Elden Ring’s DLC Difficulty Discourse Is Getting Old | Spot On

After two years, Elden Rings’ highly-anticipated DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, is finally here. But despite Elden Ring’s high praise and nearly universal acclaim from critics, the DLC currently rests at a 70% positive on Steam–and that’s after a significant jump up from its former rating. So, what happened?

Upon release, many players realized that the game’s newest region, the Realm of Shadow, was filled to the brim with tough enemies. Like, extremely tough enemies. Despite the DLC emphasizing the importance of its new leveling mechanic, which relies on items called Scadutree Fragments to help balance the Shadow of the Erdtree so players don’t, ya know, immediately wipe the floor with Messmer and his cronies, many players quickly grew frustrated with the DLC’s difficulty.

From Software’s games are no stranger to difficulty discourse–just Google the origin of the well-known phrase “get good.” But this time, players are review bombing the studio’s latest title for being too difficult. Yet on top of the DLC being intended to challenge players the way Elden Ring did back in 2022, we can’t help but be a bit frustrated that From Software is more well-know for its games’ difficulties rather than, well, just about everything else the studio does.

In this week’s episode of Spot On, Tam and Lucy discuss review bombing, why the mantra “get good” is very outdated, and how games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne aren’t just hard for the sake of it. The pair also dig into how the games’ actually set players up for success, reward their time and triumphs greatly, and offer so much more than brutal boss battles.

Spot On is a weekly news show airing Fridays in which GameSpot’s managing editor Tamoor Hussain and senior producer Lucy James talk about the latest news in games. Given the highly dynamic and never-ending news cycle of the massive video game industry, there’s always something to talk about but, unlike most other news shows, Spot On will dive deep into a single topic as opposed to recapping all the news. Spot On airs each Friday.