ELDEN RING Shadow of the Erdtree Review Summary

Enjoyable boss fights: Boss fights are a major highlight, described as challenging, rewarding, and enjoyable. Players appreciate the design and variety of bosses, finding them fun and fair.

Excellent map design: The game features highly praised map design with impressive locations, depth, and structure. Players appreciate the complexity and visual design of the areas, making exploration enjoyable and rewarding.

Visually stunning landscapes: The game is noted for its beautiful and breathtaking visual aesthetics. Players highlight the stunning scenery, gorgeous environments, and intricate ruins that contribute to an immersive experience.

Abundant new content: The DLC adds a significant amount of new content, including areas, bosses, weapon types, and magic types. Players enjoy the variety of new items, enemies, and the overall expansion of gameplay.

Positive DLC experience: Players express satisfaction with the DLC, finding it fun and worth the purchase. They enjoy the gameplay, level design, lore, and bosses, appreciating the overall quality and content.

Map feels overly large and empty: Many players have noted that the game's map is excessively large but filled with empty areas, making exploration feel unrewarding and tedious.

Final boss is frustrating: The final boss is frequently mentioned as being overly difficult, unfair, and not satisfying, leading to a disappointing endgame experience.

Poor rewards system: The reward system is often described as poor, with scarce and underwhelming rewards for exploration and gameplay.

Camera and hitbox issues: Some bosses have camera and hitbox issues, making fights frustrating and difficult due to poor mechanics.

Enemies are overly aggressive: Enemies are often criticized for being too aggressive, spamming attacks, and having little openings, making combat feel unbalanced.

Unique and challenging boss fights: The game features a variety of boss fights with unique mechanics, specific patterns, and multiple phases. These encounters are noted for their difficulty and the need for precise timing and strategy.

Complex and varied map design: The map design is complex and includes impressive locations, but also some empty areas. The world design features verticality and interconnected structures, encouraging exploration.

Exploration-focused gameplay: Exploration is a key gameplay element, tied to progression and discovery. Players are encouraged to explore the open world, uncovering lore, upgrades, and quest lines.

Variety of new weapons and playstyles: The game introduces new weapon types with unique mechanics and fun movesets. This variety adds depth to combat and allows for different playstyles.

New enemies and equipment: The game introduces new enemies, bosses, and loot, including various types of dungeons and equipment. This adds variety and depth to the gameplay.

FPS and performance issues: Multiple players reported frequent FPS drops, frame stuttering, and performance dips, particularly in open areas and during boss fights. These issues are widespread and significantly impact the gameplay experience.

Poor optimization: Many reviews highlight poor optimization, especially on older systems and compared to the base game. Players experience high GPU and CPU usage, and even low graphics settings do not resolve the lag issues.

High hardware requirements: The game demands high-end hardware to run smoothly. Players with mid-range or older hardware, such as a GTX 970 or a 5060 graphics card, report struggling to maintain playable FPS.

Mixed performance on different hardware: Performance varies significantly across different hardware setups. Some players experience smooth gameplay on high settings, while others face issues even on the lowest settings.

Hardware usage and temperature issues: Some players have noted high GPU usage and temperature issues, which can lead to performance problems and potential hardware strain.

DLC highly recommended: Many reviewers highly recommend the DLC for its content, value, and overall experience despite some challenges and frustrations.

Recommended for base game fans: The DLC is particularly recommended for those who enjoyed the base game, suggesting it adds significant value for existing fans.

Wait for a sale: Some reviewers suggest waiting for a discount before purchasing the DLC, indicating that while it is enjoyable, it might not be worth the full price for everyone.

Gameplay tips: Various tips are provided, such as collecting specific items, exploring thoroughly, and not rushing through the game, to enhance the playing experience.

High difficulty level: The DLC is noted for its high difficulty, with some reviewers suggesting that only hardcore or veteran players should attempt it.

Community fair range: $20.00 - $30.00.

Game completion: 71.0h.

The game offers a visually appealing and enjoyable co-op experience with challenging boss fights, but fun starts after adapting to the game's mechanics and can drop due to repetitive and tedious elements.

Reported time to anchor: 2h.

Friction: Poorly designed boss phases; Boring exploration; Disjointed progression systems.

Unlock drivers: Adapting to the game's mechanics; Finding suitable co-op partners.

Hardcore Challenge Seeker: Seeks out and enjoys the most challenging aspects of the game, including the toughest bosses and high difficulty levels. Motivation: Overcoming extreme challenges and mastering difficult content. Stance: buy.

Casual Explorer: Prefers a balanced and fair gameplay experience, avoiding excessive grinding and challenging content. Motivation: Enjoying the game world and lore without the frustration of extreme difficulty. Stance: deep sale.

Lore-Focused Veteran: Enjoys exploring and discovering the game world, appreciating the lore and depth of the game. Motivation: Exploring the game world and uncovering its lore and secrets. Stance: sale.

Performance issues are prevalent across lower VRAM systems, with notable frame drops and optimization complaints, while higher VRAM configurations report a smoother experience.

Windows <8GB VRAM: negative. Players report significant frame drops and poor optimization.

Windows 8-11GB VRAM: positive. Players report a smoother and more optimized experience.

Steam Deck: The analysis of user feedback reveals significant issues with the Steam Deck experience, particularly concerning performance and optimization. Users frequently report frame rate drops, crashes, and hardware stress, which severely impact gameplay. Additionally, there are criticisms regarding game design and boss mechanics. These issues collectively contribute to a frustrating user experience.

Linux and Proton: The game and its DLC have notable performance issues on Steam Deck and Linux setups. Users report struggles to maintain stable frame rates and experience stuttering, particularly in the DLC. These issues suggest that while the game may be playable, it requires tweaks and suffers from optimization problems on Proton/Linux.

Monetization: The analysis of user reviews reveals a mixed reception of the DLC. The most frequent complaints revolve around the high price and perceived lack of value for money. Many users feel that the DLC is overpriced and does not offer enough new or rewarding content. However, there are also positive reviews that appreciate the additional challenges and content provided by the DLC. The overall sentiment suggests that while the DLC has its merits, the high cost and perceived lack of substantial new content are significant drawbacks.

External guides: The user feedback indicates a significant reliance on external guides and wikis to navigate the game, complete quests, and find items. The primary issues revolve around the complexity of the map, the cryptic nature of quests, and the hidden placement of important items. This dependency on external data sources suggests that the game's design may be overly complex or lacking in sufficient in-game guidance.

Mods enhance gameplay experience: Players have found that using mods can significantly improve their overall experience with the game. Specifically, the seamless co-op mod has been mentioned as a popular choice among players.