5/5 ★ – phillipthemale's review of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.

I’ve got a lot of thoughts after finishing Shadow of the Erdtree, and most of those thoughts are praise. This may as well be Elden Ring 2. The map is massive, there is so much new content and so many exploration opportunities, I often found myself lost in beautiful areas like the cerulean coast, just taking in the sheer volume of the dlc. Difficulty has been a big talking point regarding this, and in my own experience, most of it is not as hard as the base game. Unless you just don’t explore and don’t level up your scadutree blessing, most of the bosses are challenging, but fair. Messmer in particular will go down as my all time favourite boss fight. However, the final boss is possibly the most egregious boss I’ve ever had the displeasure of fighting. It seems like the devs, in an attempt to one up themselves from Malenia’s difficulty, created something so insanely difficult, it wasn’t even fun anymore. After 4 hours, over 100 attempts I finally beat him, overcoming truly impossible odds, but not even victory could quell my utter hatred of this awful final boss. Despite the final boss, this dlc is a masterpiece in both its story telling, characters, and (most) of its bosses. Easily the greatest dlc I’ve ever played, and an easy contender for game of the year.