While it might not have a release date, or really any confirmed information at all,Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is one of the most anticipated upcoming video game releases. TakingZelda: Breath of the Wild’s innovative approach to open-world designand giving it its own wonderfully grotesque makeover,Elden Ringquickly became many fans' game of the year when it launched back in February 2022, and that hype hasn’t really died down since.
Naturally, there’s a lot of hype surroundingElden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. Though only a single image from the DLC has been revealed so far, fans have spent hours picking out every pixel on the screen and discussing what it could mean for the expansion. But while Shadow of the Erdtree is almost guaranteed to be yet another top-tier DLC from FromSoftware, it might not be able to hold a candle toDark Souls 3in one area in particular: its bosses.
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Elden Ring’s DLC Bosses Will Have a Hard Time Topping Dark Souls 3’s
The Abyss Watchers, the Soul of Cinder, the Nameless King, Lothric and Lorian, and even the very starting boss Iudex Gundyr are all some ofthe greatest bosses in FromSoftware history, boasting some of the best music, movesets, and set pieces of anySoulsgame. The quality ofDark Souls 3’s bosses only gets better with its DLC. The firstDark Souls 3DLC, Ashes of Ariandel, may not have been the longest, but it did give fans the Sister Friede boss fight, one of the toughest but most rewarding duo boss fights in the franchise.
Dark Souls 3’s bosses truly reached their peak with the game’s second DLC, The Ringed City. The first fight sees the player take on the Demon in Pain and the Demon from Below in an incredibly intense duo fight that pushes the player to their limits. Just as the player thinks they’ve won, the fight transitions into a third phase, putting them up against the formidable Demon Prince.
The Ringed City also includes one of FromSoftware’s better dragon fights, with Darkeater Midir being found in the city’s depths. Finally, The Ringed City ends with a bang with a boss fight that is still many fans' favorite fight in the entire series, Slave Knight Gael. A blend of stunning visuals and intense but fair gameplay makes this fight immediately memorable.
Put simply,Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC has quite the task ahead of itself in trying to outdoDark Souls 3’s DLC bosses. It’s currently unclear just how big Shadow of the Erdtree will be, and its content is still a complete mystery, but if past FromSoftware DLCs are anything to go by, then it seems likely that Shadow of the Erdtree will feature at least a handful of new bosses.
When creating these new bosses, FromSoftware needs to remember a key point ofcriticism fromElden Ring’s base game, and refrain from reusing bosses and just swapping out their color palettes. If FromSoftware can do that, thenElden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree might be in with a chance of outdoingDark Souls 3’s bosses.
Elden Ringis available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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