elden ring :shadow of the erdtree dlc review

*This review contains spoilers to both Elden Ring and the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, I didn’t post all the bosses,as my xbox account lost some of my pictures , but wanted to warn just in case.

So after about 2 years I finally finished Elden Ring , achieved the Age of Stars , and beat the Elden Beast. Although Maliketh the Black Blade was for me honestly harder than Radagon or the Elden Beast. I had a very funny build that was mostly strength and intelligence (I used large swords and spells ) but horrible defense . I was basically a glass cannon , and would die pretty easy. But becuase I played multiplayer with my friends and fiance they all encouraged me to max my strength. Mostly beacuse it was hilarious for PVP , I would just jump and bop other players killing them instantly.

Also the Elden Beast is so beautiful, like a cosmic plesiosaur loch ness monster. 

And there’s Ranni , I succefully completed her quest . I sadly wasn’t able to finish Nephi Loux’s though. I had my fiance and one our friend’s help me with Godfrey so I didn’t get to summon her for her quest.  Maybe next time when I go for the Death ending .

But now will totally be more  mild spoilers and the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC . I was pretty excited and decided to just finish base Elden Ring and go straight into the DLC, I was playing alongside friends and we got to experience the story and bosses together.  This may not be the most typical way to play a Fromsoft title , but it was really rewarding talking with my friends on discord and seeing some of the cutscenes and doing PVP.

To acess the DLC you must fight defeat Starscourge Radahn and Mohg , Lord of Blood. Then you’ll have to travel to Mohgwyn palace and touch an arm hanging out of cocoon. Then you’re transported to the land of Shadow.

And because Elden Ring and Fromsoft games are very cryptic , it helps to read all the lore on the items . That’s where you really kind of piece together what is exactly going on. Or kind of at least . For me I enjoyed the different bosses and Gaol’s (jail) that are scattered throught the land . And don’t be too shy about using a guide or asking a friend’s help for some the NPC quests . they’re also kind of wierd . I was able to get a pretty cool summon and incantation (which I sadly can’t use because of my lack of Faith ) , but my fiance didn’t know that he needed a special black syrup to give to a dragon priest , so he only got her Gavel and heart. 

What can I say about the enviroments , when you first arrive in the Land of Shadows , you notice how vast this new Shadow tree is ( very similar to the Erd tree in the base game ) and large walking fire golems made up of burnt corpses . I honestly hated these things as thier very hard to kill . I left most of the fire golems in my world alive , since I really hated killing them .  But I did take out most of the drakes or dragons , and cleared most of the Gaols. Honestly the first section looked a bit like the main game but with a bit more embers ,walking corpses , wierd grave birds , and i think progressing through the game more you find some more interesting marshes.

This was one of my favorite areas ( it’s closer the end game ) and it’s like this lush abandoned ruins , with lots of trees , overgrowth , animals  and even a hippo in one of the marshes. I sadly didn’t get to take pictures of the hippo (which looked like it’s mixed with a rat and maybe a rhino). There’s of course two toher ones as well , mostly just hanging out in the marshes , and their attacks are pretty brutal. Just imagine a giant mouth going after you and grabbing you. Still pretty funny .  The first time I encountered one I laughed so hard, it was not what I was expecting.

This pic is from the elden ring wiki .

Oh and there’s an even bigger golden one hanging out in a castle too! That one was pretty fun to fight as well.

I think my other favorite area , even though it was super spooky and you had to creep around alot was the Maddening Forest.  It’s a forest overtaken by the frenzy flame , and once you find your way here , you start noticing things are really off . even for Elden Ring. The animals here are driven mad with Frenzy Flame , their eyes are glowing and even non hostile deer and sheep will attack you. There’s heavy mist in certain areas , and even your spirit horse ,will refuse to come out and instead a message will say that Torrent is too scared . This place is terrifying . So much so that the best thing to do is creep and possibly use a mimic veil to transform into a dead rat!

It’s a pretty slow way of going through the Maddening Forest , but it totally worked , just don’t get too close to actual Frenzied Flame rats or whatever these guys were called .

Trust me these guys are truly the worst and probably the most terrifying thing in Elden Ring . They can’t be killed normally and have to be parried . My friend was good at parrying them but my fiance and I wanted to just turn into dead rats instead . or friend did kill a few for us though so were were able to get some rare items . 

And here’s nicer less scary area but still with kind of a sad backstory.

The Shaman Village in the Scaduview region. This is the hometown of Marika and has kind of a tragic story for goddess.  You can find her braided hair with these words: 

” A braid of golden hair , cut loose . Queen Marika’s offering to the Grandmother . Boosts holy damage negation by the utmost. What was her prayer ?her wish,her confession? There is no one left to answer ,and Marika never returned home again.”

This village has part of Marika’s lore , the rest can be found in one of the previous area’s bloody and dilapidated Bonny Village.  I appreciate how if you pay attention to places and items you can kind of piece together a story. I won’t get too much into Marika’s as it’s kind of one of bigger lore pieces of Elden ring , not so much with cutscenes , but definitely in items , and environment.  As the Land of Shadow is where the Eternal Goddess originated and many of the characters and bosses here are basically things left behind when she left for the Lands Between. Even one of the dragon’s Bayle the Dread ( which was one of the harder boss  fights ) is a rogue dragon who left the main land to basically lay low in the Land of Shadows . 

And I guess I’ll get into how hard the bosses really were. I had  help from my friends on a few of them , but some of the bosses i was able to solo. I think the bosses I had the hardest time were the Putrescent Knight ( his horse was insane ), Bayle ( Curse You Bayle!) , and the Messmer . I won’t get into Messmer’s lore as that’s also kind of important but he had one of the coolest cut scenes along with the Finger Mother (I’m sad to say I didn’t get pictures of her ) and the final boss ( I don’t want to spoil them at all).

I did have some of my favorites too , Like Giaus ( a really awesome boar riding knight ) , Messmer ( just becuase I had issues with him doesn’t mean he wasn’t cool, and the Finger Mother , as well as the Golden Hippo. 

And finally after the final big reveal and I meet the final boss and see the closing cutscene . I had mixed feelings. On one hand the bosses and enemies and enviroment was really entertaining, I learned some things about Marika , learned where those giant hands and fingers came from, found out some cool things about the Frenzy Flame and motivations of other characters from the first game. But I wanted more . Like I kind of understood the main anatagonist’s reason for the some of the events in the DLC , and from some of the lore in the main game . But with the final closing scene , I wanted a bit more , why was our character specifially in these events ? And will there be a direct sequel with the aftermath of one of the first games endings as well as the DLC’s?  Also my understanding was that this story goes along side the events of the first Elden Ring , So is that while you’re on your way to becoming Elden Lord?  Overall I really liked this DLC , it felt like a full game, maybe not as long as OG Elden Ring but still decent length. I probably would’ve taken even longer with it , if I wasn’t playing alongside my fiance and friends . We actually watched the last scene together ( with our on consoles and in voice call ) . Our goal was the experience Elden Ring together , so we helped each other out with bosses and quests, fought other players together , and watched the cutscenes at the same time. So maybe the ending was the point it was really the journey all along .  Let me know in the comments if you have played Elden Ring or The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC . What was your favorite boss or enemy?  I still think mine may have been the Hippo 💖.