Summary
In the middle of its first weekend following release on Friday, August 08, 2025,Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtreehas fallen into the “Mixed” category of Steam user reviews.Shadow of the Erdtreeis the long-awaited expansion toElden Ring, the most expansive RPG yet by FromSoftware, the development house behindDark Souls,Bloodborne, and many more. Althoughcritical reception toShadow of the Erdtreehas seen almost uniform praise for the DLC, many players eager to return toElden Ringduring the expansion’s opening weekend have come away deflated.
At the time of writing, theSteamreviews forElden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtreehad acquired the aggregate metric of “Mixed,” with 62% of the roughly 25,000 reviews being positive. A leading factor inShadow of the Erdtree’s evaluation seems to be its difficulty – a trademark of FromSoftware’s game design, but over-tuned compared to the base game according to disgruntled players. Many of the negative reviews claim the bosses specifically are simply unfair. The second-most common complaint appears to be the DLC’s effect on performance, with many PC players experiencing lower frame rates than the base game and frequent stuttering.
Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree Is Much Harder Than The Base Game
Grinding For Levels Is Not As Effective In The Expansion
As pointed out by Reddit userAnchovyKing, many ofShadow of the Erdtree’s negative Steam reviews are curiously from Chinese players.When the reviews are filtered to only see those written in English,Shadow of the Erdtree’s evaluation becomes “Very Positive,“with 81% of nearly 14,000 reviews rating it positively. It’s unclear what the cultural divide is onShadow of the Erdtree, as running many of the negative, Chinese-language reviews through Google Translate reveals many of the same issues regarding difficulty and performance on PC. Interestingly, many of the negative reviews still praise many aspects ofShadow of the Erdtree, including world design, the new items, and its soundtrack.
While therecommended character level forShadow of the Erdtreeis quite high, typically requiring late-game builds, the expansion has a separate power scaling mechanic from the base game.A character’s rune level means comparatively little next toShadow of the Erdtree’s Shadow Realm Blessings, which drastically increase damage dealt and damage negated with each level. A common piece of advice whenElden Ringfirst launched was to ignore difficult bosses in favor of exploration to gain a handful of levels, but inShadow of the Erdtree, finding specific items –Scadutree FragmentsandRevered Spirit Ashes– is essentially the only viable route.
Even the expansion’s first bosses, theBlackgaol Knightand the Gravesite PlainFurnace Golem, are proving to be immense challenges for players. Difficulty is often at the forefront of the discourse surrounding FromSoftware games, which have built their reputation on a “tough but fair” mantra.Shadow of the Erdtree’s Mixed Steam reviews point to many feeling that fairness hasn’t necessarily carried over from the base game, which is often considered FromSoftware’s most approachable title in theSoulslineage. The studio’s DLCs are notoriously more difficult than their respective base games, andElden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtreeis certainly continuing that tradition.
Sources:Steam,AnchovyKing/Reddit
Players venture into the shadowed realm of the Land of Shadow to confront new biomes, dungeons, and formidable bosses. Guided by the enigmatic Miquella, they face the terrifying Messmer the Impaler and uncover the dark secrets shrouded beneath the Erdtree’s influence, featuring new weapons, magic, and challenges.
