Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree recieves ‘mixed’ Steam reviews amidst difficulty and performance complaints

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree has debuted to mixed user reviews on Steam.

At the time of writing, out of the 24,256 reviews published for the game, 18699 are positive, and 11669 are negative, according to Steam. 

While some user reviews highlight inconsistent performance, which has been an issue since the original release of the game for some PCs, a significant portion of the reviews mention the game’s difficulty.

While FromSoftware games have always been known for their difficulty, several user reviews claim Shadow of the Erdtree is significantly harder than the main game.

Shadow of the Erdtree features incredibly tough bosses, as described in VGC’s review of the DLC, but it also includes a new leveling system, which some players are claiming is the reason that some Elden Ring veterans are finding the expansion difficult.

While the traditional Rune (in-game experience points) system is still in place, a new leveling system based on in-game items found around the world is far more relevant to the difficulty of Shadow of the Erdtree.

This is how balancing is handled in the DLC, so that even characters that are extremely over leveled will find a challenge if they’ve not collected enough Scadutree fragments (the item to increase player power in the DLC).

FromSoftware president and Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki said in a recent interview that toning down the difficulty of Elden Ring would break the game.

VGC’s Shadow of the Erdtree review called it a “sequel-sized sensation.”

“Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree is an incredible expansion and a worthy follow-up to the generation’s best game. In some ways, it’s better than the original by providing an experience that’s both tighter, but also more than double the length we expected.”