Rise, Tarnished! Actually stay sitting down, because it’s time to watch and think about the first trailer for Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree, which confirms that the Elden Ring DLC expansion will focus on Miquella, a rather tragic demigod character from the main game. Find the full video again below, together with my thoughts on just what the heck it all means.
The trailer accompanies a typically From Software blurb, according to which the new DLC takes place in “The Land of Shadow”, which is “a place obscured by the Erdtree”, “where the goddess Marika first set foot”. This is “a land purged in an unsung battle” and “set ablaze by Messmer’s flame”. Via Eurogamer, From Software have revealed that the Erdtree DLC features a brand new map, which is apparently larger than the first game’s Limgrave area and features a similar mixture of field areas, legacy dungeons and other dungeons of varying scale.
“It was to this land that Miquella departed,” the blurb goes on. “Divesting himself of his flesh, his strength, his lineage. Of all things Golden.” Well then. Let’s play all that back and form some speculations.
Miquella the brother of noted hell-boss Malenia, goddess of rot. He’s been rumoured to be central to Shadow Of The Erdtree’s plot since the DLC’s announcement. Miquella and Malenia are twins but they don’t look it, because Miquella has been cursed with eternal youth, while Malenia is a big old bag of cosmic disease. Miquella doesn’t appear in the main game, having been abducted by Mohg, Lord of Blood. It’s not clear whether you’ll fight him or save him in Shadow Of The Erdtree, but I imagine you’ll get to choose.
Mesmer, meanwhile, appears to be Mesmer the Impaler – the Elden Ring subreddit has already flushed out an image of a new Elden Ring special edition with his full name on it. You can see him in the trailer – he’s the lanky, trident-wielding dude in the flappy red gown with respectable “final boss” energy. I don’t know much about him beyond that. He certainly lives up to his epithet in the trailer, though.
The video is a juicy montage of glimpses of different Shadow Of The Erdtree features – certainly, more revealing than Ed Thorn’s grim prediction earlier today of some environment art with a cranky voiceover. In a poetic flourish, we see a dual-wielding woman in red fighting in a field of blue flowers – she reminds me of the Desert Pyromancer from Dark Souls 3 with a pinch of the Dancer of the Boreal Valley.
Less elegantly, there’s a massive, burning wickerman-type creature, a weirdly prehensile, lighting-throwing lion boss of some kind, and a sort of really pissed-off anteater. In amongst the titanic monsters, we catch glimpses of relatively humanoid, but no-less-lethal characters brandishing enchanted swords, rapid-fire crossbows, exploding pots and super-fancy shields. We see some flashy new moves, too – a double-flying kick, and an aerial incantation of some kind.
Again via Eurogamer, From have revealed that the Erdtree DLC includes 10 new boss fights, eight new weapon categories and a mysterious new progression system unique to the expansion. Yeah, there’s a lot going on here.
The trailer shows us a few of the new areas: gloomy throne rooms, a giant cannon jutting out of a lava pool, a chasm with dangling chains, high castle walls, and the ailing golden silhouette of the Erdtree itself. The Elden Ring world and art direction have lost none of their majesty since the main game’s release.
It all ends with an actual, proper Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree release date – 21st June 2024, which means I have just enough time to dust off my old Elden Ring save and have a crack at finishing. I think when I last played I was somewhere in… the Swamp of Aeonia?