Today’s Advent Calendar can take you a lot of time to polish. It is ridiculous, dark, and popular among fake people. Come later, touch the withered arm and be transported behind the door 18 …
It is Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree!
Ollie: Regardless of whether you dig or climb in Shadow’s land, wherever you point you, the software of the software is clear. Elden Ring is an unforgettable pilgrimage, punishing through one of the best designed worlds on PC, and somehow, Erdtree’s shadow does well in every way. The world you are transferred to when you first touch the withered arm is a nightmare of the Escherian people with alternating landscapes, an upright maze of connected areas. New gold standard for open world environmental design, and it comes from a DLC.
Like the basic game, Shadow of the Erdtree for you is just the most fraud, the most gentle in the direction of the main story if you want it. But the number of attractions and attractive sounds around you arouses a even stronger desire to choose only one direction, and let the memorable meetings of the game slowly cuddle you to death. The land of darkness is a place where you can spend for a hundred hours and completely miss the whole map. That will be given to some people, but to me, it is an impressive testament to the world design. This is a really ancient and complex place. The birthplace of a goddess, before she reached the Lord. The battlefield of some of the wars half forgotten, the branching in which will take dozens of hours to explore and attract legends to understand. Shadow’s land does not know you or owes you anything, until you give a reason.
The story is also tighter and more attractive than the familiar development story of Elden Ring from faint people to the legendary being slowed. The world itself is still packed with some of the most interesting legends in any game, but Shadow of the Erdtree benefits from a more focused journey. From the beginning, you already know that you are following the footsteps of Miquella The Kind – until now, perhaps the most mysterious character in the game. Why, and according to the conclusion, is a mystery that both you and some other players on the field are racing to join together. It is a story that is carefully considered, high shares about the will of freedom, revenge, despair and better things. It answered some long -term questions about how the world and mythology of Elden Ring were suitable for each other, and some more attractive new points of uncertainty and speculation. It is great, really building an extraordinary world.
Of course, the fight and the boss are still the best in the class. The unforgettable experiences of Malenia, Mohg and Placidusax from the basic game were participated in a series of new meetings, some of which I reviewed the most spectacular and attractive bosses in any match I played. All new weapons classes and magic schools can freely explore or completely ignore as you want. Basic hatching, sub-missions of DLC-Spanning provides you with more unforgettable journeys if you want them. And a new squad of strange NPC companions creates some of your dialogue moments that are really beneficial when you try to find out who your ally and who is the enemy waiting for the most beneficial moment to betray, attack and continue their hidden goals.
Shadow of the Erdtree Cements Elden Ring is not only the leading world game in my mind, but probably the most attractive journey currently playing on PC. I might play it again every year until we finally receive Elden Ring 2.
Nic: Good worms. The best worms absolutely.
ED: It is super concentrated and sometimes, perhaps a little also dense. But I have to respect its adventure vibe, what is with the jungle and the twisted library and the field of eyeball. I wish this basic game has this strange level. Also, great worms.
James: I, Uh, misunderstood the voting rules and did not think this was eligible. But if I was bothered to check, this would receive a lot, a lot of James votes. I am not interested in playing Elden Ring in addition to my professional obligations, but the absolute atmosphere of the trip opened to the dark land was very passionate, the call for adventure was too big, I decided to leave the saving files of my colleagues and give it appropriately. 261 hours and twice played after that, my top game in 2024 was in fact Elden Ring, and I had Shadow of the Erdtree to thank. Slash, blame.
Jeremy: I had an interesting experience with Shadow of the Erdtree, because I was one of the instructors who were tasked with solving all the complex things of this massive DLC, big enough to become its own game. I also only played for a few hours of The Elden Ring, which I hope to run before Shadow of the Erdtree, but never found time.
Thanks to a saved game mod, I jumped into new things a week before the release and was immediately caught up in the kilns and crossbows that screwed a million times by Blackgaol Knight. Thanks to my inexperience with the basic game, I certainly felt like I was behind the knowledge of the Elden Ring collective needed to conduct DLC to write about it, and while all Souls games were climbing in their own way, this was a special trip.
But as the case of most software products, slow becomes better and completed earlier. And as a person who doesn’t care about the world opens Soulslikes (this is what makes me hesitate when playing the basic, honest game), maybe it’s good when I have gone this way. The darkness of the complex map of Erdtree, with layers on the layers of bits and bobs is connected to each other, is the thing of a nightmare of a guiding writer – but also perfect for a person like me like a tight environment and linearly designed for a giant sand box. Someday I will come back and probably try to play through Elden Ring “properly”, but now, I am very happy that I had to dive at DLC first.
And talk about “DLC First” – if you are like me and wonder how to get in the beginning of the dark kingdom … Hey, I have written a guide for that!
Graham: Soulslikes: Like Roguelike, but for cowardly. (I haven’t played Elden Ring or Erdtree.)
Back to the adventure schedule to open another door!
