Elden Ring DLC's 'Too Difficult' Challenge Pushes Players

Despite critical acclaim, Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC has received mixed player reception on Steam, sparking debate about its difficulty and performance.

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Steam screenshot. While boasting top Metacritic scores pre-release, the Elden Ring DLC, launched June 21st, faces a wave of negative Steam reviews. While praised for its challenging gameplay, many players find the combat excessively difficult, unbalanced, and plagued by performance issues across PC and consoles.

Performance Problems and Difficulty Concerns

Reddit screenshot. The expansion's intense battles are a major point of contention, with players reporting significantly increased difficulty compared to the base game. Criticisms include poorly designed enemy placement and excessively high boss health pools.

Performance issues are widespread, with PC players experiencing crashes, stuttering, and frame rate limitations. Even high-end systems struggle to maintain 30 FPS in densely populated areas. Similar frame rate drops during intense moments have been reported on PlayStation consoles.

Metacritic screenshot. As of Monday, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree holds a "Mixed" rating on Steam (36% negative reviews). Metacritic shows a "Generally Favorable" rating of 8.3/10 (based on 570 user reviews). Game8, however, gives it a 94/100 rating.