Elden Ring’s popularity has changed the whole difficulty conversation for the DLC

polygon.com:

It wouldn’t be a FromSoftware release without some perennial discourse over difficulty, and while Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree follows suit, this time, there’s a twist. Players aren’t debating whether or not FromSoftware’s notoriously difficult games should offer an easy mode or better accessibility options, nor is the community sneering and telling people they should simply “git gud” (derogatory). This time, we’re seeing hardcore fans bemoan the grueling nature of the new DLC, if not saying that game director Hidetaka Miyazaki has gone too far.

Shadow of the Erdtree employs an unusual mechanic that attempts to mitigate the likelihood of players jumping into the DLC with overleveled characters. While you still retain your base stats when entering the Land of Shadow, the DLC-specific location has new upgrades — Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes — that dictate how much damage you can deal and withstand while in this new realm. The more of these upgrades you have, in other words, the better you’ll do; the game has also recently been updated to make these upgrades even stronger. This system also means that players who have likely spent hours building and optimizing their characters are, in some ways, being forced to start from scratch. Without these new embellishments, run-of-the-mill enemies can and will destroy your character if you’re not careful. The developers warned this would be the case before Shadow of the Erdtree came out, with Miyazaki outright stating he believed the team had “pushed the envelope” of what could be “withstood” by players.

Reviews for the expansion were also published ahead of its actual release, and while many critics wrote about the DLC’s difficulty, as a whole, Shadow of the Erdtree was well received. Right now, Elden Ring’s expansion is sitting on a 95 on Metacritic, which the grading system deems to be “universal acclaim.” Despite this, a Eurogamer review that gave the expansion three stars out of five caused a fan