Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Hands-On Preview – The Erdtree’s Light Casts the Longest Shadow

Fittingly, Bandai Namco invited Wccftech and a number of other global journalists out to experience an exclusive hands-on with the upcoming DLC expansion for 2022’s Game of the Year, Elden Ring. The venue of choice was a cemetery in sunny Southern California and after a brief bus ride through Hollywood and passing by rows of elaborate tombstones and a live peacock enclosure, we were greeted by a choir quartet and a life-sized statue of Miquella’s Egg taken straight from Mohgwyn Palace. It’s here that Bandai Namco graciously lets us sit down for the first two hours of the upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree DLC and explore at our leisure, all running on an army of Razer laptops.

After a brief onboarding to discuss the setting and ways to access Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, we were given free rein to hit the ground running as one of several level 150 champions, all adequately geared up for the adventure with +25 weapons. Not one for a spellcaster in From Software’s masocore adventures, I stuck with a more traditional DEX-focused swordsman who could wield most of the weapon types available with relative ease. While I started leaning toward the simpler swords (including the new Odachi type), it wasn’t until wielding the throwing daggers in both hands that the combat began to shine. There were indications of a perfume bottle-class weapon available for players to use in the DLC that wasn’t present in the base game. Still, sadly, I didn’t have the foresight to dig that deeply and experiment with the zanier weapon types in the interest of time.

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To access the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, From Software and Bandai Namco opted to provide a proper explanation on how to play the content that players paid for, a stark change from the Artorias of the Abyss, where players were expected to blindly explore Lordran and track down a broken necklace and about a dozen other steps. This time, players must