Reflecting on the End of Elden Ring after the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC

A half-hearted ending

It was during an interview for the Chinese site Zhihuthat Hidetaka Miyazaki – the director of Elden Ring – spent a lot of time on the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, as well as on the future of the title after its release. He then taught us thatthere would be no more content for the game after the DLC. In fact, it had originally been considered to split it up, but the team ultimately changed its mind, in order to “to honor the thirst for adventure that players found in Elden Ring when they first played it”.

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This is the first and final DLC, and we have no plans to add further content to Elden Ring. But the question of whether the history of this world is complete or not is not yet decided. From Software's way of doing things is to not let the future of an intellectual property be locked in so easily. It is therefore best to leave some possibilities open. -Hidetaka Miyazaki (Zhihu)

AlthoughElden Ring will therefore end, some mysteries will remain unanswered, leaving the door open for more adventures within the same world. However, nothing is set in stone yet, and the director explains that he is completely possible that it continues in another game, in a comic strip or even that it does not continue.

Leveling down

According to Miyazaki, the different areas of the DLC will contain an upgrade mechanism restricting the player's attack statistics, allowing those who have maximized their skills during the main adventure to still find difficulty when browsing the additional content. “Shadow of the Erdtree is meant to be more or less as difficult as the second half of the game”, he explains, not without recalling that said upgrade mechanic can however be deactivated to the desire.

The director also confirms that The DLC will introduce mostly new characters, including some cryptic PNGs from Elden Ring's storynotably Saint Trina whose influence seems to directly follow that of Messmer, central character of Shadow of the Erdtree. In fact, when asked about the subject, Miyazaki seems to tip his hat to theorists, confirming that Trina will indeed play a major role in the story. As in the main opus, the DLC will offer different endings, although none of them mark a definitive conclusion to the story of Elden RingFrom Software wishing to retain the possibility of returning to it in the future. Shadow of the Erdtree will be available from June 21 on PC, Playstation 4 and 5 as well as Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.