Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree is a sublime follow-up to one of the best games ever

FromSoftware has been operating in rarified air for some time.

While playing through Shadow of the Erdtree, we were struck with a feeling that is usually only reserved by something from Nintendo, or perhaps the latest Grand Theft Auto. This is a developer operating at the absolute peak of the medium. This is an experience that breeds a fanbase as loyal as those devoted to FromSoftware. This is one of the best games ever.

We’ve played every single game in the loose Soulsborne-kiro series, it shouldn’t be possible to surprise us any more, and yet, multiple times within Shadow of the Erdtree’s first hours, we audibly swore in astonishment at what we were looking at. To create something as massive as Elden Ring, and still have the wealth of creativity to create what is an expansion that’s longer than Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls 1&2, and Bloodborne, is awe-inspiring.

Shadow of the Erdtree Video Review

The expansion, which requires players to best some of Elden Ring’s tougher foes to access, takes us to the Land of Shadow. This world sits beneath a hulking husk of an Erdtree, painting the sky with dread. It’s a world that’s set to instantly put the player off their stride.

It’s beautiful but imposing. You can see a mammoth castle in the distance and some impossible floating islands both above and below you. You know, as an Elden Ring veteran, that you’re eventually going to go there, but at that point, it’s impossible to predict the labyrinthine twists and turns that the journey will take you on.

As you set off towards the first densely populated area, you encounter a hulking forge, almost as tall as the main game’s Fire Giant. This boss-sized enemy produces no health bar across the bottom of the screen, no special cutscene, this is simply a regular threat to contend with in the world. After your first one-on-one and a swift return to the initial site of grace, you get a taste of what you’re in for here.

Shadow of the Erdtree feels like the best of Elden Ring condensed into a more concise package. While the main game had some fluff towards the end, and northern areas of the map felt less fleshed out than they could have, every inch of Shadow of the Erdtree is used to its fullest.

Not only that, multiple large sections aren’t even visited on the main path, each of which contains boss fights, side quests and hours of content to explore. Instead of leading you there by the hand, or putting a mainline boss there, the game instead positions you so that you can see far into the distance that there’s something you’ve missed.

After we uncovered some of the map, we realized there was a section we were missing off to the east. We placed a map marker down, and as we emerged back into the main game to look for it, we saw that the blue light denoting it wasn’t just a few fields away, it was so far away it looked out of bounds.

Prior to release, FromSoftware said the world of this expansion was around the same size as Limgrave. That was a lie. This is a mammoth open world that seems to get bigger every time you feel like it’s done expanding. That’s the exact same trick they pull in Elden Ring, and it works just as well. If anything, it works better here due to your expectations of what an “expansion” entails.

“If Elden Ring was FromSoftware’s coronation, then Shadow of the Erdtree is the parade that follows it. An astonishingly confident, hugely rewarding adventure that feels more like a sequel than a simple expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree is a triumph.”

Mechanically, Shadow of the Erdtree differs from Elden Ring in the form of two buffs that are exclusive to the Land of Shadows. These buffs are related to the main quest, and serve as not only a way to improve your character, but seeking them out often leads to new steps in various NPC quests. Speaking of which, Shadow of the Erdtree is far keener on pushing the player down the path of NPC quests, rather than running off on their own.

While you can finish the story without speaking to anyone, the game has an interesting cast that weaves its way through the main conga line of bosses. While the game is kinder about pointing you toward these quests than the main game, here lies our only issue with the expansion.

Due to the sprawling nature and the ability to do things out of order, we found ourselves missing steps of a quest, meaning when the crescendo of that quest happened as part of the game’s climax, it didn’t make a lot of sense narratively.

Obviously, this is natural for this type of game, considering you could literally spend dozens of hours between talking to characters, but the expansion does such a good job from the start of making sure you start the quest, we’d have enjoyed it very slightly more push to make sure we were on the right track.

Like most FromSoftware narratives, the true value of Shadow of the Erdtree’s story will be extracted in the coming weeks when every weapon has been examined, and every item description has been read. The atmosphere of the world is so incredible that it’s impossible not to want to know every detail of what’s going on. That is, of course, the genius of FromSoftware’s narrative.

Instead of beating you over the head with audio logs, and skeletons lying next to each other with notes declaring love for one another, it drops just enough clues that you’re always itching to know just a little bit more. That feeling of emerging from a lift and entering a new portion of the map, featuring completely new scenery and architecture, is unrivaled.

From an art perspective, the game is a masterpiece, and while some human faces can look a bit weird, and a texture here or there isn’t the sharpest, it couldn’t matter less. We can’t count the amount of times we put down our controller to take in the world. Or how many times we cycled through the various times of day to see the world bathed in the warm light of sunrise. It’s an oppressive, bleak world, but it also happens to be one of the most stunning yet included in a game.

Bosses, similarly, are incredibly inventive and epic. That is literally as much as we’d like to say about them, as each is a delight and deserves to be experienced without any forewarning or teasing.

If Elden Ring was FromSoftware’s coronation, then Shadow of the Erdtree is the parade that follows it. An astonishingly confident, hugely rewarding adventure that feels more like a sequel than a simple expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree is a triumph. There is more quality in this expansion than most games approach across a standalone release, and prior to Elden Ring, this on its own would have been one of FromSoftware’s largest worlds.

Even after our 40 hours, we’ve still got at least that many more to go exploring, beating every optional boss, opening every door, and finding a use for every key item. We’ve also convinced ourselves that the last boss can be totally different based on an early story choice, so we’ve started planning our next playthrough.

It is every bit as good as we’d hoped, and better still.