Shadow Of The Erdtree’ to ‘Mixed’ reviews because it’s too hard

FromSoft games are notoriously difficult. The first Elden Ring had a lot of very difficult zones and fights. However, it appears that Shadow of the Erdtree may have broken a significant number of players, even long-time veterans.

I was actually quite surprised to see this, given that most players gave FromSoft some leeway, but Shadow of the Ertree reviews currently rank the game at “Mixed” on Steam, a far cry from “Very Positive” by Elden Ring. The reason is that it is… too hard.

Almost every negative review mentions the difficulty where players complain that their stats or level don’t protect them from 2-3 shots from the first enemies. Some don’t think it’s funny, others say it’s so bad they just stop doing it. Here is a small sample of many of these reviews:

• “Gameplay wise, it’s hard to recommend the game – spastic bosses with jerky movements and a lot of physically nonsensical movements make the bosses in this DLC hard to deal with… As someone who has beaten all Fromsoft games with tricked-out Lvl1 characters for fun (including the base game) at I’m done with this game.”
• “While the world design and colors are really beautiful and a lot of the enemy designs are too, there is a big balancing issue, right now even at 60 vigor you’ll be bishotted by almost every enemy that isn’t pure fodder.”
• “I really like this DLC, but these enemies and boss fights are the worst part of the whole game. I’m really surprised whoever tested it approved the golden hippo boss fight.”
• “I managed to beat it, but the bosses were so overclocked and aggressive that even being nearly mined with Scadutree fragments didn’t make it any easier.

With that last one, I absolutely don’t believe anyone is “maxed out” with Scadutree Fragments 24 hours after release, but the overall sentiment is extremely similar in almost all of these negative reviews (although some complain about performance).

I’m just…sorry, I can’t agree with this. I am No hardcore Souls player and I was also getting 2-3 shots when starting Erdtree as well as people at level 700. So it just starts and after 45+ hours I’ve beaten every boss I thought was impossible before . There are many, many things that go into beating these tough fights, and I just think people don’t take the time because, again, it’s barely a day since the official launch. My recommendation:

• I absolutely do not believe that people have found all the Scadutree Fragments and Spirit Ashes in the available zones in this short period of time. One two. It will mostly be what makes the difference, although yes you will still take significant damage.
• Matching the damage type talismans is incredibly important here and may be the one thing that makes the fight bearable, even more so than before.
• You may need to change your lineup. Just because you relied on certain moves or strategies in the base game doesn’t mean you can just brute force your way through things now. The same goes for Spirit Ashes, as some may now be more valuable than others and you’ll need to boost them significantly to be useful. Also, make sure to take advantage of the sometimes hard to spot NPC ally during bosses.
• Some bosses you shouldn’t fight now. At all. There is no reason to kill the infamous Blackgaol Knight now, no matter how close it is to the beginning. There is no reason to take on a huge fire guy because he will 100% kill 99.99% of players for a long time. Come. Rear. Later.

If you’re leaving Shadow of the Erdtree now, you’re right, but I just don’t think most of these people are patient enough. I also wondered if I would even be able to progress through the embargo during the review period because of how hard it was, but slowly, over time I figured it out, I got stronger, I changed my tactics, I got it. And if I can do it, you can too, I believe you.

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