Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree Is Secretly A Survival Horror Game

Soulsborne games are already steeped in dark fantasy and body horror, with several FromSoftware bosses made from the amalgamation of still-conscious, writhing, withered husks who have been stitched together against their will. But 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Shadow of the Erdtree leans further into horro☂r, the survival horror genre in particular, with an entire area that tears down everything 🌟you’ve learned over the past decade.

Light spoilers for Shadow of the Erdtree follow.

I venture into the recesses of the Land of Shadow to find a dilapidated wood stripped of sunlight, the sky a murky gray, the waters rippling with blood red veins. It’s eerily open, inviting me to explore each avenue, but when I try to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:summon my steed Torrent, he refuses, too afraid.

Without my horse to keep me company, I plod on and immediately find messﷺages scrawled into the dirt. These weren’t left by players - they’re far more foreboding than that. “Don’t let it see you,” one reads. “Once you are seen, there is no escape,” another warns, the site of grace growing closer. Though for once, it doesn’t feel like a spot of respite, but a gateway into something more treacherous. “It cannot even be touched,” the last says.

🐼 Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree Review - Ties The Kno✨t On A Decade Of Soulslikes

From Softwar꧃e'♓s magnum opus, a DLC that somehow improves on a masterpiece.

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I ignore these strange omens and push forward, more vulnerable in the open without Torrent. Rats with yellow-tinged flames engulfing their eyes watch me from the shadows, but I&r🍸squo;ve seen them before. They aren’t what the warnings are about. Something else lurks in these woods.

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree river running through a dark dead woods

Before long, I see a strange figure in the distance, wandering aimlessly while hunched over. Their head is a bulbous, festering mass with no discernible features. All around them lies tall grass, and even more warnings etched into the 🦂ground. “Hide yourself. Make not a sound,” the first says. “Combat is not an option.”

I trawl through the grass, so uncomfortably close I can almost touch it. Discomfort lingers in the silence. As with any enemy in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Elden Ring, I snap my camera and lock on, but it has no health bar. Reluctantly, I sneak past, moving ever so slowly. You could hear a glintstone firefly flutter its wings. I think I’m free, back to exploring the woods, but th♏ere I see two more lurking in the distance, wandering without rhyme or reason.

Back 🌱into the blades, but there are now tall vertical yellow shrubbery interspers💟ed between the strands, and I accidentally bump into one. It rattles, letting out a bell chime, and before I know it, I’m clutching my head in pain as this phantom appears behind me. I can’t move, I can’t fight back, and it’s devouring my brains from the inside out. You died.

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree Torrent refusing to come out in the middle of a dead woods

This entire segment felt far closer to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Alien: Isolation or Amnesia✅ than a soulslike, stripping back everything I’d learned about the genre. This wasn’t an enemy I had to master or fight, I wasn&rsqu☂o;t learning its moves like an intricate dance routine, I was hiding, scurrying away. I’ve fought gods and slaughtered ancient dragon lords, but this was something I couldn’t even touch.

There’s always an element of fear in a soulslike, coming face-to-face with a foe you 🔥know you’re going to struggle with, but nothing has made me feel as uneasy as these madness-inflicting, unexplained creatures along the road of a forest ominously known only as the Abyss. All you can do is h꧒ide. I’ve tried to run, believe me, and they are unsettlingly fast.

It brings something completely new to the table, and harkens back to a genre FromSoftware hasn’t dabbled in since the ෴early ‘00s. Its 2002 PS2 title Kuon stands among the survival horror greats, even if it’s lesser known, and seeing that DNA bleed back into Elden Ring with Shadow of the Erdtree was as exciting as it was terrifying. From trying something so experimental with this DLC, shattering e🧸xpectations of what these games are supposed to be, was without a doubt the highlight.

From the moment Torrent refused to 𒆙be summoned, terrified of what was lurking in the dark, I knew I was walking into one of the best areas tha൩t we’ve ever seen in a soulsborne game.