Elden Ring's DLC Has One Major Flaw (And It's Not The Difficulty)

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There's one big problem with . The DLC was one of the most anticipated video game releases of the year, and it's easy to see why. was a massive hit, garnering a player base in the millions, glowing reviews, and even a Game of the Year award in 2022. Many consider it FromSoft's best Soulsborne game, and the developer has an excellent track record when it comes to DLC. has lived up to the hype in numerous ways, with fans praising its scope and inventiveness.

But has also drawn a lot of criticism, mainly for its difficulty. Its Steam reviews dropped to Mixed in the early days of its release, and an patch soon followed, rebalancing some of the DLC's upgrade materials to help struggling players. But even before that, players were able to overcome 's hardest bosses either by clever build customization or sheer force of will. The difficulty was never the DLC's biggest issue, and its actual cardinal sin has yet to be addressed in an update.

Forget Rellana 's unstoppable combos, or Messmer 's searing fire: the biggest problem with is the fog that constantly blankets the map. Throughout the majority of the DLC, it's impossible to see more than a few feet in front of the Tarnished's face, which complicates the gameplay in frustratingly repetitive ways. Exploration feels more like a chore than a joy, since the player can't see the glimmer of a distant item or the entrance to a forgotten catacomb until they're standing right on top of it. They have to comb every inch of the map to find things to do. Enemies pop out of the mist like monsters in, jumpscaring the player and preventing any attempt at strategizing conflict against large groups.

Fog has always been an important part of the atmosphere in Soulsborne games — it's no coincidence that players have to step through a wall of fog almost any time they challenge a major boss. It's ominous, even frightening, not to know what one is walking into. It evokes images of abandoned graveyards, of ghostly figures. At times, the fog