The wait is finally over and Elden Ring‘s highly anticipated DLC – Shadow of the Erdtree – is available for tarnished to continue their adventure. When review embargo lifted on Shadow of the Erdtree on Tuesday it was fairly obvious from the get-go that the colossal DLC was going to be well-received – critic reviews are consistently raining praise upon the new content, with ComicBook’s own review after spending approximately 60-hours with the DLC asserting that if “you’ve seen Elden Ring through to the end and beaten the main story or have at least gotten close, you owe it to yourself to play through Shadow of the Erdtree to elevate your Elden Ring experience even further.”
Overall, Shadow of the Erdtree‘s critic reviews have added up to provide an incredibly impressive score of 95 according to Metacritic data, making the Elden Ring addition the most acclaimed DLC ever, a title that was previously held by another popular fantasy set game. While the Blood and Wine DLC for CD Projekt RED’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is still incredibly beloved and not far behind Shadow of the Erdtree with a Metacritic score of 92, the crown for the “best” has undeniably been passed to FromSoftware’s newest release – though there are no hard feelings to be seen!
Videos by ComicBook.com
The Witcher game’s official X (formerly Twitter) account made a post today to congratulate FromSoftware and the Elden Ring team on their achievement, the attitude showcased showing a nice moment from one studio recognizing the hard work of another. “For the last 8 years, The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine had the honor of being the best reviewed expansion for a role-playing game – but [Elden Ring] gets to wear that crown now,” the post begins. “Congratulations to the entire team at [FromSoftware] on their stellar work!” The congratulatory post also features stunning artwork (by an unnamed CD Projekt RED artist) of Geralt of Rivia slaying the Lord of Blood Mohg, the Elden Ring boss that must be defeated before you can progress into Shadow of the Erdtree.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s Blood and Wine DLC is similar to Shadow of the Erdtree in that both DLCs added an entirely new area to the map, both of which added hours of additional content for players to experience. As for Shadow of the Erdtree‘s new area, the Land of Shadow, is closely comparable to Limgrave in size and density of content. As noted, ComicBook has already spent dozens of hours on the DLC, and we still feel there’s “no doubt in [our] mind[s] that there’s more to do still in Shadow of the Erdtree.”
