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The best expansions are unmistakably grounded in their base game, but take all of their strongest ideas and distill them down into a more refined, self-contained experience which not only celebrates everything that made the original great, but takes it just that little bit further, too.
Shadow of the Erdtree is not just the phenomenal, lore-drenched, soul-sucking Elden Ring experience you know in the present, but an homage to FromSoftware’s past and glimpse into its future as well.
It all begins in true Souls style, with one of this year’s best horror moments followed by a legacy dungeon that could come from anywhere in FromSoftware’s storied back-catalogue – packed to the rafters with hidden ambushes, unfair fights and a cataclysmic boss battle to top it all off.
But, as you reveal the undiscovered secrets of the universe in a labyrinthine warren of secret tunnels and passageways that belie the region’s true, incredible scale, it’s the gothic ambiance of The Lands of Shadow that steals the show. This is yet another special FromSoftware setting, contained within another special FromSoftware setting: Fromception.
Crucially though, this is also one of FromSoftware’s most forthright narratives – certainly in a Souls game – but that does nothing to dampen the mystery and ethereal wonder of the locations you visit and characters you meet. It’s this story-telling evolution that makes Shadow of the Erdtree essential in its own right, as well as an absolutely stellar addition to the base game of Elden Ring (obviously a GOTY contender in its own right, too, of course).
Shadow of the Erdtree is easily one of the most memorable, exciting, and engrossing things to drop this year, and can be hewn alongside The Shivering Isles, Phantom Liberty, and Undead Nightmare on the Mount Rushmore of great video game DLCs.
In fact, we’ve got a podcast dedicated to this very topic: Which expansions are better than the main game? From The Shivering Isles to Toussaint, some downloadable content is worth every penny. Twice. The fact that Shadow of the Erdtree quickly and effortlessly adds itself to these iconic names says it all, really; in a year of incredibly strong, memorable games, it’s an expansion that really lodges itself in my head as we tiptoe into 2025.