Elden Ring’s highly anticipated Shadow of the Erdtree DLC has received “mixed” reviews from players on Steam. Players are complaining about the difficulty level of the DLC and performance issues on the PC version.

Elden Ring DLC has received a “Mixed” Steam review, due to difficulty and performance issues

The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC has been downgraded to “mixed” on Steam after nearly 15,000 players reviewed it. Players praised the game’s visual presentation and world design, while criticizing issues such as FPS limitations, stuttering, and bosses with illogical movements. In particular, players were frustrated by the 20 minutes of running around in large open areas doing nothing and the challenging boss battles.

“I love running around for 20 minutes doing nothing and collecting random consumable items that I’ll never use. The bosses are extremely boring to fight,” one player commented, while another player commented on the inability to start the game: “I’m trying to open the game but nothing works. There are a lot of people having the same problem and there is no definitive solution yet.”

Some players noted that the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC feels like a blend of assets from the base game of Elden Ring: “It feels like they mixed all the assets in a blender. The challenges are still fun to overcome, but I expected more innovation from this DLC and it’s definitely not worth 40 bucks.”

One veteran player criticized the current state of the DLC, adding: “The world design and colors are really nice, but balance is a big issue. Even with 60% vigor, I die in two hits by almost every enemy. The enemy design in the DLC follows a philosophy where every enemy does massive damage, has a lot of health, and has endless combos with almost no gaps.”

FromSoftware’s Soulsborne games have always been known for their difficulty. The game’s creator, Hidetaka Miyazaki, has stated that this difficulty level is a fundamental part of the game, saying, “Lowering the difficulty would make the game pointless.” He emphasized that the success of Elden Ring is due to the feeling of players overcoming these challenges.

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