I’m sure every other review on this site have already gone over the gameplay and difficulty, which is why most people play these games and understandably so, but I’ll keep it brief since I don’t want to repeat what everyone else is saying ad nauseam: I think the gameplay is great, but not the best in Fromsoft’s catalog. Exploration is fantastic; both the legacy dungeons and the open world are magnificent, but the way they’re built around the Scadutree blessing system is kind of infuriating. It’s a great exploration incentive, but not only does it hurt Elden Ring’s already weak replay value, but the bosses being designed around it made sure Fromsoftware really didn’t hold back when designing them. It takes Elden Ring’s “come back later” principle to a whole new level that doesn’t really solve the base game’s core issues. Shame because some of these boss movesets are genuinely fun as hell, Messmer and controversially even the final boss, in my humble opinion, are some of the most fun movesets in the game. I kinda wish they weren’t scaled so ridiculously and so inflated-ly at times. Content wise, I don’t know if Shadow of the Erdtree does enough for me to consider it a net improvement over the base game as a piece of content. It’s more or less the same, which in some ways is good, and others bad.

But you may have noticed my score for this game and am wondering why I’d rate it this highly in spite of my issues. Evidently, Souls games and especially Elden Ring aren’t games the vast majority of people play for the story, and I’m sure the people reading this review don’t care for the story either. Most people will say they like the “lore”, but many people can truly say they appreciate what Elden Ring has to say on a narrative or thematic level. Once again, the exploration and bosses are great, but Shadow of the Erdtree’s story supersedes those things with just how fantastic it is. Jesus Christ. I’m not even joking when I say this DLC has elevated Elden Ring into probably being my favorite Fromsoftware story, even more than Bloodborne.

I cannot even begin to count how many times this DLC made my jaw drop or made me grin from ear-to-ear from sheer wonder and excitement, either upon discovering a new location and wanting to unearth its history, meeting a new character and learning about their backstory, or discovering a new revelation that either gives new context to the game’s grander narrative, or recontextualizing an already existing story beat in a way that’s fresh and creative. Story progression isn’t really talked about in Fromsoftware games all too much, but it’s a really underrated part of their storytelling. Moving through Lordran and uncovering its secrets in Dark Souls, or ascending the Astral Clocktower and finding out the truth of the healing church’s sins in Bloodborne, both great examples of how progression is used to heighten tension and build narrative weight in these games, and nowhere is it better than in Shadow of the Erdtree.

Elden Ring’s story and especially its characters play a big part in this, thanks in no small part to Martin’s contributions, but Miyazaki is equally if not more deserving of credit in this regard. This DLC immediately gives us a powerful hook: find Miquella, and that plot point is what everything in this DLC hinges on, from the NPC questlines to the exploration. The way these questlines diverge and meet at different parts of the map and how they change pretty dynamically as more about Miquella gets revealed is really cool, not to mention Miquella himself making for a strong hook in his own right.

As viewers and players of Elden Ring, our familiarity with Miquella by way of Malenia and the base game’s pre-existing lore place a particular focus and ethos on our journey that just isn’t present in previous Souls games. Dark Souls will center around someone like Gwyn and Elden Ring on Marika, but there are few whose journey we experience and learn of as firsthand as Miquella. It’s also no secret how glazed Miquella is in Elden Ring’s lore, often cited by his sister Miquella as the most fearsome Empyrean and by many others as a strong leader with the power to bewitch. It makes for a buildup and climax that is (controversially, in my opinion) really fun and compelling. I understand why others might dislike that final boss, but I found it an absolute blast to learn and very effective narratively.

That said, Miquella is NOT the focus of this DLC, and neither is Messmer (who is a fantastic character in his own right btw). Shadow of the Erdtree’s unequivocal focus, and its best and most compelling character, is of course Queen Marika herself. I don’t think it’s possible to overstate just how much this DLC elevated Marika as a character for me, Jesus. Without spoiling, there’s a certain location in the game that Marika is connected to, and upon arriving in said location and reading the flavor text of the items there, I just kinda sat down in awe for 30 minutes, taken aback by the scenery, the music, and how these games can project so much pathos with seemingly so little. I thought about the history of this character, the emotionality, everything they must’ve gone through to get to this point, and I just felt like crying, man… Queen Marika is a generational character and pretty easily Fromsoftware’s best after this DLC, I don’t really know what else to say.

Pertaining to Marika’s footsteps and the extreme and almost aggressive emphasis this DLC places on her, I’m kinda floored by just how thematically cohesive a piece of content Shadow of the Erdtree is. I’ve seen a lot of people express disappointment with how underwhelming both the game’s story and ending are, and like… have you ever played a Fromsoftware DLC before? Bloodborne’s DLC’s ending was an old dude moaning into the ocean, and DS3’s was like… 3, 4? lines of dialogue or so? The point of Shadow of the Erdtree as a narrative complement to Elden Ring is exactly that: a narrative complement and nothing more. We knew going in there wouldn’t be a new ending, and that was fine. I only had one demand of SotE’s story before going in, and that was the hope that it would reshape and contextualize our understanding of the base game’s story and endings in a vivid light, and to that end I think it definitely succeeded.

The final cutscene of the DLC, while good, isn’t really the draw here. I think the complementary nature of SotE’s story is a more gradual kind, woven into the game’s locations and bosses. There are two bosses in particular who themselves serve as thematic complements to two of the base game’s endings, as well as Miquella himself and his journey to godhood complementing the four Elden Lord endings. All I could think of was “wow they do a good job of making the game’s endings look unappealing af!”, and I believe that this was wholeheartedly intentional. I won’t get into the nitty gritty of the thematic purpose these bosses serve, but I think it’s safe to say my quota of wanting the DLC to reshape my understanding of the game was mostly met.

So is Shadow of the Erdtree a masterpiece? In spite of its flaws, I think yeah. It’s not From’s tightest or most objectively well designed piece of content (Old Hunters is a better DLC, and I think Sekiro, Armored Core 6, and Armored Core Last Raven are overall better designed and more fun to play), but if discussions begin and end at stuff like difficulty and gameplay, I think it severely diminishes Elden Ring’s value as a greater work of art. Shadow of the Erdtree only reemphasized why Elden Ring resonates with and speaks to me so much. This is the kind of game and story that reminds me why I love this medium so much, and for that, I am eternally grateful. Thank you to Hidetaka Miyazaki, GRRM, and everyone at Fromsoftware for bringing this story to life.