul and get both special boss weapons. The DLC only has three duplication sites but there are 11 new Remembrances to collect. That ratio is way off! We demand at least five remembrance duplication coffins. Sure, it was nice discovering that there were duplication coffins at all – but three isn’t enough. Throw us a bone, FromSoft.
#9 The Last Boss
Imagine, you’ve done it. You’ve beat every boss Elden Ring has thrown at you so far. You solo’d Malenia and crushed the Elden Beast before confidently clearing every hurdle in the Realm of Shadow. Sure, the big progression bosses in Shadow of the Erdtree are tough, but you cleared them out after a few solid tries. You’re at the top of the mountain, climbed the highest peak of the DLC and you’re ready to walk away after 50+ hours of exploring this giant expansion map. You’re expecting a challenge – but you didn’t expect to get Radahn.
Radahn is an unreasonably difficult final boss. The challenge level is through the roof here – even experienced players are smashing their controllers and sprinting to Steam to complain. And they’re not entirely wrong. Radahn is an incredibly difficult boss. His first form is bad enough, but his second form is relentless. There’s barely any time to attack him. He’s too busy spinning around with two swords, flying in the sky to swoop at you, or just charging across the entire arena while little god Miquella hangs off his back for dear life. Even compared to Malenia, this boss is overwhelming in every sense of the word. When he starts calling down a rain of holy light from the sky, the intimidation factor is real.
And if you’re foolish enough to actually take the help FromSoft gives you, you’re just going to make life harder for yourself. You can summon two additional NPCs to distract him, but they’re essentially useless in this fight. They’ll die fast – and the act of summoning them gives Radahn more health. The more NPCs you summon, the more health Radahn has. You’re better off fighting him solo with your Spirit Ash buddy. And in our case, the spirit ash actually got the killing blow. Thanks little buddy.
#10 No Good Spells
The last boss is why Shadow of the Erdtree is getting so many negative reviews on Steam, but the real biggest problem is much simpler than that. There just aren’t any good new spells in the DLC. There are lots of spells that are flashy or require high arcane or faith stats to use, but none of them really outclass the spells that are already in the game. There are only a handful of spells players want to use – and they’re all Faith. Really, sorceries got shafted in Shadow of the Erdtree. If you like heavy armor and strength or dexterity weapons, the expansion is a treasure trove of great new additions you’ll want to switch to immediately. But if you’re looking for a fancy new spell to unleash, you’re going to have to search far and wide for even one magic attack that’s better than what we already got.
And that’s 10 reasons why you hated Shadow of the Erdtree – maybe that’s 10 reasons we hated it too. When it comes to knee jerk reactions, we had the exact same problems. But after playing for 90+ hours and learning everything there is to know about the latest expansion, we’re still incredibly happy with what we’ve got. This might be a mixed DLC map for some of you, but we’re calling this a Game of the Year contender, even with all the complaining. Let us know your biggest problems with Shadow of the Erdtree – whether they’re valid or not doesn’t really matter. Sometimes after your fiftieth death, we all need a little primal scream therapy.
