Rarely has a cultural product had such high entry requirements. To enjoy the wonders that the long-awaited video game Shadow of the Erdtree offers from today it is not only necessary to have a copy of Elden Ring, it is also an essential condition to have successfully overcome the battles against two of the most difficult bosses of this, Radahn, the Scourge of the Stars and Mohg, the Lord of Blood.
For those people who are not versed in the series of games created by the Japanese studio FromSoftware, this may all sound very strange. It may even seem like a joke. Do you need to invest tens or hundreds of hours to enjoy a new video game? Yes. Is a video game with such crazy requirements going to sell something? He is going to sell millions. That is the paradox.
The FromSoftware Paradox
Can a cultural product with such crazy entry requirements sell millions of units?
Although by ambition it could be considered that Shadow of the Erdtree is a video game in itself, in reality it is an expansion for the aforementioned Elden Ring, that is, it is a downloadable content that expands the contents of the latter with the addition of a new world to explore, as well as dozens of unpublished enemies, challenges, weapons, and other features.Read also
The enormous expectation that exists among the most diehard fans of the video game for the expansion of Elden Ring is difficult to compare with other expansions – perhaps it is only comparable to the first ones that World of Warcraft had – but it is also understandable if one takes into account the enormous success of the original title. When Elden Ring went on sale in February 2022 it became one of the highest-rated games of all time, something that allowed it to win the award for best game of that year, and that has led a supposedly niche title to sell more than 25 million copies.
Goodbye to the Lands Between
Journey to the Shadow Kingdom
Once one knows the enormous impact of Elden Ring among the video game community, it is easy to understand why for weeks thousands of articles have proliferated on the internet explaining the requirements to be able to enjoy Shadow of the Erdtree from today. Basically, once the player has defeated the aforementioned bosses, they must stand in front of Mohg’s chrysalis, which is located in the Pantheon of the Dynasty and, from there, travel to a new world.
Once you’ve done your homework, it’s time to get into Shadow of the Erdtree, and the word expansion doesn’t do justice to what players are going to find in this DLC. Obviously, the so-called Shadow Realm isn’t as big as the huge map of the Lands Between, but after exploring it for a few days we can say that it’s surprisingly vast.
New ways to play
‘Shadow of the Erdtree’ encourages players to experiment with the game’s tools
In addition to a good handful of new regions to explore, characters to meet and stories to unravel, the large and grotesque final bosses are still the icing on the cake and, as expected, they do not make things easy. From the beginning of the new adventure, Shadow of the Erdtree makes its intentions clear with the appearance of a gigantic and, apparently, indestructible fire golem. The expansion not only offers new content, but is exquisitely designed to make players feel new desire to experiment with the game’s character creation system when they return to Elden Ring.
As we said, rarely has a cultural product had such high entry requirements, and even more surprising is how much this expansion is going to sell and the rivers and rivers of ink, and the hours and hours of videos, that it will generate. The Japanese studio headed by the prestigious designer Hidetaka Miyazaki has managed to turn the excessive gateway of its games into almost a gamer rite of passage for millions of people. Luck and patience for all of them on their journey, the beautiful yet terrifying Shadow Kingdom.
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