The Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is receiving the same complaints as every other FromSoft game — it’s too hard.
Demon's Souls, the Dark Souls trilogy and Elden Ring are all beloved for their punishing-yet-rewarding gameplay, but many find the unrelenting difficulty to be more frustrating than fun.
Elden Ring features a wide variety of weapons, spells and strategies, and the open-world design allows players to walk away from challenging encounters, to return when they’re ready.
Shadow of the Erdtree, however, is proving too much, even for players who have mastered Elden Ring.
FromSoft fans have a tendency to mock players who seek an “easy mode,” but even those who play videogames for a living have given up on Shadow of the Erdtree, finding the level of challenge to be exhausting.
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Others have stepped up to the challenge; after suffering more than a thousand deaths, popular Twitch streamer Kai Cenat managed to defeat the final boss of the DLC, and his ecstatic reaction speaks for itself.
Some commentators were amused by the irony of FromSoft fans bitterly complaining about the difficulty level of the DLC, considering that the community has always prided itself on mastering challenge.
Make no mistake, Dark Souls and Elden Ring are heavy, time-consuming endeavors; mastering the combat can feel like more of a commitment than a videogame should. But why is Shadow of the Erdtree proving to be too much?
Why Is The ‘Elden Ring’ DLC so hard?
Elden Ring uses a fairly typical RPG leveling system, with players collecting points gained from fallen enemies to invest into skills; strength, dexterity, intelligence, etc.
However, the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC uses a different leveling system, essentially reducing all players to the same lowly level, regardless of how much time and energy they have invested in strengthening their characters.
Players are tasked with collecting fragments scattered throughout the Land of Shadow, in order to build enough strength to face the DLC’s intimidating opponents. Hence, seasoned players might feel frustrated that all their hard work has been effectively wiped away.
Some players suggested that Elden Ring is leaning too heavily into long combos, with enemies delivering far too many moves, to the point where waiting for an opening to attack feels like a chore.
Notably, the fanbase has widened exponentially since the release of Elden Ring, as the game is most commercially successful FromSoft release by far, with over 23 million copies sold.
As the fandom has grown beyond the initial group of hardcore gamers, it might be the case that the game’s ferocious challenge has simply proven too much for newcomers.
Amusingly, the creator of the game, Hidetaka Miyazaki, has described himself as a “masoch*st” who very much enjoys the horrendous deaths endured by players.
Miyazaki told The Guardian that the difficulty is no accident — the DLC is meant to be hard:
“If we really wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down more and more, but that wasn’t the right approach. Turning down difficulty would strip the game of that joy, which, in my eyes, would break the game itself.”
Are FromSoft Games Too Hard?
Speaking as a big fan of Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2 and Elden Ring — yes. These games are too hard, and I have invested an embarrassing amount of time in beating them.
Of course, the difficulty is much of the appeal of these games, and there is great satisfaction in taking down a boss that once seemed invincible.
However, I’d argue that the extraordinary depth of the combat system is the real secret sauce behind these games, along with their unusual approach to narrative (major plot points and contextual details are hidden behind cryptic clues, and many remain a complete mystery).
The difficulty of these games can sometimes be an obstacle to appreciating the incredible art direction. Sometimes, I just want to soak in the ambiance without an undead creature launching at me, turning the screen into a spasm of blades — walking corpses in these games have more energy than Olympic athletes.
A “peaceful mode” might be preferable to an “easy mode,” seeing as the unique character design of these games is often lost in an adrenaline-infused blur, as the player’s attention is spent desperately trying to stay alive, just to avoid the long walk from the last checkpoint.
Elden Ring, with its roaming groups of enemies and sprawling fields, can offer moments of quiet contemplation. Those moments will always be interrupted by some shrieking abomination that has just become aware of your existence, yet despises you with every decaying cell in its body.
Just once, it would be nice to wander the ruined, forlorn lands of FromSoft without seeing the dreaded, “YOU DIED.”
