Elden Ring Developer FromSoftware recently revealed details about the game’s highly anticipated expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree. This meaty new addition to the role-playing game’s already massive open world is coming this June and will let players visit an undiscovered region known as the Land of Shadow. As with FromSoftware’s previous expansions, expect challenging new bosses to battle and powerful new weapons and abilities to use.
However, June is still far away, especially from the perspective of waiting for new Elden Ring contents. But when it comes to readying your Tarnished and reorienting yourself in the world, there’s no better time than now to revisit the base game. Take a hint from the tens of thousands of players, according to Steam chartswho have returned to the game over the past month: it is high time to return to the Lands Between.
Just a few days after the February announcement, I got back into the game Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree for a few reasons:
- I had to write a manual on how to gain access Shadow of the Erdtree‘s content, which can only be accessed if you spend at least a few hours in the game and defeat a demigod class boss;
- Just for fun, I had recently revisited another FromSoft game, Sekiro: Shadows die twiceand realized that I had completely lost all the muscle memory I had acquired from beating that game multiple times;
- I had recently spoken to a friend who was trying to visit again Cyberpunk 2077 after a year-long hiatus between that game’s troubled launch and the release of the Phantom freedom expansion. He found it disorienting to try to jump into a heavily modified game after an extended absence.
Returning to Elden Ring and starting with a new character helped me remember a few things. The early hours of the game can be grueling, even though Limgrave, the first area, is fun to explore on the back of your horse, Torrent. The Fell Omen fought tough enemies like the Tree Sentinel and Margit, punishing especially at low levels with my new character’s crappy gear. I had to become good again.
Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco
The best reason to return to an old game like Elden Ring rediscovers – and in some cases even for the first time – its many layers and secrets. During this new playthrough, I found a Crystal Tear that I hadn’t encountered in my last 200 hours of playing the game. Besides, I had hardly paid attention to it Elden Ring lore as I initially rushed through the game for review. This time I actually listened to the dialogue from Melina, Ranni the Witch, and others so I could be better prepared for the story beats that await you. Shadow of the Erdtree. I’m going slowly now, going through the item descriptions and digesting the lore videos in an attempt to make sense of it Elden Ring‘s opaque stories.
Starting from scratch with a new character can benefit me in another way: I don’t start Shadow of the Erdtree on a new game plus (plus plus plus) difficulty level – if that even matters. That’s what game director Hidetaka Miyazaki says Shadow of the Erdtree will have “an element of leveling unique to the DLC,” which may raise my concerns, but I don’t want to approach the expansion at too high or too low a level. In a interview with FamitsuMiyazaki compared the new leveling element to the attack power system Sekiro.
“Aside from the original level system, there is an ‘attack force’ that only turns on in the DLC areas,” Miyazaki said in a commentary translated from Japanese. “This was introduced to give you the freedom to tackle the threats mentioned earlier, allowing you to do something like explore other areas before going back to challenge bosses that were too strong the first time around, making this easier to experience , even in the high-level range.”
Whatever that new leveling system turns out to be, I’d like to be prepared. Whether that’s with one of my advanced high-level characters or my brand new character, I’m happy to have multiple options. I stand ready and waiting, within easy reach of Miquella’s gross egg sac, for my first steps into the Land of Shadow.
