Elden Ring's Shadow Expansion 'Overwhelms' Players

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

While Shadow of the Erdtree has earned critical acclaim, its Steam reception is more divisive, with players voicing concerns about difficulty and performance.

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Mixed Reception on Steam for Elden Ring's Latest Expansion

Despite pre-release accolades and a high Metacritic score, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree launched to a wave of negative player reviews on Steam. Released June 21st, the DLC's challenging gameplay, while praised by some, has frustrated many due to intense combat, questionable difficulty balancing, and performance issues across PC and consoles.

Performance Woes and Excessively Difficult Encounters

A major complaint centers on the expansion's combat intensity. Players describe encounters as significantly harder than the base game, with some citing poorly designed enemy placement and excessively inflated boss health pools.

Performance problems further compound the difficulty. PC users report frequent crashes, micro-stuttering, and frame rate limitations. Even high-end systems struggle to maintain 30 FPS in crowded areas, severely impacting gameplay. Similar frame rate drops during intense moments have been reported on PlayStation consoles.

As of Monday, Steam reviews for Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree are "Mixed," with 36% negative. Metacritic shows a more positive "Generally Favorable" rating of 8.3/10 (based on 570 user reviews), while Game8 gives it a 94/100.