As reported by Chinese outlet Campfire Camp, spotted by GamesRadar, and machine translated by Ian Games of the Ian Games Network, and then delivered fresh to your eyeballs by me, Nic Reuben of Reuben Paper Shotgun dot com, Elden Ring expansion Shadow Of The Erdtree will be the only DLC released for the world stomping rpg game. That’s according to FromSoftware’s sadistic DM and notable swamp troll Hidetaka Miyazaka, although it doesn’t sound like he’s trolling this time.
Shadow of the Erdtree, Miyazaki told Campfire Camp, is “the first and last DLC, and we have no plans to add more content to Elden Ring”. He continued: “Elden Ring emphasizes exploration and adventure in a big world. In order to provide such an experience, a vast and huge setting is inevitably needed.” Instead of taking a similar approach to say, Dark Souls 2 then, where a single theme tied together multiple expansions, From have opted for a single massive content drop. “If they were sold separately, the freedom of exploration and sense of adventure would be reduced,” says Miyazaki.
It’s a slight bummer to know that that’ll be it for such a special game when the expansion does release on June 21st this year, but I don’t think I’m alone in saying that a certain level of integrity in recognising when a story is finished is something particularly admirable about From’s approach to design. Also, it’s not as if Elden Ring is light on stuff to do anyway. If I wasn’t a feckless freelancer at the time, I’d probably still be playing it. Although all that free time did allow me to discover the joy of running around the Lands Between naked like a treasure goblin.