After a positive start, the Elden Ring DLC is now struggling with negative feedback from players. The focus of the criticism is the bosses of Shadow of the Erdtree.
What is the mood? Shadow of the Erdtree was released on June 21, 2024 and has received rave reviews from the trade press. The metascore is 95 points.
The mood on Steam was also very good on Friday. There were predominantly positive ratings and reviews praising the DLC. In addition, the number of players playing Elden Ring shot up, reaching a peak of over 550,000 simultaneous players shortly after the expansion was launched.
On June 22, 2024, SteamDB measured around 780,000 simultaneous players. So the motivation is high – but the more people played the DLC and the further they got in it, the more the general mood changed.
This led to Shadow of the Erdtree currently losing its “very positive” rating on Steam and now only being rated “balanced”. But what are players criticizing?
Elden Ring introduces the boss enemies of the DLC
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The biggest problem is the bosses
What do the ratings look like now? As of June 23, 2024, over 22,200 players have given their rating on Steam. Only 63% of them are positive. Many of the negative voices have spoken out in detailed reviews and explained why they gave the DLC a thumbs down.
One point that is mentioned again and again is the game’s sometimes poor performance. Especially in comparison to the main game, there are frame drops and even freezes, especially during boss fights. This could be due to the fact that many of the fights are very effective and bring your PC to its knees.
Bosses: They get the most criticism. Long-time fans of FromSoftware often have their say in the reviews. Players like user Lars760 say: “It pains me to write this review because I love the Souls games. But the boss fights aren’t what they used to be.”
In his opinion, FromSoftware has made the bosses artificially more difficult. They are overly aggressive and have long combos that give you hardly any time to attack.
The studio should question its own design philosophy, especially in light of the negative feedback. User Crimson also thinks the expansion is great, but criticizes the poor execution of the bosses. They use cheap tricks and don’t come close to the quality of previous bosses like Lady Maria.
“This DLC only makes the core problems of the base game worse. Bloated HP pools, attack cycles that never end, scaling that doesn’t seem to work properly,” writes PossumPally, criticizing the new system surrounding the Scadu Tree Fragments. Read our guide on MeinMMO and make your life easier.
“Every boss now has to be like Malenia,” criticizes ThomasOfAstora, after explaining that he has been playing and loving FromSoftware’s games for 12 years. But the studio went too far with the DLC.
So the mood is currently quite mixed. There are many positive opinions as well as negative ones. That’s why we’re curious to hear your opinion. Have you already played the DLC? What do you think of it, and especially the bosses? Please let us know in the comments. If you’re looking for help, feel free to visit MeinMMO – here you’ll find our guide overview.