Two years after its initial release, Elden Ring's DLC is coming toward the end of June. Everything we've heard about this expansion suggests it will be utterly massive. It's said that the area of the DLC will be about 40% of the size of the original game. FromSoft already has a pretty amazing reputation when it comes to DLC. Granted, they're also charging a full 40 dollars for this one, so in a sense, it better be worth it.
Luckily, the early previews have suggested it will be.
Of course, one of the challenges of releasing DLC for a game that is two years old is that the state of our characters going into it might vary significantly. Personally, I haven't taken any of my characters to New Game Plus, even though I've beaten the game on I believe six characters. My characters are thus around the 150-160 level range. But I could imagine that there might be players who have done NG+ or even further cycles (unless I can find a similar thing in the DLC, I'm tempted to take my Int-based Darkmoon Greatsword character into NG+ just in order to actually get the Magic Scorpion Charm, which I missed because I progressed Ranni's quests without finishing Seluvis' quest line).
Recently, a number of Elden Ring community folks like VaatiVidya (not my only FromSoft lore person, but the first one I got into) were invited to play a bit of the DLC, and were also given some footage they could post and comment upon.
Evidently, there will be a mechanic that is meant to let you kind of titrate the difficulty of the expansion, and along with this we get some new proper nouns.
The "Shadow Tree" that is, evidently, the expansion's namesake, is called the Scadutree (and yes, it's the towering black twisted tree seen from most places on the map much like the Erdtree is in the Lands Between). The crumbling, ashen splinters that fall from the Scadutree form Scadutree Fragments, which will be one of the items similar to Golden Seeds and Sacred Tears that you can use to permanently buff yourself. It seems these will increase your damage and reduce damage taken. There will be, I believe, a finite number of these to find, but I don't know if it will be like Golden Seeds in that there will be more than what's needed to maximize this buff or if you'll really want to track them all down. Similarly, Revered Spirit Ashes will buff both your Spirit Ash summons and Torrent to be more resilient (and I believe do more damage, though Torrent has never done damage, if memory serves).
I'm sure there will be some hardcore people that will eschew using these, but just as there are those who refused to use spirit ashes, I would say that those who want that extra challenge are free to do so, but I think no one should feel bad taking anything the game gives you to make it a little easier.
Reports are that the enemies are tougher, which makes sense - DLC enemies tend to be.
It's also notable that, unlike the Painted World of Ariendel or The Hunter's Nightmare, the passage into this DLC will be accessible only if you've defeated Mohg, who might not be the hardest optional boss in the game (surely that's Malenia, with Placidusax in second place) but is certainly what I'd call a late-game or end-game challenge.
There are also several new weapon types to try out. There are thrown blades, the mechanics of which I don't know for certain, but I think will essentially be an endlessly-renewable ranged weapon option, thrusting shields, which seem to be shields built for offense as well as defense, reverse-gripped swords, great katanas, light greatswords (which are long as a greatsword but still light and quick) and then some sort of unarmed fighting system as well as "perfume bottles," which sounds really out there. (I think there's also some new kind of fist weapon that is not the same as the unarmed system).
What I really hope, given all the potential new stuff we can find, is that there will also be additional Larval Tears. While I haven't exhausted my supply of these on any of my characters, the fact that it's a finite resource is always a bit anxiety-inducing, and surely we'll be tempted to try other builds (granted, with my stable of characters, I'm likely to stick with the overall stat priorities I already have on each of them, but if I need some fine-tuning it might be helpful).
I'm confident, of course, that we'll also get a few more Ancient Dragon Smithing Stones and Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stones so we can fully upgrade new armaments we find, along with the top level Graveworts for any new spirit ashes.
In terms of the structure, it seems we emerge from a cave into the big field of spirit gravestones, with one of those big wicker men serving a similar function to the Erdtree Sentinel just below the First Step in the base game, in other words: Schmuck Bait. While this world boss I'm sure will ready to fight once you get your feet wet a bit, it's probably best to leave it alone until you're a bit better situated in the Land of Shadow.
I haven't heard much about mini-dungeons in the DLC, though I assume we'll get some, but there are Legacy Dungeons, with two that people were able to enter in this event. The first is Belurat Tower Settlement, which appears to be a city that was likely purged by Messmer, and which seems to contain some sort of divine gate through which Miquella is seeking passage. The boss of this dungeon is the Lion Dancer seen in the trailers, and the whole story seems tied into the history of the Omens, the Crucible, and the way that an older religious system was stamped out by Marika's order.
The other dungeon (of which there's no footage in the new preview) is Castle Ensis, which is where you find Rellana. No, that's not a typo. This is Rennala's sister, a Carian sorcerer who became a champion of Messmer. As always, the sequence of events within Elden Ring's timeline is sort of the foundational mystery in everything - one wonders if Rellana's ties to Messmer were formed after Radagon and Rennala's marriage, when the "Moon and the Erdtree" joined in alliance, or if that's not at all the story.
Yeah, the names in this game can be confusing. We have to keep straight Renalla, Ranni, Renna, and now Rellana (and it didn't help that Ranni first introduces herself to us as Renna... assuming it's really Ranni who gives us the spirit calling bell) and then also knowing the difference between Godfrey, Godwyn, Godrick, and Godefroy. There's Melina and Malenia, too! And then, to keep us on our toes, we need to understand that Margit and Morgott are the same person (man, Morgott, don't you think you could have picked an alias that sounded less like your actual name?)
The big through-line, it appears, will be a group of NPCs following in Miquella's footsteps. It appears that they come from all different backgrounds - one previously loyal to Radahn, one previously in service to Mohg. And hey, by the time we get to the DLC, both of those demigods are dead, so it makes sense that these NPCs would have sought some other faith.
Everything about the way that FromSoft treats classically divine figures makes me deeply suspicious that Miquella is not actually the benevolent figure he's known as. I genuinely think it's not that unlikely that the final boss of Shadow of the Erdtree will be Miquella himself (I still think the odds are higher that it'll be Messmer, but man, at this point if it turned out Messmer is just another aspect of Miquella, I wouldn't be shocked.)
And yet, the FromSoft folks could actually pull off a pretty impressive reversal if it turns out that Miquella really is as good as he seems to be. I doubt we're going to get a really bright-and-cheerful story even if that is the case, but it would be nice if Miquella actually is doing everything to try to actually make the world better (of course, in these games, the road to hell is paved with good intentions - you could argue Marika was always trying to make a better world, but those efforts backfired spectacularly).
Actually, one thing that does seem to have been revealed is that the Smoldering Butterfly is not Messmer's version, because there will be a new butterfly - a Blackflame Butterfly. (I could have the name wrong, as Messmer's associated flame does not look like the Black flame wielded by the Godskins - it is a deep red with black in it, rather than their iconic black & white fire.)
With only a couple weeks until the release, I'm eager to plunge into the new lore and the new stuff.
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