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How do you improve on one of the best games of 2022? This is how. For more awards, check out our Game of the Year 2024 hub.
Tyler Colp, Associate Editor: My favorite expansions don’t just answer questions or continue the plot from the original game, they stretch your imagination for what is even possible within it. Shadow of the Erdtree completes Elden Ring like it was always supposed to be there, adding surprising new weapon types, gorgeous new areas, and brutal new enemies.
The entire thing is built like the original Dark Souls; it’s not exactly a corkscrew world, but it certainly feels like it as you drop down into dungeons and resurface in a place you caught glimpses of 20 hours before. The Land of Shadow is dense with secrets and structures that slowly unravel one final, masterful story in FromSoftware’s tremendous action RPG.
Fraser Brown, Online Editor: Shadow of the Erdtree lets you murder gods with your stinky feet. It’s very good.
Wes Fenlon, Senior Editor: The only thing more tired than gushing about Dark Souls’ influence on action games is talking about how great metroidvania level design can be, but Shadow of the Erdtree’s map is so good I can’t help but be doubly insufferable for a minute. Erdtree makes a sumptuous meal out of the old “see that mountain? You can go there” cliche by making you work for it, dangling enticing destinations in front of you and making the path to each one a navigation puzzle of some kind. Jumping, hidden paths, huge shifts in elevation, open areas that flow gracefully into denser dungeons… this expansion was an anecdote to my open world fatigue, and I hope years from now we can point to it as an inflection point for open world games doing way more with their environments than just making them big spaces to gallop across.
Harvey Randall, Staff Writer: I beat Radahn, Promised Consort (Radahn was harder pre-patch) after hours of trying (he’s easier now). Obviously, everyone else struggled (it was way harder before), likely including you, dear reader (I beat him on release, it was harder).
Shadow of the Erdtree is excellent—like a window into what Elden Ring could’ve been with a tighter, closer-knit world. New records for blood pressure aside, I had a blast. While I did enjoy the breathtaking scope of the base game plenty in my first playthrough, I missed the days when so-called “legacy dungeons” were just the entire meat of the series’ gameplay—please imagine me shaking my first at a cloud—and Shadow of the Erdtree came close to a complete return to that form.
The entire expansion’s world is layered on top of itself like a pain lasagne, with outdoor environments that never overstay their welcome. There are a couple of spots where you can feel FromSoftware biting off more than it can chew, but on the whole, the deliciously dense delicacy made me very happy. Except for Radahn, he can taste my tarnished heel.
Sean Martin, Senior Guides Writer: Though I’ll always have a soft spot for how Ashes of Ariandel and The Ringed City perfectly conclude Dark Souls 3, or The Old Hunters’ absolutely top tier bosses, Shadow of the Erdtree is undoubtedly the most intricate expansion FromSoft has ever produced.
As both Wes and Harvey note, exploring the map is a wonderfully layered experience. While guiding the game, I remember the all-consuming excitement of finding a tiny ledge in the final area and following it, crossing towers, jumping through a window, and taking lifts down until I eventually found a hidden shrine with a legendary weapon.
The funniest thing is I remember looking up at the same shrine 40 hours earlier from another area, wondering how I’d ever get there. FromSoft is fantastic at those down-the-rabbit-hole experiences and it truly perfected the craft with this expansion.
Ted Litchfield, Associate Editor: My own, personal game of the year for 2024. Mechanically a marvel: Some of the best weapons, levels, and bosses FromSoftware has ever made. Dex gang rise up, we needed overpowered beauts like the Backhand Blades or Rakshasa’s Great Katana to handle enemies like Ultra Instinct Brother-Husband and Bayle, the best videogame dragon ever.
Adding to that sense of seeing something from afar and finally reaching it hours later my colleagues mentioned, the fantasy vistas in this game just sucked the air out of my lungs they were so beautiful—the Cerulean Coast, Ruins of Rauh and Shaman Village in particular stand out in my mind. The experience of descending forever through what seemed like a memorable but distinctly “side content” dungeon only to enter the boss room at the bottom and emerge into the Abyssal Woods is a videogame all-timer for me.
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Kurt Indovina
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