Elden Ring Expansion: 'Too Hard' for Fans?

Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC: A Double-Edged Sword of Difficulty and Praise

While Shadow of the Erdtree has received critical acclaim, its Steam reception is more nuanced, revealing a split between praise and player frustration. Many cite significant difficulty spikes and performance issues as major drawbacks.

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Steam Reviews Reveal a Divided Playerbase

Despite pre-release Metacritic success, the June 21st launch of Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC sparked a wave of negative Steam reviews. While the challenging gameplay is appreciated by some, many players find the combat excessively difficult and poorly balanced. Criticisms include poorly designed enemy placement and excessively high boss health pools.

Performance Problems Add to the Frustration

Beyond difficulty, performance issues plague both PC and console players. PC users report frequent crashes, micro-stuttering, and frame rate limitations. Even high-end systems struggle to maintain 30 FPS in crowded areas. PlayStation users also report significant frame rate drops during intense combat sequences.

The current Steam review score reflects this divided opinion, showing a "Mixed" rating with 36% negative reviews. Metacritic presents a more positive, albeit still mixed, "Generally Favorable" rating of 8.3/10 based on 570 user reviews. Game8 offers a significantly higher score of 94/100. This disparity highlights the subjective nature of the DLC's difficulty and overall experience.