Summary

  • Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree surpasses Witcher 3's Blood and Wine as the best-rated expansion ever with an average rating of 94.
  • CD Projekt Red congratulates FromSoftware for its "stellar work" on the highly acclaimed Elden Ring DLC.
  • Despite critical acclaim, some players face issues with Shadow of the Erdtree DLC on Steam Deck, but FromSoftware is working on a fix.

Witcher 3 developer CD Projekt Red has congratulated Elden Ring studio FromSoftware for the latter's Shadow of the Erdtree overtaking the former's Blood and Wine and becoming the best-rated expansion ever released. The new Elden Ring DLC refreshes the game's content with a new story campaign, new weapons, new enemies, new locations, and more.

Back in 2022, the fantasy action RPG game from veteran game director Hidetaka Miyazaki came out to commercial as well as critical success, bagging multiple Game of the Year awards. Elden Ring has since gone on to sell more than 25 million copies, and its highly anticipated DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, has also hit the ground running.

elden ring rennala after defeat with egg
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According to OpenCritic, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is now the highest-rated expansion in history. As a result, it has also toppled The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt's Blood and Wine DLC as the highest-rated DLC for an RPG, a distinction that CDPR's game had held for the past 8 years. The Elden Ring DLC holds an average rating of 94 based on 63 critic reviews as opposed to Blood and Wine's average rating of 92 based on 78 critic reviews. In a tweet via The Witcher's official Twitter account, CDPR gave its congratulations to FromSoftware upon Shadow of the Erdtree's successful launch and praised the studio's "stellar work."

Shadow of the Erdtree DLC Achieves Massive Critical Acclaim

The flurry of outstanding reviews means that Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC now ranks above even the best-rated full-fledged games released so far in 2024, such as Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth and Balatro, which have average OpenCritic scores of 93 and 91 respectively. Moreover, the well-received expansion is just a single point shy of base game Elden Ring's average rating of 95 sourced from 205 reviews.

Even though Shadow of the Erdtree is currently available for all Elden Ring owners to download and play, not everyone is having the same seamless experience. Recently, FromSoftware tweeted that it was actively working to fix a major bug that renders Elden Ring unplayable on Steam Deck after the latest update. While the Japanese developer didn't reveal when it will roll out a fix for this issue, based on its prompt response, fans may rest assured that they will be able to experience the next chapter in the journey of the Elden Lord sooner rather than later.

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Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree Tag Page Cover Art
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
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Released
June 21, 2024
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WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL
Checkbox: control the expandable behavior of the extra info

Shadow of the Erdtree is the first and only DLC expansion for FromSoftware's groundbreaking Elden Ring. It takes players to a whole new region, the Land of Shadow, where a new story awaits the Tarnished.

Base Game
Elden Ring
Developer(s)
FromSoftware