Episode 170 - Gaius, the Lion, the Witch or the Wardrobe - Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

I'm weak as a kitten and thick as two planks. I've always been
this way. I'm proficient in podcasts. Sorry. Welcome back to the
podcast! As our second episode in our run of DLCs, we’re talking
about The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC for Elden Ring. And yeah, this
is the release that inspired the theme in the first place. Shadow
of the Erdtree released over two years after the original game, and
the scope of this DLC alone is evidence of that. Advertised as
being “about the size of Limgrave,” the map is a sprawling
multilayered world with numerous different areas, some of which are
pretty well hidden. Being big isn’t necessarily an indication of
quality, of course, but it is a good thing to keep in mind when
considering this as an expansion to Elden Ring. Being another open
world to explore, the challenge in development is making the area
interesting to be in and worth exploring. The world looks amazing.
Potentially unbound by the setting of the DLC being in a kind of
afterlife, each area has such a distinct visual presentation and
runs the gamut from somber to chaotic to awe inspiring. The other
half of the equation was maybe less successful, with mechanical
rewards, like new items, weapons and spells, are spread more thin
than in the base game, which makes exploring slightly less
rewarding than you might expect. That being said, the novelty of
the new items and weapons makes finding them exciting, and they can
come in handy engaging in the DLC's many new combat encounters.
Designed to be taken on very late game, the fights in Shadow of the
Erdtree are difficult, and to combat this, they have introduced a
new upgrade system to generally increase damage and defense, and on
your first playthrough you’re going to want to search these out for
sure. I hesitate to say more, obviously there’s a lot to discuss,
and the length of this episode is testament to that. We’re going to
be talking about our experiences with most of the major bosses, the
design of the world and its visuals, and we give you a great deal
on a robe that may or may not contain untold eldritch horrors
within. Thank you for listening this week, and an extra special
thanks if you actually listened to the whole thing. This was a DLC
that we, and a lot of people, were looking forward to and we wanted
to put it on the list as soon as possible after release. Did you
have a good time with this one? Did you find the difficulty to be
off-putting? Let’s talk about it in the comments or over in our
Discord. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Xenoblade
Chronicles 3’s expansion Future Redeemed, so hopefully you’ll stop
by for that one.