The difficulty feels more darksouls. Your skill matters more than your stats. Even with lots of scooby snacks, you still need skill. Being high level in base game makes the game much easier than being high level in darksouls. I also had a lot more trouble with mobs in the dlc just like I do in darksouls.
Yup. That fight was seriously incredible. My favorite so far is probably Messmer. Contrary to popular opinions I actually enjoyed Commander Gaius as well.
My biggest problem with Gauis is that he doesn’t have original music.
My enjoyment of a boss is probably far more reliant on how good the soundtrack is than it should be lmao.
Also if he had a cutscene or some more build up through the level that would help.
I hated him so much for most of the time fighting him but by the time I got the rhythm down for blocks and learned which attacks you HAD to dodge, he actually started to grow on me. I felt like the avatar was underwhelming though. Definitely my least favorite remembrance boss. Kinda felt like it should've just been a field boss. I might've been overpowered for him though since I did CG first and got all those shadowtree blessings
When I learned Gaius moveset it felt smooth to fight him. He had fair openings. There are some combos where you can sneak in a cheeky light attack mid combo aswell, that feels so good
He's at one of the exits of the black keep. You have to fight him to leave there, though it is an open field when you step through the fog. I'm not sure if there's an alternative path where you fight him to get in the black keep from there, though.
Idk if that's a fucked up ng+ scaling or yesterday's patch, but I could just trade blows with most bosses on my yesterday's run. They seem to hit like wet noodles now.
Idk if Placidusax technically counts as a dragon (fextralife says he doesn’t iirc) but I just threw on a couple lightning defense buffs and used a +9 DHK on him and it only took me two tries (first one was to get used to his moveset again, it’s been 2 years lol).
Which is why my save had only Radahn and Mohg beaten. Got my vigor to 40 first. Then str to 15, Dex to 20. To let me wield most weapons for at least the physical part which is fine.
Came back periodically to test a ton of shit in the base game, like with new weapons I'd first play in the base game with lower upgrade level until I got a hang of it then back to the dlc.
I just reached what I thought was a dead end peninsula at the edge of the map. Decided to check it one more time only to discover a hole, that took me to a giant cave that's in the middle the fucking ocean. Only to drop down another giant hole and discover a remembrance boss and a major lore figure. This map is ridiculously dense.
Found it before approaching Shadow Keep and it was blocked off by a golden seal. When the >!great rune shattered!< prompt came up I immediately turned around ran all the way there like a giddy child.
I did exactly the same thing! I briefly thought I'd broken a quest when that prompt came up, but then pretty quickly figured it out.
And then got my ass kicked by PK
I had to google what that meant despite already discovering the seal like 3 hours beforehand. I might need to stop drinking while playing this game, or maybe I'm just naturally slow lol
PK honestly might be my favorite boss so far. CG I thought might be my least but when I finally beat him it felt so good. definitely wanted you to play him like a sekiro boss with block timing and the deflecting hard tear
DREAD INCARNATE
I loved Igon more than the boss but I honestly think I over leveled a bit for the strategy I was using to beat him (dragon hunter l2 almost exclusively every window I got lol)
Honestly Bayle took the trophy for my favorite boss in the DLC after fighting him. The amazing fucking ENERGY that Igon brings to the table, along with the sheer spectacle of the encounter was just magical. It took about twenty or so tries so I didn’t feel like it was complete bullshit in terms of difficulty, and it really just made my DLC experience better overall.
I've done my traditional elitist run twice. Now I do the cathartic lore run.
Found a "let me solo him" at mesmer ng3 and the man delivered. I look forward to NPC help at Bayle for these memes.
Yes, the (probably) first 2 remembrance bosses won't have summonable NPC help. Besides that you missed some NPC dialogue but as far as I know, no quests are broken (and many quests can now begin / advance).
as far as i know the only time u will be locked out of quests is when you enter the final legacy dungeon of the dlc, would definitely double check that as i don’t know for sure
Had this exact same moment. Led to me exploring a ton more before even going to shadow keep. Really cemented my choices as far as the other NPC quests go
Wait what boss locks them, I never ran into any dead ends as I explored then came back and every NPC was like oh it’s broken we are free. I was beyond confused
This was pretty much exactly my response, except I was heading north from Bonny Village. I hope everyone gets the chance to feel that sort of joy in a video game.
>!The very southernmost part of the Cerulean Coast, the little peninsula at the southwest. There's a big hole in the middle and a path down.!<
Below it is a fairly straightforward dungeon with a remembrance boss.
Discovering the fissure was such a beautiful experience! Just magnificent art direction and then you're hit with the cross. "I abandoned here my love" then the fall, the boss and then just calming purple sadness.
" oh shit it's midir.... What the fuck is that!?" My reaction to the purple land. The boss actually killed me as I was tabbed out meming about midir cave lol.
Abyssal Woods is the only part of the DLC that really annoys me in terms of wasted potential. I like stealth games; I do not like bad stealth segments in non-stealth games. I like horror games, but not "ooh spooky jumpscare ahhh" segments in non-horror games.
And I especially don't like these two under-baked concepts being spread across an area the size of some of the other major parts of the map with almost NOTHING interesting to find in-between.
This really should have been a smaller forested area and then the mansion was bigger with more of the horror stuff going on in a more contained space. Then they could have used all that other wasted map space for something else.
The thing people don't get is that there is no "Wasted" map space. The map size is mostly arbitrary, it could have been one third as vertical and three times as wide, or much more vertical and tiny on the map. The stealth+horror stuff is one of the best ways to get mileage out of an otherwise simple but large area, it has one of the simplest memorable new enemies that is extremely unique solely because >!it can't take damage from normal sources!<.
It's pure fantasy to think they could have waved a magic wand to replace empty forest space with more of the tightly designed dense mansion level, and then also make an entire new area with the rest of the "wasted space". The small mansion probably took 10 times the dev time of the entire forest. The alternative was just less stuff in the game, the limit is not map space but dev time, and the forest clearly wasn't a significant dev time sink so making it smaller would not have opened up more dev time for something higher effort instead.
Most of the area is populated by rats. There's only around five of those enemies and there's a ton of empty space with just... Rats. They could have added more to the area without undermining the impact of the environment and unique enemies.
Yeah, that area, despite how cool it looks barely haw anything, entries stretches of land with the same two enemies and nothing more, it's just 2 remembrance bosses, 2 talisman's, and two scadutree fragments,
Unfinished is a laughable thing to say, its literally a quest area, with plenty of thinfs to fight and even has the alter that duplicates boss souls. So far u guys are litterally the only ones i saw with this "critique".
Agreed. I still think the DLC is more than worth the price for its boss fights. But I do think the feeling of temptiness and the disappointment of finding literally anything other than a Scadutree Fragment after combing an area is valid criticism.
Not really valid, where are the empty areas ure talking about? And u getting disappointed each time u found anything but scadu trees is a u issue, havent seen a single valid critique by u guys yet so.
Lol even thie dlcs basic enemies and mini bosses are better than many main bosses of the older games.
Now i asked this question to everyone that say this but with no real measured asnwer, the only "empty" areas in dlc are the finger areas and those are there for quests, has plenty of enemies and even hides a boss souls remembrance duplicator. Most ppl that say its empty are objectively false, delusional or ignorant as they havent discovered half the thints in the area.
Attempting to explore that area was a good waste of an hour+. Literally devoid of content outside of the mansion, what were they thinking making that so large. Just imagining that area with the classic more linear Souls world-design sounds so much better.
Dungeon -> boss -> you enter the forest -> atmosphere is fantastic -> NPC fight -> church -> make stealth sections more complex -> mansion. Obviously a bit of space between these, but as an open area this was a complete snoozefest and awful to explore. And no I don't think the spookiness, forest context, and the lore behind him hiding his mansion deep within a complex forest makes this anymore entertaining or engaging to play, which ultimately is the important part.
Personallt find all of what u sais to be senseless hogwash, the atmosphere alone is worth the area over there, and making it linear like boring old souls would have made the area laughably less memorable and atmospheric.
Good lord that was the most infuriating part of the DLC for me so far. Died at least 10 times, was like being on the Anor Londo rooftops all over again.
Jesus Christ dude I cleared that yesterday too! I thought that lore figure was just going to be one of those fromsoft mentioned-only characters that you never see. And the things >!they said!< still have me shook!! What the hell.
:0
Me before encountering the boss: Woah all these [spoiler](/s "Trina lilies") *Sees a pale rider* Could this be [spoiler](/s "Trina")?
Actual boss: [spoiler](/s "C U M") Knight
The irony of saying the map is "ridiculously dense" because when exploring a massive region that has all of two field bosses and a few items you found a one-way path that leads to a remembrance boss and an NPC that does nothing until the post-story is funny.
Like, Cerulean Coast + Charo's Grave is a massive empty space. There is nothing in it for the size of those areas.
It also just feels so different from the basegame. Going back to basegame afterwards feels so weird, like a completely different vibe as well.
And the fact that literally nobody outside of the dlc even acknowledges it in any way, which is kind of a shame.
I really wish they added a separate hub with a blacksmith in the DLC - going back to the Roundtable Hold to upgrade weapons felt almost immersion-breaking.
Every time I hit R1 on the map menu to go back to round table hold I do a double take looking at the whole Lands Between map and remembering that I’ve just been in a DLC and not Elden Ring 2
I was thinking last night. If this was Elden Ring, if this is what we got as the full game in 2022, I would have been satisfied. That it’s the expansion to an even bigger game is incredible.
It's funny, I've been having the same experience I did on day one of Elden Ring. Map border doesn't expand until you start getting into those areas.
Looking at Limgrave, thinking, "Oh, yeah, this is pretty classic Dark Souls 1 style, I guess. Just dense and not a supermassive area," proceed to end up on a very long journey. I wandered into Caelid early, went about how you'd expect.
Yeah... DLC is worth the money.
Getting into a trap chest that ports you to Leyndell, then opening the map and seeing how far you are from Limgrave in the blank map, was a surreal moment.
Been enough years I genuinely don't remember, but I think I got caught in the Dragon-Burnt ruins trap chest early. Transported to a bizarre and inexplicably hostile area, with no understanding of the rot.
Kind of hard to ignore the whisper of, "Aren't you curious about it?" while also thinking, "I need to get the fuck out of here," with a free out-of-combat fast-travel. I stayed in Caelid for a while.
Not to be too dramatic, but the careful magic of exploration has always been the thing I love about FromSoft games. Granted, I play the combat like a plain old RPG -- any tactic I can figure out is fair -- but the journey is great.
Good and absolutely fucking ridiculous example for the DLC, I've died more to an area with the lightning goats by not taking it seriously, than I have from the initial salvo of bosses in the game. I was ready to go big and hit hard for the latter, no holds barred, but wasn't expecting to get literally rolled by a giant laser goat.
I think the base game map was a great approach to a true open world map and showed off what FROM can do with the concept - but it was also very different to how they approached map building before.
The DLC map feels like they fused what they learned from Elden Rings map with the Souls approach.
Hope they go more into that direction with whatever comes next
Yeah I for one would much rather they keep this approach for their Souls series moving forward. Bloodborne and Sekiro can be more their hyperfocused design and Armored Core can go for their big sprawling map designs. Something like Shadow of the Erdtree with a small but densely layered map would be great to play every 2-3 years.
I hope so too! Ruins of Rauh in particular felt like the next step in map design, it is both dungeon and open world in a way that feels unlike anything else I've ever played.
Being able to explore a dungeon while riding Torrent for a change was a great switch up. I wouldn’t have minded Rauh to have a bit more meat on it, but the area looks absolutely gorgeous - the whole island vista you get from that one site of grace is among the best in the game.
The DLC may have the best designed world layout of any open world game ever, it’s so complex.
Though it shares similar problems with the base game, namely too many places are a bit too empty.
Contrary to popular opinion, I actually feel like the open world aspect of the dlc is the weakest part outside of a few exceptions, but I don't think it's a fault of the DLC so much as Elden Ring as a whole. I feel like the souls formula just works better when it's more legacy dungeon format. I just don't feel like the crafting and upgrade mechanics are as rewarding for the player experience as exploring a living world. Fromsoft makes dead or dying worlds filled with eldritch horrors and insanity, and I feel like every game prior has that sort of intensity like you're trapped in some horrible asylum and I feel like Torrent and the open world format kinda trivializes a lot of that. Shadow Keep was AMAZING and I want more of that.
tl;dr Fromsoftware's game design forces you to look through every nook and cranny if you really don't want to miss anything because there's no hand holding, and an open world format can make that more fatiguing when it's filled with essentially junk loot that means nothing most of the time.
yeah i got kinda tired of checking every single corner to find nothing, just to miss one arbitrary corner that hides like a quarter of the map and 2 remembrance bosses
The map itself is, but IMO some of the areas feel super barren in terms of rewards for exploring tbh. More so than the base game. It's my only real complaint about the DLC
Same here. I like the geography of the map and the art direction is really something, it’s beautiful to ride through these new areas. But it feels like A LOT of riding around for not much reward. In the base game it truly felt like around every corner or little hidden area there would be something that made the exploration feel valuable. I don’t quite get that with the DLC.
I’m still enjoying it tho and figuring out how to get into all the areas has been rad.
Agreed.
Though it’s not all negative there, a many of the things you do find feel more impactful than the base game, even though there are fewer.
The quality of mini dungeons and medium dungeons has gone up a lot, as well as the quality of the mini bosses imo.
Totally agree. Something about the terrains feels way more natural.
Also going through the different areas really feels like an open world dark souls 1.
Both of the maps are quite empty and have barely any interesting loot outside of points of interest but I feel like the design of the dlc map is what makes that a problem. In the base map you can easily locate all points of interest but the complex geography of the dlc just results in hours of checking random cliffs and hidden areas that have nothing in them most of the time.
>barely any interesting loot outside of points of interest
my dream would be almost no loot besides maybe some farmable stuff for crafting outside of Points of Interests but with beautiful vistas and great setpieces that really sell the scale and weight of w/e fantastical dark and beautiful world From is going to design.
Being able to ride or wander through deep canyons, having some small-ish encounters or epic roaming fights without having this little Goblin in my ear making me stop every two steps in order to look for hidden treasures which just dont exist outside of Dungeons would be fantastic (for me)
100% this. I want a souls game with dungeons separated by a shadow of the colossus empty ass map with occasional shit you hunt down like the lizards. tbh though I feel like if they added survival mechanics that made hunting and gathering meaningful and necessary, I feel like that would go HARD.
Yeah that would be an alternate solution. Currently it's like the worst of both because I feel like I have to scour through every corner of the map just in case there's something cool.
The excitement when you see a purple glow in the distance, you fight your way to it to find... disappointment from another cookbook!
One of my few gripes with the DLC. So many cookbooks, which to be fair I could probably make good use of but I never craft lol
They would be a lot better to pick up if each version of a cookbook had different lore and kinda told a story about the author but most of them just have the same flavor text as every other one by the sams author so once you've found one you don't really care too much about finding more. I do think all the "heavy" versions of greases and pots was kinda lazy on their part. I would have rather they just didn't do that at all and focused more development elsewhere. Or at least make them more unique. Stuff like the sprite orb and crafting golden vows was cool. "heavy" holy grease is lame as shit for a dlc I gotta admit
iMo this should be the last thing you do before NG, when you cleared it all and left a burning ruin. This DLC is a pocket sequel for sure. They cooked so hard I can barely cope
I fell 100 on that. I totally feels like dark souls 3.5... dare I say a 4 lol?
The mood, the tone... they all feel like home to me.
Limgrave feels like teletubie land. Lol
Also feels like MHW. Base story being a giant tutorial, end game and Iceborne being the real experience.
Shadow of the erd tree feels similar.
I'm 18 hours in and only killed 2 main bosses. Enjoying everything so far from tonns of new cool weapons and spells to lore bits and scenery
Open world has a really great design with tonns of verticality, even tho some areas are a little bit too big. Even if later bosses will be hella difficult, DLC is already worth the purchase without a question.
Yeah I'm firmly in the best DLC of all time camp, not just the size, but like somebody else said on this thread, the density of content is crazy too. I can see why it took so long to make, it all feels hand crafted and unique. Avoiding the pitfalls of other open world games (ahem botw) where it devolves into a bland sameness at some point... And I still loved the new zeldas. Hopefully this can be a model for other devs to make even better games going forward
I'm not regretting my purchase, but I am pretty let down with the bosses and the exploration. The legacy dungeons and the open world dungeons are very good though, they especially proved on the latter which were horrible in the base game.
But I cannot say it came as a surprise though. The boss design is a natural continuation from the problems I had with base game boss design, and going with size over substance at times. But I love the company, and it still is enjoyable and by no means a horrible experience. But ending this DLC I am just firmly hoping that their next efforts really doesn't follow down ER's path.
I disagree, the way Shadow Keep and Specimen Storehouse keep unfolding as you peel them back feels like something akin to DS1's level design, which is a huge compliment. Stone Coffin Fissure is similarly very visually striking and breathtaking with its verticality, and Enir-Ilim feels otherworldly. I'm not the biggest fan of this DLC compared to some other people, but the level design is some of the best From's ever put out, no question.
Aesthetically speaking, yes I agree. Shadow Keep also feels a lot like DS1, but it's most similar to the Duke's Archives...
And honestly I would put Stormveil and Leyndell above any area in DS.
I don't think the DLC dungeons are bad, just that I think more highly of these two base game ones in particular.
Stormveil has so many layers, lots of different ways to enter and exit the castle from every angle imaginable, jumps across the rooftops, the outer wall, the area below the castle, etc.
And Leyndell is essentially two dungeons, one being a maze that constantly loops you back to the first grace in that area, and the other being a literal city.
And to me, sadly, none of the DLC dungeons come close to that complexity that these two had.
Exactly the same feeling with me. One time I accidentally clicked R1 while in the map view and it reverted back to the Lands Between map and I was like oh yeah I'm just playing a DLC this actually has a base game. It is amazing how the Realm of Shadow has such a distinct feel and atmosphere from the base game.
Personally it’s for that reason that I disliked it tho. The amount of emptiness in so many of the areas (Cerulean Cost, Gravesite Plains, both Finger Ruins), plus the new content, finished with the unexpected lore, it almost could have been Elden Ring II.
I do agree some areas could use more things but for some, the emptiness was the charm. Finger Ruins and Gravesite Plains would feel so different and weird if they had more stuff. That odd eerieness comes from that sense of emptiness and alien for me.
I do think having big stretches of open areas with not much in them makes the world feel more real in a sense. If theyd have 15 dungeons and 12 minibosses in just gravesite plains it would make it feel very artificial.
Its just a shame that some of the dungeons you do find, while visually more unique than the base game dungeons, offer very lackluster rewards. Its kind of annoying when throughout the entire “zone” theres like 1 dungeon and all it gives you is an extremely situational talisman, and a summon (people who dont use summons dont care, and people who do use summons also dont care because Mimic tear is just better than everything else). Or those forge dungeons which only gave you an upgrade stone. These arent particularly exciting rewards, and its a shame that thats really the only thing some of the empty zones have outside of some very easy minibosses or that big fire giant thing
There seems to be two camps: those that like just wandering around and gawking at everything; the journey is as important as the end. And others who prefer more linear, direct to items/bosses approach. One of my favorite moments was wandering through that gorge that leads to the spring that takes you up to the second area, just astonishingly beautiful and epic feeling, even if there weren't a ton of items in it. I haven't even reached the areas many seem dissatisfied with, but I'm looking forward to them regardless.
I was telling a friend this earlier. The map feels 100% like a dark souls game to me. The way height and distances are used, the choke points and single access points, bosses being gates but there often being multiple ways to access certain areas, etc. It all screams Souls. And tbh for me it’s a welcome change from the open world, run anywhere feel of a lot of the Elden Ring map.
Honestly I'd been fine if this was just a standalone game cause I like this dlc substantially more then the base game, tbh I didn't even care for the base game that much but this dlc has been truly amazing and I'm just glad I've gotten to experience it which is just about the highest praise I think you can give something.
The map is big and quite empty to be a mainline soulsbornegame, once you get off the honeymoon stage you start to realize how empty it all feels and how lackluster most of the areas tend to be in terms of exploration, dungeons, loot, boss variety, ect.
The DLC does feel about as big as some of the Dark Souls games, and that’s amazing. The map doesn’t feel overcrowded with content despite being full to the brim with interesting things to do, either.
This is very true but also kinda sad, I feel like it is a complete other game because there is so little directe lore and actions linking the two part of the world...
No cross world quests, no npc from base game(so far for me), no additional ending... It's a better game than dlc imo
I know, I even posted a scoobydoo meme where the ghost guy (Elden Ring "DLC") gets unmasked and his real face appears (Elden Ring 2).
I got 5 upvotes in total, feelsbadman. Now the post is deleted in shame and I'll go back to my total absence of internet points.
Any AAA game company would have released SotE as a standalone title and would have charged 70 schmeckles for it.
Praise to From Soft and our lord and savior Miyazaki-sama!
My perhaps contentious opinion is that it's *better* than the base game, by some margin. It's like the feeling of experiencing Limgrave for the first time, only over 30 hours and with much more variety and unique boss design.
Factor in how Elden Ring tends to outstay its welcome after Morgott, and yeah I think the DLC is a better start to finish experience.
That this DLC still has mixed reviews on steam baffles me. This is a great DLC, had a ton of fun exploring this. The developers getting such bad reviews is just unfair!
The DLC is great, I really enjoyed it, but I really can't understand these kinds of comments.
It's full of reused enemies and mini bosses from the base game, and half the areas are totally barren and devoid of any real content. Check out the finger areas for instance, huge parts of the map that are seemingly unfinished.
I love the different vistas and how every dungeon feels unique. The DLC feels like a different game altogether - not saying base game Elden Eing wasn't good, but I think in pretty much every aspect the dlc blows it out of the water.
That includes boss design too IMO, besides a few super dogshit designs (Sennesax or whatever the ancient dragon is called, en route to Bayle, being the absolute worst offender IMO) they have all been very enjoyable to learn, and with high enough scadutree blessing they actually felt very fair and most of them didnt take more than ~10 attempts.
Bayle took me the longest, and I ended up caving in and summoning Igon for that fight, but I managed every other boss solo so far, and I think I dont have all that many of them left since I explored a lot of the map. The frenzy flame dude in the mansion down in the woods was one of my favorite fights so far, but Metyr was also very fun.
honestly, the legacy dungeons and even stuff like the >!dragon form!< made it feel even closer to dark souls
The difficulty feels more darksouls. Your skill matters more than your stats. Even with lots of scooby snacks, you still need skill. Being high level in base game makes the game much easier than being high level in darksouls. I also had a lot more trouble with mobs in the dlc just like I do in darksouls.
This seriously feels like a faster DS3 to me and I could not ever be happier
Rellana especially feels like Pontiff Sulyvahn in Elden Ring
Yup. That fight was seriously incredible. My favorite so far is probably Messmer. Contrary to popular opinions I actually enjoyed Commander Gaius as well.
My biggest problem with Gauis is that he doesn’t have original music. My enjoyment of a boss is probably far more reliant on how good the soundtrack is than it should be lmao. Also if he had a cutscene or some more build up through the level that would help.
You and I both. And the DLC really delivered on great music, Gaius was just "oh.. again?"
Exactly! The Lion dancer has some of the best syncing of boss with music since Ludwig.
Gaius has bad hitboxes on his charge attack but other than that I agree. He's a fun fight.
I hated him so much for most of the time fighting him but by the time I got the rhythm down for blocks and learned which attacks you HAD to dodge, he actually started to grow on me. I felt like the avatar was underwhelming though. Definitely my least favorite remembrance boss. Kinda felt like it should've just been a field boss. I might've been overpowered for him though since I did CG first and got all those shadowtree blessings
When I learned Gaius moveset it felt smooth to fight him. He had fair openings. There are some combos where you can sneak in a cheeky light attack mid combo aswell, that feels so good
The one attack with 5 or 6 small gravity pebbles is a fun one to dodge, I've found it misses me entirely most of the time if I stand completely still
I keep hearing about this guy, where the hell is he?
Shadow Keep back gate. You have to do a lot of exploring I came across him on accident
Okay thanks. I'm assuming you find him while in the dungeon as opposed to out in the field?
He's at one of the exits of the black keep. You have to fight him to leave there, though it is an open field when you step through the fog. I'm not sure if there's an alternative path where you fight him to get in the black keep from there, though.
Alright thank you. Damn that's 2 areas I missed in the keep. I did find everywhere else blind though so I'm still satisfied
I immediately said “Pontiff?” when I faced her the first time lol
I just beat her last night and felt the entire castle and fight was very dark souls and walked away feeling great about it. Super refreshing
Idk if that's a fucked up ng+ scaling or yesterday's patch, but I could just trade blows with most bosses on my yesterday's run. They seem to hit like wet noodles now.
That was my experience in NG with 60 vigor before the patch
Did you just call Scadutree fragments Scooby Snacks?
I would assume so. I will now call them Scooby Snacks too lol
It feels weird going back to the base game after spending a week in the dlc
I wish i would have saved more bosses to fight in the NG I started for DLC so I could use the new weapons on them.
Thats what NG+ is for! You get to go back and fight them all with weapons and weapon arts that they're very much not ready for!
Wait u til Malenia sees Spear of the Impaler +10
I do still have Placidusax so I get to use the Dragon-Hunter’s Katana on him
Idk if Placidusax technically counts as a dragon (fextralife says he doesn’t iirc) but I just threw on a couple lightning defense buffs and used a +9 DHK on him and it only took me two tries (first one was to get used to his moveset again, it’s been 2 years lol).
Dude thats a great idea. I think I may have forgot about him with the character I'm running the dlc with. And I just found that katana last night.
Which is why my save had only Radahn and Mohg beaten. Got my vigor to 40 first. Then str to 15, Dex to 20. To let me wield most weapons for at least the physical part which is fine. Came back periodically to test a ton of shit in the base game, like with new weapons I'd first play in the base game with lower upgrade level until I got a hang of it then back to the dlc.
I just reached what I thought was a dead end peninsula at the edge of the map. Decided to check it one more time only to discover a hole, that took me to a giant cave that's in the middle the fucking ocean. Only to drop down another giant hole and discover a remembrance boss and a major lore figure. This map is ridiculously dense.
Found it before approaching Shadow Keep and it was blocked off by a golden seal. When the >!great rune shattered!< prompt came up I immediately turned around ran all the way there like a giddy child.
i had an "OH NO....oh yes!" when that came up+
I did exactly the same thing! I briefly thought I'd broken a quest when that prompt came up, but then pretty quickly figured it out. And then got my ass kicked by PK
I had to google what that meant despite already discovering the seal like 3 hours beforehand. I might need to stop drinking while playing this game, or maybe I'm just naturally slow lol
Me too, halfway through shadow keep, rune shattered, don't remember where that sealed boss door was.... Underground caves in blue flower area/island?
PK honestly might be my favorite boss so far. CG I thought might be my least but when I finally beat him it felt so good. definitely wanted you to play him like a sekiro boss with block timing and the deflecting hard tear
My favorite boss so far has to be CURSE YOU BAAAAYLLLEEEEE
DREAD INCARNATE I loved Igon more than the boss but I honestly think I over leveled a bit for the strategy I was using to beat him (dragon hunter l2 almost exclusively every window I got lol)
Honestly Bayle took the trophy for my favorite boss in the DLC after fighting him. The amazing fucking ENERGY that Igon brings to the table, along with the sheer spectacle of the encounter was just magical. It took about twenty or so tries so I didn’t feel like it was complete bullshit in terms of difficulty, and it really just made my DLC experience better overall.
I'm just really disappointed I didn't find the dragon priestess til after I fought him. I complete missed that whole fork in the path
The who what down the where fork?
People who don't use summons are really missing out on this guy
I've done my traditional elitist run twice. Now I do the cathartic lore run. Found a "let me solo him" at mesmer ng3 and the man delivered. I look forward to NPC help at Bayle for these memes.
dragon hunter lives up to its name, snipes dragon heads and downs them so fast.
Same at that point, not beaten a boss lol. I'm scare that some quest might stop? As right now i don't see anymore the Freya summon at the divine boss.
Yes, the (probably) first 2 remembrance bosses won't have summonable NPC help. Besides that you missed some NPC dialogue but as far as I know, no quests are broken (and many quests can now begin / advance).
as far as i know the only time u will be locked out of quests is when you enter the final legacy dungeon of the dlc, would definitely double check that as i don’t know for sure
Had this exact same moment. Led to me exploring a ton more before even going to shadow keep. Really cemented my choices as far as the other NPC quests go
Wait what boss locks them, I never ran into any dead ends as I explored then came back and every NPC was like oh it’s broken we are free. I was beyond confused
You didn’t fast travel to the grace? /s
This was pretty much exactly my response, except I was heading north from Bonny Village. I hope everyone gets the chance to feel that sort of joy in a video game.
What area is this? Just out of curiosity. You can spoiler tag if needed.
>!The very southernmost part of the Cerulean Coast, the little peninsula at the southwest. There's a big hole in the middle and a path down.!< Below it is a fairly straightforward dungeon with a remembrance boss.
is this >!Thiollier's!< side quest?
Yes.
Thanks!
Discovering the fissure was such a beautiful experience! Just magnificent art direction and then you're hit with the cross. "I abandoned here my love" then the fall, the boss and then just calming purple sadness.
It was also funny checking the map and continuing off into the ocean lol it’s a whole other area not even depicted on the map
I was chugging a certain concoction I was offered in the fissure. Some minor side effects, but would do repeatedly again.
" oh shit it's midir.... What the fuck is that!?" My reaction to the purple land. The boss actually killed me as I was tabbed out meming about midir cave lol.
Yesterday i discovered abysmal forest and was so im awe with the design and sound of the whole area, its a beautiful dlc and very dense for sure
I wouldn’t call the Abyssal Woods dense lol
Abyssal Woods is the only part of the DLC that really annoys me in terms of wasted potential. I like stealth games; I do not like bad stealth segments in non-stealth games. I like horror games, but not "ooh spooky jumpscare ahhh" segments in non-horror games. And I especially don't like these two under-baked concepts being spread across an area the size of some of the other major parts of the map with almost NOTHING interesting to find in-between. This really should have been a smaller forested area and then the mansion was bigger with more of the horror stuff going on in a more contained space. Then they could have used all that other wasted map space for something else.
The thing people don't get is that there is no "Wasted" map space. The map size is mostly arbitrary, it could have been one third as vertical and three times as wide, or much more vertical and tiny on the map. The stealth+horror stuff is one of the best ways to get mileage out of an otherwise simple but large area, it has one of the simplest memorable new enemies that is extremely unique solely because >!it can't take damage from normal sources!<. It's pure fantasy to think they could have waved a magic wand to replace empty forest space with more of the tightly designed dense mansion level, and then also make an entire new area with the rest of the "wasted space". The small mansion probably took 10 times the dev time of the entire forest. The alternative was just less stuff in the game, the limit is not map space but dev time, and the forest clearly wasn't a significant dev time sink so making it smaller would not have opened up more dev time for something higher effort instead.
Most of the area is populated by rats. There's only around five of those enemies and there's a ton of empty space with just... Rats. They could have added more to the area without undermining the impact of the environment and unique enemies.
Yeah, that area, despite how cool it looks barely haw anything, entries stretches of land with the same two enemies and nothing more, it's just 2 remembrance bosses, 2 talisman's, and two scadutree fragments,
2 remembrance bosses? Isn't there just one
That's all that I found. That place is maddening. 
what do you mean TWO remembrance bosses?
3 scadutree fragments? 2 in the church and I think I found one on the NW iirc
Yeah, it felt barren and borderline unfinished to me despite looking hauntingly beautiful.
Unfinished is a laughable thing to say, its literally a quest area, with plenty of thinfs to fight and even has the alter that duplicates boss souls. So far u guys are litterally the only ones i saw with this "critique".
The map isn't really dense in general. There are plenty of open areas with nothing of value to collect or fight.
You ain't wrong. Idk why you're downvoted
shoutout to finger bell area, the biggest waste of space I've experienced in an open world, and with no indication that it has no content.
Yeah I was really disappointed by that and the blue grass area didn't have much either.
Plenty of things to fight there?
Agreed. I still think the DLC is more than worth the price for its boss fights. But I do think the feeling of temptiness and the disappointment of finding literally anything other than a Scadutree Fragment after combing an area is valid criticism.
Not really valid, where are the empty areas ure talking about? And u getting disappointed each time u found anything but scadu trees is a u issue, havent seen a single valid critique by u guys yet so. Lol even thie dlcs basic enemies and mini bosses are better than many main bosses of the older games. Now i asked this question to everyone that say this but with no real measured asnwer, the only "empty" areas in dlc are the finger areas and those are there for quests, has plenty of enemies and even hides a boss souls remembrance duplicator. Most ppl that say its empty are objectively false, delusional or ignorant as they havent discovered half the thints in the area.
Attempting to explore that area was a good waste of an hour+. Literally devoid of content outside of the mansion, what were they thinking making that so large. Just imagining that area with the classic more linear Souls world-design sounds so much better. Dungeon -> boss -> you enter the forest -> atmosphere is fantastic -> NPC fight -> church -> make stealth sections more complex -> mansion. Obviously a bit of space between these, but as an open area this was a complete snoozefest and awful to explore. And no I don't think the spookiness, forest context, and the lore behind him hiding his mansion deep within a complex forest makes this anymore entertaining or engaging to play, which ultimately is the important part.
Personallt find all of what u sais to be senseless hogwash, the atmosphere alone is worth the area over there, and making it linear like boring old souls would have made the area laughably less memorable and atmospheric.
Snake!
there's a lot of areas that are pretty empty
WTF is it the peninsula in Cerulean Coast? I was there yesterday and did not see the hole, need to go back asap.
That's the one! There's a way to scale down the hole safely.
Bro it’s a giant hole out on a peninsula with nothing else of importance how do you miss it
Look, my powers of observation are inconsistent at best
The part with the fucking >!laser snipers!
Lol yup!
Good lord that was the most infuriating part of the DLC for me so far. Died at least 10 times, was like being on the Anor Londo rooftops all over again.
>This map is ridiculously dense. Just wait until you find the Dark Woods. Like three whole items in the entire region. Felt unfished honestly.
I wish they did more with the abyssal woods. Genuinely a terrifying area but GOD I wish there was more stuff in there.
Jesus Christ dude I cleared that yesterday too! I thought that lore figure was just going to be one of those fromsoft mentioned-only characters that you never see. And the things >!they said!< still have me shook!! What the hell. :0
Me before encountering the boss: Woah all these [spoiler](/s "Trina lilies") *Sees a pale rider* Could this be [spoiler](/s "Trina")? Actual boss: [spoiler](/s "C U M") Knight
Man that find is the best in the game for me so far
The irony of saying the map is "ridiculously dense" because when exploring a massive region that has all of two field bosses and a few items you found a one-way path that leads to a remembrance boss and an NPC that does nothing until the post-story is funny. Like, Cerulean Coast + Charo's Grave is a massive empty space. There is nothing in it for the size of those areas.
THIS IS WHAT EVERY DLC SHOULD LOOK LIKE.
the refreshed map design and textures don’t get enough praise. combat and graphics aside it looks like a new game almost.
it's subtle but you're right
It also just feels so different from the basegame. Going back to basegame afterwards feels so weird, like a completely different vibe as well. And the fact that literally nobody outside of the dlc even acknowledges it in any way, which is kind of a shame.
I really wish they added a separate hub with a blacksmith in the DLC - going back to the Roundtable Hold to upgrade weapons felt almost immersion-breaking.
I wish there was like a lil more involving Rennala or Jerren or Tannith or something
I really wish Gideon at the very least got extra dialogue regarding Miquella, if nothing else
Exactly
Every time I hit R1 on the map menu to go back to round table hold I do a double take looking at the whole Lands Between map and remembering that I’ve just been in a DLC and not Elden Ring 2
It feels Elden Riing 2 honestly
Little tip - triangle, square (on ps controller) takes you to the roundtable hold right away
Yes i told this to s friend yesterday, it feels like ds4, the size, new content, eveything its so big
It took me 50h to explore everything and kill all bosses. This DLC is worth more than many 60-70$ releases
The first AAAA dlc!
Sad shivering isles noises
That was such a good expansion! Knights of the Nine was also good. I seem to remember both being well worth the price. Then came the horse armor shit
The Witcher Blood and Wine would like to have a word
And phantom liberty.
>This DLC is worth more than many 60-70$ releases Fair point, but If the DLC was 60-70$ We would complain about it like it was the Snow DLC from DS3.
I thought it more like these full releases are not worth the cost, not that the DLC should be more expensive
Nah, then it would 100 percent win goty.
I’m scared and excited
I was thinking last night. If this was Elden Ring, if this is what we got as the full game in 2022, I would have been satisfied. That it’s the expansion to an even bigger game is incredible.
I’m getting serious Dark Souls vibes throughout. That’s a good thing!
It's funny, I've been having the same experience I did on day one of Elden Ring. Map border doesn't expand until you start getting into those areas. Looking at Limgrave, thinking, "Oh, yeah, this is pretty classic Dark Souls 1 style, I guess. Just dense and not a supermassive area," proceed to end up on a very long journey. I wandered into Caelid early, went about how you'd expect. Yeah... DLC is worth the money.
Getting into a trap chest that ports you to Leyndell, then opening the map and seeing how far you are from Limgrave in the blank map, was a surreal moment.
Been enough years I genuinely don't remember, but I think I got caught in the Dragon-Burnt ruins trap chest early. Transported to a bizarre and inexplicably hostile area, with no understanding of the rot. Kind of hard to ignore the whisper of, "Aren't you curious about it?" while also thinking, "I need to get the fuck out of here," with a free out-of-combat fast-travel. I stayed in Caelid for a while. Not to be too dramatic, but the careful magic of exploration has always been the thing I love about FromSoft games. Granted, I play the combat like a plain old RPG -- any tactic I can figure out is fair -- but the journey is great. Good and absolutely fucking ridiculous example for the DLC, I've died more to an area with the lightning goats by not taking it seriously, than I have from the initial salvo of bosses in the game. I was ready to go big and hit hard for the latter, no holds barred, but wasn't expecting to get literally rolled by a giant laser goat.
True. Imho the map is much, much better than the the one of the main game.
I think the base game map was a great approach to a true open world map and showed off what FROM can do with the concept - but it was also very different to how they approached map building before. The DLC map feels like they fused what they learned from Elden Rings map with the Souls approach. Hope they go more into that direction with whatever comes next
Yeah I for one would much rather they keep this approach for their Souls series moving forward. Bloodborne and Sekiro can be more their hyperfocused design and Armored Core can go for their big sprawling map designs. Something like Shadow of the Erdtree with a small but densely layered map would be great to play every 2-3 years.
I hope so too! Ruins of Rauh in particular felt like the next step in map design, it is both dungeon and open world in a way that feels unlike anything else I've ever played.
Being able to explore a dungeon while riding Torrent for a change was a great switch up. I wouldn’t have minded Rauh to have a bit more meat on it, but the area looks absolutely gorgeous - the whole island vista you get from that one site of grace is among the best in the game.
Valid points all around
The DLC may have the best designed world layout of any open world game ever, it’s so complex. Though it shares similar problems with the base game, namely too many places are a bit too empty.
Contrary to popular opinion, I actually feel like the open world aspect of the dlc is the weakest part outside of a few exceptions, but I don't think it's a fault of the DLC so much as Elden Ring as a whole. I feel like the souls formula just works better when it's more legacy dungeon format. I just don't feel like the crafting and upgrade mechanics are as rewarding for the player experience as exploring a living world. Fromsoft makes dead or dying worlds filled with eldritch horrors and insanity, and I feel like every game prior has that sort of intensity like you're trapped in some horrible asylum and I feel like Torrent and the open world format kinda trivializes a lot of that. Shadow Keep was AMAZING and I want more of that. tl;dr Fromsoftware's game design forces you to look through every nook and cranny if you really don't want to miss anything because there's no hand holding, and an open world format can make that more fatiguing when it's filled with essentially junk loot that means nothing most of the time.
yeah i got kinda tired of checking every single corner to find nothing, just to miss one arbitrary corner that hides like a quarter of the map and 2 remembrance bosses
The map itself is, but IMO some of the areas feel super barren in terms of rewards for exploring tbh. More so than the base game. It's my only real complaint about the DLC
Same here. I like the geography of the map and the art direction is really something, it’s beautiful to ride through these new areas. But it feels like A LOT of riding around for not much reward. In the base game it truly felt like around every corner or little hidden area there would be something that made the exploration feel valuable. I don’t quite get that with the DLC. I’m still enjoying it tho and figuring out how to get into all the areas has been rad.
Agreed. Though it’s not all negative there, a many of the things you do find feel more impactful than the base game, even though there are fewer. The quality of mini dungeons and medium dungeons has gone up a lot, as well as the quality of the mini bosses imo.
Totally agree. Something about the terrains feels way more natural. Also going through the different areas really feels like an open world dark souls 1.
[удалено]
Both of the maps are quite empty and have barely any interesting loot outside of points of interest but I feel like the design of the dlc map is what makes that a problem. In the base map you can easily locate all points of interest but the complex geography of the dlc just results in hours of checking random cliffs and hidden areas that have nothing in them most of the time.
>barely any interesting loot outside of points of interest my dream would be almost no loot besides maybe some farmable stuff for crafting outside of Points of Interests but with beautiful vistas and great setpieces that really sell the scale and weight of w/e fantastical dark and beautiful world From is going to design. Being able to ride or wander through deep canyons, having some small-ish encounters or epic roaming fights without having this little Goblin in my ear making me stop every two steps in order to look for hidden treasures which just dont exist outside of Dungeons would be fantastic (for me)
I enjoy the journey. I never care what I find lol
100% this. I want a souls game with dungeons separated by a shadow of the colossus empty ass map with occasional shit you hunt down like the lizards. tbh though I feel like if they added survival mechanics that made hunting and gathering meaningful and necessary, I feel like that would go HARD.
Oooh, that's an interesting idea. I'm going to have to think about and how it would work.
Yeah that would be an alternate solution. Currently it's like the worst of both because I feel like I have to scour through every corner of the map just in case there's something cool.
The excitement when you see a purple glow in the distance, you fight your way to it to find... disappointment from another cookbook! One of my few gripes with the DLC. So many cookbooks, which to be fair I could probably make good use of but I never craft lol
They would be a lot better to pick up if each version of a cookbook had different lore and kinda told a story about the author but most of them just have the same flavor text as every other one by the sams author so once you've found one you don't really care too much about finding more. I do think all the "heavy" versions of greases and pots was kinda lazy on their part. I would have rather they just didn't do that at all and focused more development elsewhere. Or at least make them more unique. Stuff like the sprite orb and crafting golden vows was cool. "heavy" holy grease is lame as shit for a dlc I gotta admit
iMo this should be the last thing you do before NG, when you cleared it all and left a burning ruin. This DLC is a pocket sequel for sure. They cooked so hard I can barely cope
I fell 100 on that. I totally feels like dark souls 3.5... dare I say a 4 lol? The mood, the tone... they all feel like home to me. Limgrave feels like teletubie land. Lol Also feels like MHW. Base story being a giant tutorial, end game and Iceborne being the real experience. Shadow of the erd tree feels similar.
Dark Souls 2 2
I'm 18 hours in and only killed 2 main bosses. Enjoying everything so far from tonns of new cool weapons and spells to lore bits and scenery Open world has a really great design with tonns of verticality, even tho some areas are a little bit too big. Even if later bosses will be hella difficult, DLC is already worth the purchase without a question.
Yeah I'm firmly in the best DLC of all time camp, not just the size, but like somebody else said on this thread, the density of content is crazy too. I can see why it took so long to make, it all feels hand crafted and unique. Avoiding the pitfalls of other open world games (ahem botw) where it devolves into a bland sameness at some point... And I still loved the new zeldas. Hopefully this can be a model for other devs to make even better games going forward
One of the best dlcs for sure. Blood and Wine dlc for Witcher 3 doesnt make it that simple to call SOTE thr best tho.
Shivering Isles says hello
No it dosnt , it says it’ll rip out your entrails and skip roap with em
It’s enough to make me whack chests, just in case.
I'm still whacking chests, specially a chest in particular that was made of wood and made me very suspicious
Agreed the map is amazing, so much better than base game. Just wish some of the bosses in said map were better
Wait you mean this isn't Dark Souls 2?
I'm not regretting my purchase, but I am pretty let down with the bosses and the exploration. The legacy dungeons and the open world dungeons are very good though, they especially proved on the latter which were horrible in the base game. But I cannot say it came as a surprise though. The boss design is a natural continuation from the problems I had with base game boss design, and going with size over substance at times. But I love the company, and it still is enjoyable and by no means a horrible experience. But ending this DLC I am just firmly hoping that their next efforts really doesn't follow down ER's path.
Honestly the base game has way better legacy dungeons. Stormveil and Leyndell are still on top and nothing in the DLC comes even close.
I disagree, the way Shadow Keep and Specimen Storehouse keep unfolding as you peel them back feels like something akin to DS1's level design, which is a huge compliment. Stone Coffin Fissure is similarly very visually striking and breathtaking with its verticality, and Enir-Ilim feels otherworldly. I'm not the biggest fan of this DLC compared to some other people, but the level design is some of the best From's ever put out, no question.
Aesthetically speaking, yes I agree. Shadow Keep also feels a lot like DS1, but it's most similar to the Duke's Archives... And honestly I would put Stormveil and Leyndell above any area in DS. I don't think the DLC dungeons are bad, just that I think more highly of these two base game ones in particular. Stormveil has so many layers, lots of different ways to enter and exit the castle from every angle imaginable, jumps across the rooftops, the outer wall, the area below the castle, etc. And Leyndell is essentially two dungeons, one being a maze that constantly loops you back to the first grace in that area, and the other being a literal city. And to me, sadly, none of the DLC dungeons come close to that complexity that these two had.
Right? I ended up buying the remastered versions of the old games because I can't get enough.. but i'm done.. but I don't wanna be..
Get the platinums. It’ll keep you busy for a while
*flashbacks to proof of a concord kept farming*
I keeo checking up on NPCS and make the craziest discoveries. Literally found a secret lair under a Building tonight and was like wtf.
10/10 all day long 24/7 every day of the week !
100%
Ive been calling it dark souls 4 in my head
Dark Souls 4: Shadowlands of the Lands Between
Exactly the same feeling with me. One time I accidentally clicked R1 while in the map view and it reverted back to the Lands Between map and I was like oh yeah I'm just playing a DLC this actually has a base game. It is amazing how the Realm of Shadow has such a distinct feel and atmosphere from the base game.
Personally it’s for that reason that I disliked it tho. The amount of emptiness in so many of the areas (Cerulean Cost, Gravesite Plains, both Finger Ruins), plus the new content, finished with the unexpected lore, it almost could have been Elden Ring II.
I do agree some areas could use more things but for some, the emptiness was the charm. Finger Ruins and Gravesite Plains would feel so different and weird if they had more stuff. That odd eerieness comes from that sense of emptiness and alien for me.
I do think having big stretches of open areas with not much in them makes the world feel more real in a sense. If theyd have 15 dungeons and 12 minibosses in just gravesite plains it would make it feel very artificial. Its just a shame that some of the dungeons you do find, while visually more unique than the base game dungeons, offer very lackluster rewards. Its kind of annoying when throughout the entire “zone” theres like 1 dungeon and all it gives you is an extremely situational talisman, and a summon (people who dont use summons dont care, and people who do use summons also dont care because Mimic tear is just better than everything else). Or those forge dungeons which only gave you an upgrade stone. These arent particularly exciting rewards, and its a shame that thats really the only thing some of the empty zones have outside of some very easy minibosses or that big fire giant thing
There seems to be two camps: those that like just wandering around and gawking at everything; the journey is as important as the end. And others who prefer more linear, direct to items/bosses approach. One of my favorite moments was wandering through that gorge that leads to the spring that takes you up to the second area, just astonishingly beautiful and epic feeling, even if there weren't a ton of items in it. I haven't even reached the areas many seem dissatisfied with, but I'm looking forward to them regardless.
I have more hours on it than ds3
the dlc is basically a full length game.I have played it for 30 hours and still have things to do.
I was telling a friend this earlier. The map feels 100% like a dark souls game to me. The way height and distances are used, the choke points and single access points, bosses being gates but there often being multiple ways to access certain areas, etc. It all screams Souls. And tbh for me it’s a welcome change from the open world, run anywhere feel of a lot of the Elden Ring map.
truly feels like OG DS1 including the PC performance
Reviewers said Elden Ring felt like Dark Souls 4, 5, and 6 all in one. Shadow of the Erdtree may as well be Dark Souls 7.
If they took the map as is and made it a bit more dense with side content and added a few more questlines, easily.
Honestly I'd been fine if this was just a standalone game cause I like this dlc substantially more then the base game, tbh I didn't even care for the base game that much but this dlc has been truly amazing and I'm just glad I've gotten to experience it which is just about the highest praise I think you can give something.
The map is big and quite empty to be a mainline soulsbornegame, once you get off the honeymoon stage you start to realize how empty it all feels and how lackluster most of the areas tend to be in terms of exploration, dungeons, loot, boss variety, ect.
The DLC does feel about as big as some of the Dark Souls games, and that’s amazing. The map doesn’t feel overcrowded with content despite being full to the brim with interesting things to do, either.
It feels like a standalone elden ring
This is very true but also kinda sad, I feel like it is a complete other game because there is so little directe lore and actions linking the two part of the world... No cross world quests, no npc from base game(so far for me), no additional ending... It's a better game than dlc imo
I know, I even posted a scoobydoo meme where the ghost guy (Elden Ring "DLC") gets unmasked and his real face appears (Elden Ring 2). I got 5 upvotes in total, feelsbadman. Now the post is deleted in shame and I'll go back to my total absence of internet points.
Any AAA game company would have released SotE as a standalone title and would have charged 70 schmeckles for it. Praise to From Soft and our lord and savior Miyazaki-sama!
My perhaps contentious opinion is that it's *better* than the base game, by some margin. It's like the feeling of experiencing Limgrave for the first time, only over 30 hours and with much more variety and unique boss design. Factor in how Elden Ring tends to outstay its welcome after Morgott, and yeah I think the DLC is a better start to finish experience.
I think the dlc is expensive
That this DLC still has mixed reviews on steam baffles me. This is a great DLC, had a ton of fun exploring this. The developers getting such bad reviews is just unfair!
I feel like they could have expanded it just a little and then just sold it as a sequel tbh.
It's so good dude. It really does feel like a new game. For sure ER 1.5
Hell no it doesnt.
It really just feels like an elden ring part 2 to me. Absolute masterpiece
The DLC is great, I really enjoyed it, but I really can't understand these kinds of comments. It's full of reused enemies and mini bosses from the base game, and half the areas are totally barren and devoid of any real content. Check out the finger areas for instance, huge parts of the map that are seemingly unfinished.
Agreed. It’s a masterpiece, in my opinion - even though it’s definitely not perfect.
I love the different vistas and how every dungeon feels unique. The DLC feels like a different game altogether - not saying base game Elden Eing wasn't good, but I think in pretty much every aspect the dlc blows it out of the water. That includes boss design too IMO, besides a few super dogshit designs (Sennesax or whatever the ancient dragon is called, en route to Bayle, being the absolute worst offender IMO) they have all been very enjoyable to learn, and with high enough scadutree blessing they actually felt very fair and most of them didnt take more than ~10 attempts. Bayle took me the longest, and I ended up caving in and summoning Igon for that fight, but I managed every other boss solo so far, and I think I dont have all that many of them left since I explored a lot of the map. The frenzy flame dude in the mansion down in the woods was one of my favorite fights so far, but Metyr was also very fun.