Arise, Tarnished (again) - Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree is out now

rockpapershotgun.com:

Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree has finally been released on PC, adding a fat, rancid helping of open world role-playing to an open world RPG of already trouser-wetting, skirt-soiling scale and hazard. You can find this "first and last" Elden Ring DLC expansion on Steam, the Xbox Store and in the suppurating depths of your very worst nightmares. Am I overdoing it yet? No matter. Let's press on.

Perhaps you've never heard of Elden Ring's Erdtree DLC. Perhaps you've sauntered in here expecting a nice game about looking at antique rings while lying under some shady topiary. Come child, I'll soon birth thee anew. Shadow Of The Erdtree is a lategame Elden Ring add-on which rudely attaches a grotty new region, The Land Of Shadow, to the base game's festering Lands Between. Here you'll find a host of new weapons, enemies, bosses and stories concerning the fate of Miquella, a character who is of huge importance to the main Elden Ring storyline.

Once again: this is a lategame add-on, designed to sizzle the nerves and parboil the synapses of all but the most seasoned and well-equipped Tarnished adventurers, though it does at least have more or less the same system requirements as the main game. Our own recommended Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree starting level is between 120-150, and you'll need to reach certain areas and defeat certain bosses before you can enter the Land of Shadow, though you don't need to finish the game. If you're a NG+ player in need of reorientation, we've also written a guide to the fastest way to reach Shadow Of The Erdtree - 24 steps, each more harrowing than the last. Speaking as a lapsed player who keeps meaning to get back into Elden Ring and failing, I am currently squatting on step 11.5 - "Sob uncontrollably on the bridge of Redmane Castle".

If you're already hip to all these Elden antics, you might be more interested in knowing whether Shadow Of The Erdtree is any good. I don't know for sure, but I know somebody who does: Ed Thorn, aka