Worth the Wait?! Elden Ring expansion Shadow of the Erdtree Thoughts

 As I mentioned in one of my UPDATES, I decided to do my Top 5 Fromsoft games earlier this month (where it got a respectable 3rd place out of 5) and than boom! As if on que, From Software drops the full length Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC trailer. Heck, we can not even call it DLC anymore because at a $40 price point and what we can assume will be all the content Fromsoft will put into it, simply calling it DLC does not seem sufficient. A lot of folks is calling it an expansion and I agree. Speaking of, look at this wonder.

Back in February 2023, almost a full year after Elden Ring's original release date, SOE (Shadow Of the Erdtree of course) was announced on twitter. This was original a big thing because it had taken a full year from Elden Ring was released for them to announce the expansion and normally going by From's previous track record, DLC were announced much quicker. Dark Souls 3 for example had a season pass attached to it which promised the 2 follow up DLCs (Ashes of Ariandel and The Ringed City respectively). However with SOE, From took time to cook and cook they did. Now almost a full 2 years after the original games release we have the trailer and a release date... June 21st, 2024.

There is so much to unpack in this trailer but the main thing is, Elden Ring is back. All the new attack animations, all the new spells, weapons and new enemies including the named boss Messmer, the Impaler.

Now I am just saying, the last time From Software presented a boss as a key piece of art and they were sitting down, we got Lady Maria from Bloodborne, one of the most popular Fromsoft bosses of all time. I think they might be trying to tell us something with this person too. On top of that, we have been getting little bits of information like, how he might tie into the lore, how big the expansion is going to be and of course the return of toxic swamps which creator Miyazaki seems to have a unhealthy obsession with. One of the things I was excited to see was in the trailer, our player character using some Sekiro/ martial arts moves to take down a new knight foe and it looked sick. If you follow this blog, you know Sekiro is my favorite Fromsoft game so to see some of its DNA in here was a treat for me.

So I just really wanted to get my thoughts out there. This is not a deep dive into the possible lore or characters because much better writers are doing that. I just wanted to talk about how much this is going to mean to me. From Software over the course of a couple years has become the gaming studio I can rely on to not miss and combined it with their track record for putting out some of the best DLCs known to man also gives me much hope. I KNOW this is going to be great and I know it'll be worth the wait. I can not wait to die and die again to this big burning wicker man thing and go damn... From, you did it again.

Hoping more Fire Giant and less Demon of Hatred

All I know is, June 21st onwards we will be dedicated to diving back into Elden Ring and ALL the craziness that follows. This expansion might even push Elden Ring to the top place or second in my all time favorite Fromsoft games.

AV