Elden Ring, considered by critics to be THE greatest GOTY of all time with its 324 awards, returns with its DLC “Shadow of the Erdtree”. The base game had brought a rich lore with a prodigious artistic direction under the tutelage of Hidetaka Miyazaki.
Acclaimed by the press, is the Elden Ring expansion really worthy of GOTY 2022?
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Obviously, before being able to access the Realm of Shadows, you will have to make sure to meet certain conditions. Warning, the rest of this test includes spoilers related to Elden Ring as well as Shadow of the Erdtree. We invite you to leave it now if you do not want certain elements of the main story to be revealed to you as well as certain (magnificent) panoramas of the expansion.
- What a warm place!
Access to Shadow of the Erdtree is at Miquella's cocoon, in Mohgwyn's Palace, located under the Caelid region. Naturally, to access this cocoon, you will need to defeat the master of the place: Mohg, the Blood Lord. In addition, you will also need to have defeated General Radahn, the Scourge of the Stars. Defeating these two bosses therefore implies that you must have progressed sufficiently in the base game.
Once all these conditions are met, you will be able to go to the Shadow Realm.
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We take the same and start again
- Impressive !
After a brief dialogue with the enigmatic Leda in the Mohg Arena, we are invited to interact with the withered arm of the bloody cocoon to join her and her compatriots as they follow Miquella's footsteps across the Kingdom Shadows in the hope of knowing the fate of the missing god. The embers of an ancient war between the Golden Order and the denizens of the Shadow Realm still burn bright in this world. As in the Souls series, we are abandoned in yet another melancholic universe where death and desolation reign.
We begin our adventure in the Sepulchral Plain and, visually, the verdict is immediate. The artistic direction is impeccable, in perfect harmony with the lore that the base game had been able to offer us. Instantly, we notice that this expansion promises to be big, very big.
- On your left, the problems…
Vast plains are available to us and, like a certain Sentinel of the World Tree, we see in the distance one of the new enemies that this Kingdom of Shadows offers us. There is no doubt about it, we are indeed back in the Underworld. The few new mobs that we face from the first moments promise clashes and evolution within the DLC that are just as stressful as in the base game, despite our level 200.
Quickly, we come across a site of grace, decorated with a Miquella cross (about fifteen can be found in the DLC). In terms of lore, they bring little information, but are often synonymous with places of meditation for certain NPCs, such as merchants or other allies with their secondary quests. Unfortunately, these quests will turn out to be particularly anecdotal as we progress. Indeed, they will aim to make us discover more easily certain hidden areas (and therefore certain bosses), but these areas can still be found without following any quest.
Once completed, they allow us to summon the NPC we just helped, so that he can lend us a hand during the next major fights. But be careful, summoning these “allies” will drastically increase the life points of the bosses we will face.
However, Miquella's first cross mainly allows us to discover the main new feature of Shadow of the Erdtree: the blessings of the occult tree, made up of the splinters of the occult tree and the revered spiritual ashes.
- Super Smash Tarnished
Indeed, a particularly important point, it is these two rare resources (scattered in all corners of the map) that will allow players, regardless of their level in the game, to be more powerful in the Realm of Shadows. Strengthening respectively the character and the invocation ashes (as well as Torrent) permanently, the splinters and the spiritual ashes constitute this new buff system that will only be functional in the expansion. This will therefore allow lower level players to have a chance against the many major enemies of this DLC!
Speaking of difficulty…
To clarify and give you as many elements as possible for comparison, here is the build of our character in broad terms: dexterity, vigor, endurance. We are not fans of any magical effects applied to our weapons and prefer “old-fashioned” hand-to-hand combat.
- Highway to hell!
Benefiting from a large amount of life points and being able to strike hard quickly greatly simplified our task throughout the adventure. However, it is clear that the difficulty is very unequal from one boss to another. Where some can be slain with a few sword strokes, others… not. Where many have very easily identifiable patterns, others… don’t. But let's be reassured, even with a vigor increased to 60, here is their main point in common: two or three blows can be enough for them to destroy us! HELLO THE FINAL BOSS…
More seriously, the design of the major bosses is particularly careful and the music that accompanies them is often masterful and in total harmony with the universe. Imposing, and for the most part charismatic, they will leave in our memories the memory of epic clashes. We were able to overcome all the bosses in the game quite easily, except two and more particularly one (you can imagine which one…).
The update deployed last week, surely following the wave of negative reviews posted on Steam, made the blessings of the occult tree more effective. We were able to notice a real difference between before and after the update (we had defeated all the main bosses and a few secondary ones before it took effect).
- I'm going but I'm afraid…
At the end of the corridor, on the right
With Shadow of the Erdtree, and in the manner of the base game, the level design all in verticality has gone to the next level. A good idea from FromSoftware that allows the title to gain momentum in terms of its immersion, in parallel with this dizzying artistic direction. However, we found this verticality rather difficult to decipher via the world map. Particularly counter-intuitive, it will have required a lot (too much) of thought to understand how to access certain areas. It will be easy for the less determined to miss a quarter or more of what the extension can offer us, without seriously looking at the map and trusting only their sense of exploration. Especially since we found that exploration was too rarely rewarded, and too often by secondary items. Most of the new dungeons do not bring any visual or architectural novelty compared to those of the base game, except for one (or two) new enemies.
- Simply sumptuous
However, visually, the reward will be more than there. Even if, technically, a little below what is currently best, the artistic direction literally obliterates everything that has been done in souls-like until now. Truly grandiose and perfectly varied, the discovery of each new area is a pleasure for the eyes. However, despite the beauty of these areas, we found them quite empty, due to the lack of mobs or even grace sites. Indeed, there are two or three areas that are particularly unpleasant to navigate because of their vastness and the redundancy of the unoriginal enemies found there.
- You will remember him!
Concerning the bestiary, we find the classic knights and ghostly or draconic monsters, without the new additions being really relevant. Some even clearly lack inspiration (hello finger zone lizards). A few “advanced” mobs will have left their mark on us, but far too few for this to constitute a strong point of this DLC. On the other hand, the new weapons, armor and ashes of war pleasantly diversify the range of our skills by bringing new gameplay elements with some really successful animations.
Finally, aficionados of narrative lore will have to be satisfied with too few elements in our opinion, Shadow of the Erdtree being stingy with revelations concerning the stories of Marika, Miquella or even Malenia.
Tested on Xbox Series X