HALO INFINITE
When all hope is lost, step inside the armour of humanity’s greatest hero.
Read More 0
Action RPGOpen WorldSouls-likeAdventure
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
In the Land of Shadow, blood must spill. The blood of your fellows.
PlayStation 5PlayStation 4Xbox Series X|SXbox OnePC
Published by Bandai Namco Entertainment · PlayStation 5 · PlayStation 4 · Xbox Series X|S · Xbox One · PC
Storyline & Lore
There is a place the Erdtree does not shine. A land the Golden Order tried to erase from history. You are about to walk into it.
The Realm of Shadow is a wound. It exists parallel to the Lands Between — hidden, scorched, and populated by things that should not still be alive. This is where Queen Marika first set foot before her ascension. This is where a war was fought that the victors chose to forget. And this is where Miquella, the most enigmatic of the demigods, has chosen to go — divesting himself of his flesh, his strength, his lineage, everything Golden — in pursuit of a goal that no one fully understands.
You follow his trail. Through a cocoon of shadow, through lands scorched by an ancient fire, past the followers he has drawn to his path — pilgrims, outcasts, and believers who sense in Miquella something worth following. But Miquella is not the only power here. Messmer the Impaler — a new demigod, fierce and terrible, wreathed in serpents and fire — has been here for centuries. He was sent to burn this land clean. He succeeded. And now he waits, a weapon pointed at anyone who enters uninvited.
The Realm of Shadow is FromSoftware's largest expansion. It is not a corridor bolted onto the base game — it is an entire new world with its own geography, its own ecology, its own secrets. Gravesite Plain stretches out beneath the shadow of a dead Erdtree. Scadu Altus rises with ancient fortresses and hidden depths. The Abyssal Woods lurk at the edge of sanity. And somewhere beneath it all, the truth about Marika — the truth the Golden Order buried — waits to be found.
The lore runs deep. Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R.R. Martin built a mythology in the base game; Shadow of the Erdtree excavates its foundations. Every item description, every NPC quest, every boss encounter reveals another fragment of a history that reframes everything you thought you knew about the Lands Between. By the time you face the final boss — by the time you understand what Miquella actually wanted — the entire Elden Ring story shifts beneath your feet.
This is not supplementary content. This is the rest of the story. And it is devastating.
Gameplay & Core Systems
Shadow of the Erdtree plays like the best version of Elden Ring. Every lesson FromSoftware learned from the base game — about pacing, about encounter design, about the balance between exploration and challenge — is applied here with precision.
The Realm of Shadow — A New Open World
The expansion adds an entirely new map roughly the size of Limgrave and Liurnia combined. It is dense, layered, and interconnected in ways that reward exploration obsessively. Vertical traversal through crumbling towers and cliffside paths, hidden underground areas accessible only through obscure environmental puzzles, and a geography that constantly surprises — every hill crested reveals something unexpected. It recaptures the sense of discovery that defined the base game's first hours and sustains it across 30–40 hours of content.
Scadutree Blessing — DLC-Specific Progression
Shadow of the Erdtree introduces its own progression system independent of your Rune Level. Scadutree Fragments are found throughout the Realm of Shadow and can be consumed at Sites of Grace to increase your attack and defence within the DLC. This means that a Level 150 character and a Level 300 character face similar challenge curves — the expansion is balanced around Scadutree Blessings rather than base-game stats. It is an elegant solution to the difficulty problem: exploration directly translates into power, encouraging you to scour every corner of the map before tackling the hardest bosses.
70+ New Weapons & 8 New Weapon Types
The expansion adds over 70 new weapons, including entirely new weapon categories: Throwing Blades, Beast Claws, Perfume Bottles, Hand-to-Hand Arts, Great Katanas, Light Greatswords, Backhand Blades, and Thrusting Shields. Each new type fundamentally changes how combat feels. Hand-to-Hand Arts turns Elden Ring into a martial arts game. Throwing Blades creates a ranged melee hybrid. The build diversity is staggering — and every weapon has a unique Ash of War that demands experimentation.
Boss Design — The Best in FromSoftware History
The bosses are the crown jewels. Messmer the Impaler. Rellana, Twin Moon Knight. The Putrescent Knight. Midra, Lord of Frenzied Flame. Promised Consort Radahn. Each fight is a multi-phase spectacle with distinct patterns, punish windows, and escalation mechanics. Critics have called them the best bosses FromSoftware has ever designed — and the final boss in particular has entered the conversation as one of the hardest and most beautifully choreographed encounters in the genre.
Key Game Mechanics
Scadutree Blessing System
A DLC-exclusive progression mechanic that scales your attack and defence independently of your Rune Level. Scadutree Fragments are scattered across the Realm of Shadow, rewarding exploration with tangible power increases. The system ensures the expansion remains challenging regardless of your base-game level while giving explorers a natural difficulty curve — the more you discover, the stronger you become.
Eight New Weapon Categories
Throwing Blades, Beast Claws, Perfume Bottles, Hand-to-Hand Arts, Great Katanas, Light Greatswords, Backhand Blades, and Thrusting Shields. Each category introduces fundamentally different combat rhythms to Elden Ring's already deep weapon system. Hand-to-Hand Arts alone transforms the game into a fist-fighting FromSoftware experience that feels entirely fresh.
Realm of Shadow Open World
An entirely new map with its own geography, ecology, and secrets — Gravesite Plain, Scadu Altus, the Abyssal Woods, underground ruins, and more. The map is dense, layered, and vertically complex. Exploration is rewarded at every turn with new weapons, armour, spells, Spirit Ashes, and lore. Traversal uses Torrent (the spectral steed from the base game) across the new landscape.
Legacy Dungeon Design
Shadow of the Erdtree's legacy dungeons — Belurat Tower Settlement, Castle Ensis, the Shadow Keep — represent FromSoftware's best level design. Intricate, interconnected, full of shortcuts and secret paths, they recall the architectural brilliance of Dark Souls' Anor Londo and Bloodborne's Cainhurst Castle while operating at a scale the studio has never attempted before.
New Spells, Spirit Ashes & Ashes of War
14 new Sorceries, 28 new Incantations, 20 new Spirit Ashes, and 25 new Ashes of War expand the build possibilities exponentially. New spell schools include Messmer's fire incantations and shadow-themed sorceries that fundamentally alter offensive and defensive options. Spirit Ash summons from the DLC include some of the most powerful and visually spectacular companions in the game.
Gameplay Video Showcase
More Like This
