Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC: A Double-Edged Sword of Difficulty and Praise
While Shadow of the Erdtree has received critical acclaim, its Steam reception is more nuanced, revealing a split between praise and player frustration. Many cite difficulty and performance issues as major drawbacks.
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Steam Reviews Reveal a Divided Playerbase
Despite pre-release Metacritic accolades, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree launched on June 21st to a wave of mixed Steam reviews. While the challenging gameplay was lauded, many players voiced concerns about excessively difficult combat encounters and perceived balancing issues.
Performance and Difficulty: A Toxic Combination
A significant portion of the negative feedback centers on the intensity of battles. Players describe encounters as disproportionately harder than the base game, with some suggesting rushed enemy placement and excessively high boss health pools.
Performance problems also plague the DLC. PC users report frequent crashes, micro-stuttering, and frame rate limitations. Even high-end systems struggle to maintain 30 FPS in densely populated areas. Similar frame rate drops during intense moments have been reported on PlayStation consoles.
Currently, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree holds a "Mixed" rating on Steam (36% negative reviews). Metacritic shows a more positive "Generally Favorable" rating of 8.3/10 (based on 570 user reviews), while Game8 gives it a 94/100 score. This divergence highlights the significant disparity in player experiences.
