Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree 'Too Difficult' for Players

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. Concerns regarding difficulty and performance issues on both PC and consoles are prominent.

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Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree - Falling Short of Expectations?

Steam Reviews Reveal a Divided Playerbase

Despite pre-release Metacritic accolades, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree launched to a wave of mixed Steam reviews (June 21st). While the challenging gameplay was lauded, many players voiced concerns about excessively difficult combat encounters, perceived imbalance, and performance problems.

Performance and Difficulty: Major Points of Contention

A significant portion of the negative feedback centers on the increased combat difficulty. Players describe battles as significantly harder than the base game, with some citing poorly designed enemy placement and excessively high boss health pools.

Performance issues further exacerbated the negative experience. PC users reported frequent crashes, micro-stuttering, and framerate limitations. Even high-end systems struggled to maintain a smooth 30 FPS in densely populated areas. Similar framerate drops during intense gameplay were also 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 awarded it a 94/100. This disparity highlights the significant difference in player perception.