Everyone is gearing up for the gaming event of the summer, ‘Shadow of the Erdtree’, the final chapter of ‘Elden Ring’, out Friday on PlayStation 5, Xbox and PC. And like the 2022 release that sold 25 million copies, this one is once again bigger than you might expect.
‘Elden Ring’ told the story of The Lands Between, a world torn apart by the warring demigod children of his god Marika. One child, Miquella the Kind, who was cursed with eternal youth, was missing from the original game, but he left traces and clues everywhere. “Erdtree” is actually a mystery story: what is the true nature of the world to which Miquella has escaped, and what exactly is he doing here?
The answers are terrifying, enchanting and incredibly difficult to find. Game director Hidetaka Miyazaki, who wrote the story with “Game of Thrones” author George RR Martin, said in interviews that the world of this new chapter, the Land of Shadow, is about the size of Limgrave, the original game’s starting region. He’s a liar. “Shadow of the Erdtree” feels like 75 percent the size of “Elden Ring,” a game that’s already bigger than most games. Developer FromSoftware has actually created a sequel.
The smaller size of the world means a more focused world design than the original game, with regions flowing in and out of each other, like the classic dungeon design philosophy of “Dark Souls” extended across continents. It’s the biggest improvement over the original game, which was so big it often felt tiring. In this new world, I thought I had a good idea of the geography, the main landmarks and where to go. I was so wrong. The world continued to unfold like origami, revealing new regions not visible in the landscape. With each new area I was often stunned as I took in the sights. Some of these areas are nightmarish, while others are awe-inspiring.
The dungeons, like the original game, are the highlight. In particular, the castle that is first visible on the horizon, called Shadow Keep, is one of the best and most complex dungeons FromSoftware has ever come up with. It feels like an evolution of the best Zelda temples, with multiple exits and locations that interlock like a doorway to other regions. It is a work of architectural genius.
Make no mistake, this is still more ‘Elden Ring’. If that monumental experience has exhausted you or rejected you, here’s something just as big, just as exhausting, and even more challenging. I entered this world as a level 713 character, the maximum power level achieved in two years and hundreds of hours. The first enemy I fought was a man wearing nothing but underwear. I hit him with my most powerful attack and he barely flinched. He hit me twice (hand-to-hand arts are just one of eight new weapon types) and I died. “Shadow of the Erdtree” features its own unique leveling system, forcing players to discover fragments that apply a fixed percentage buff to your damage and damage denial. Finding these fragments will become a core part of your journey, as it is seemingly impossible to survive without them.
The atmosphere of the original game was a post-apocalyptic world with wizards and dragons. Miyazaki’s adventures are often negative. But the Land of Shadow’s ominous name belies its true nature: a world thriving and full of life. After years of drab landscapes full of dead trees and rotting corpses, these beautiful but hard-to-find areas feel restorative, like finally taking a warm bath after ten years of hiking through mud and mountains.
So is the mystery story any good? It’s compelling, but only if you can find it. Miyazaki tells his stories purposefully through gameplay and a patchwork of information relayed to the audience in fragmented thoughts and ideas. It is inspired by his early years of trying to read fantasy books like ‘The Lord of the Rings’ with a limited knowledge of English – which only made the stories seem more fascinating and mysterious to him – and he has tried to recreate those fantastical books to create. practice through video games.
Hints about the truth behind Kindly Miquella’s actions and motivations are scattered throughout the original game, but in “Erdtree” it takes center stage. It is told through the lens of seven loyal Miquella enthusiasts, each with their own specialty and history. I found them all over the Land of Shadow, but there were so many parallel stories, and ‘Erdtree’ is a much more challenging story to piece together than ‘Elden Ring’. Martin provided the history and lore of the games, and it provided a solid structure to follow in ‘Elden Ring’. Here, much of the story is locked away by hidden passages, vague puzzles and cryptic clues.
Somehow, despite this disjointed nature, I was still amazed at what I discovered. But I mention the word tiring often because ‘Elden Ring’ demands a lot from its audience, whether it be the required skills, the mental acuity to face difficult challenges, and the literary sensitivity to understand a non-linear narrative logic. Some of the key parts of the game that are essential to understanding the story are hidden in obscure corridors and require a keen eye and good spatial awareness. I had to ask fellow reviewers from gaming news site IGN and YouTube creator FightinCowboy to find these locations. Maybe it’s a good thing that games as big and complex as “Elden Ring” are rare. If Miyazaki’s games are special moments in time, and indeed they are, then it’s a good thing we’re not trapped in them like the immortal spirits of the Land of Shadow.
“Shadow of the Erdtree” offers gruesome and unexpected answers to 2022’s biggest gaming mysteries. It’s a grand conclusion to what many consider the biggest video game of the 2020s. Many parts of it exceed the quality of the base game. It’s still more ‘Elden Ring’, shattering expectations.