Summary
Elden Ring:Shadow of the Erdtreeis another stunning FromSoftware DLC, yet for all its open-world refinements, gruesome enemy designs, and fancy new weapons, it still struggles with one of its most iconic field bosses. The new expansion features four new Ghostflame Dragon fights sprinkled throughout the surprisingly vast Land of Shadow. Despite their undead makeovers, however,fighting these drakes is just as repetitive and tedious as it is in the Lands Between.
Dragons are arguably even more ubiquitous inElden Ring’s setting than they were in theDark Soulsseries. There are 12dragon bosses inElden Ring’s base game, and that’s without counting Magma Wyrms, the hordes of lesser drakes in Caelid, or the hundreds of dead ones strewn about the landscape. Considering FromSoftware’s keen interest in everything draconic, then, it’s a shame that many of the bosses themselves are so egregiously barebones in their design.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Review - FromSoft’s Greatest Hits
Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is a victory lap for FromSoftware, bringing in elements from past games without losing what made it special.
Elden Ring’s Dragons Are Spectacular To Look At, But Unengaging To Fight
Recycled Moveset Seen Throughout The Lands Between
The first dragon boss the player will likely encounter inElden Ringis Agheel, haunting a sunken lake in Limgrave that’s just a stone’s throw from where the game begins.Agheel is a tough and memorable fightfor the early game, but he can be dispatched easily enough once the player learns to stay on Torrent and make use of hit-and-run tactics to focus on the dragon’s ankles. As a one-off, the boss would make for a spectacular, if fairly mindless, encounter. Unfortunately, Agheel has rather an extended family, and they all seem to have been copying his moves.
From Smarag in Liurnia to Caelid’s foul-breathed Ekzykes, every dragon boss outside a legacy dungeon inElden Ringhas an almost identical moveset. Some have a couple of unique AoEs, or might chuck in an extra swipe here and there, but generally speaking,the same simplistic tactics that worked for Agheel also work for the rest of his kin.All their attacks, except for the tail flick, charged AoEs, and any aerial bombardments, can be circumvented by running behind the dragons and smacking their legs.
Does Shadow Of The Erdtree Add A New Ending To Elden Ring’s Base Game?
Shadow of the Erdtree is a massive expansion for Elden Ring, adding dozens of hours of new content, but does it add a new ending, too?
Shadow Of The Erdtree’s Ghostflame Dragons Are Tougher In All The Wrong Ways
More Difficult, But Not More Interesting
Shadow of the Erdtree’s Ghostflame Dragons are naturally tougher than their cousins in the Lands Between, buttheir ballooning health bars and damage outputs only exacerbate the predictability of their movesets.The bosses become mind-numbing tests of endurance in which a single misstepcan result in death. The DLC has faced a lot of criticism for its difficulty, much of which is unfair, but when a boss is both high-stakes and boring, it becomes the worst of chores. Their new Ghostflame attacks may be a novelty at first, but they’re not different enough from their base-game counterparts to really stand out inShadow of the Erdtree.
Shadow of the Erdtree’s open-world is more dynamic than the Lands Between, and that extends to the environments in which the player encounters its dragons. Two of the four bosses are already tussling with soldiers or other dragons when the player stumbles across them, adding a well-needed element of unpredictability to their fights. The mobs are welcome, but ultimately they fail to make the dragons themselves actually fun to fight – the additional combatants are just something else to whack at on the way to the next ankle.
The Best Spirit Ashes For Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC in Elden Ring
There are almost two dozen new Spirit Ashes available in Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC featuring common enemies and old legends.
If any developer knows how to design a good dragon boss, it’s FromSoftware. Midir fromDark Souls 3, Divine Dragon fromSekiro, andElden Ring’s Dragonlord Placidusax are all incredible and varied fights. EvenShadow of the Erdtreeexcels with its ownBayle the Dread. The problem here isn’t really to do with dragons – it’s to do withthe strain that a repeated boss type can put on a bad moveset.If FromSoftware wants to make another open-world game in the vein ofElden Ring, it ought first to learn from the failure of these bosses.
Players venture into the shadowed realm of the Land of Shadow to confront new biomes, dungeons, and formidable bosses. Guided by the enigmatic Miquella, they face the terrifying Messmer the Impaler and uncover the dark secrets shrouded beneath the Erdtree’s influence, featuring new weapons, magic, and challenges.
