The Witcher 3’s Blood and Wine has been dethroned by Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree after 8 years of reigning supreme in the RPG genre. The new king of RPG expansions boasts critical acclaim and stellar reviews, pushing the boundaries of DLCs to new heights.
Developers of The Witcher, CD Projekt Red even applauded FromSoftware for their commendable achievement. Whispers in the gaming community abound that Elden Ring’s DLC expansion is setting new benchmarks for RPG difficulty.
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The change of guard in the RPG gaming world brought excitement to developers and gamers within the community. In Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree, creator Hidekata Miyazaki has maintained FromSoftware’s notorious gameplay difficulty, which is common with Soulborne games.
Elden Ring DLC shatters RPG expansion review record
For the last 8 years, The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine had the honor of being the best reviewed expansion for a role-playing game – but @ELDENRING gets to wear that crown now. Congratulations to the entire team at @fromsoftware_pr on their stellar work! pic.twitter.com/aop9B1ZG3J
— The Witcher (@witchergame) June 21, 2024
According to The Witcher’s official X post, Blood and Wine’s reign at the top of best-reviewed RPG expansions came to an end after 8 years when FromSoftware took the crown for what CD Projekt Red referred to as their “stellar work” in Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree.
The Crown bearer Shadow of the Erdtree scored 95/100 on Metacritic, which is a slight lead on the recently dethroned Blood and Wine, which has a score of 92/100.
Players have expressed the extreme difficulty they experience when going into the Elden Ring DLC. Some gamers have pointed out that the game demands a lot of resilience to overcome. Players will need to make multiple attempts at killing the final boss.
“Despite its strange dispersion of active areas, and uncharacteristically infantilising hand-holding for encounters that should be learned through repeated failure, I make 49 miserable attempts to kill the final boss before realizing I have to set the game aside. This, however, feels like difficulty for difficulty’s sake.”
-Alexis
Explore your Shadow adventure on PS5, Xbox, or PC
Depending on the gaming device used, there are a few accessibility options available for gamers. The options include Target auto lock-on toggles, manual attack aiming toggles, and a vibration slider.
The camera movement speed and auto-rotation settings can be toggled on/off, and the subtitles’ brightness can be adjusted. However, individual volumes for music, sound effects, and voice are only partially re-mappable controls.
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In the game, going almost everywhere and discovering new things – using any of the three main gaming platforms is possible. The Shadow world has many directions to choose from, but you have to follow a critical path using a map and Miquella’s crosses to get to specific destinations of interest. Gamers can use a variety of weapons and inventory items to help them vanquish their foes along the exciting journey. Beating the final boss marks the end of your quest.
Cryptopolitan reporting by Collins J. Okoth
