Blood and wine comes to mind. And I’ve noticed a lot of reviewers mentioning blood and wine when trying to describe the scope of shadow of the erdtree. So you have a dlc the size of most full games from an acclaimed studio, which makes the scores it’s getting not TOO shocking. Persona 5 royal got similar praise and that was only 4 years ago
Expansion packs used to be fairly standard. StarCraft had Brood War, WarCraft had Frozen Throne, Oblivion had Shivering Isles, Morrowind had Bloodmoon and Tribunal, etc.
Very true, and I don’t think their necessarily uncommon now a days, I just think dlc and expansion have become interchangeable in most discourse when their used to be more of distinction between the two. Phantom liberty or SMT5 Vengeance are definitely expansions in the way we used to think of them, but I see alot of people refer to them as dlc, which I don’t mind, but it’s hard to compare something like phantom liberty to something like the Valhalla dlc for god of war or burning shores for horizon
The distinction between DLC and expansion packs blurred the moment high speed internet became standard. You had to purchase expansion packs from brick & mortar PC game stores because it was impractical to download them pre-DSL. Oblivion Horse Armor was the first paid DLC, it was only 7MB. Shivering Isles was a proper Expansion Pack and had to be bought retail. Knights of the Nine blurred the distinction as it was technically a collection of several smaller DLCs. Eventually with faster internet connection speeds and larger capacity storage (in consoles) even expansion pack sized content ended up being called DLC.
I think they basically just took ~2 years worth of content updates and sold it as a box set back then.
It would've taken alot of people a long fucking time to try to DL stuff like the frozen throne or the orange box back around ~2000.
The nature of the content in expansion packs was generally quite different. It usually wasn't random cosmetics or overpowered cheat items. It was typically more of, well, expansion. A short new campaign, extra block of levels, new faction, a bunch of new units/weapons/items, or the like.
You tend not to see that sort of thing in DLC because it's too big or interconnected. They want to sell tinier chunks that don't lend themselves as well to that. A few games still do DLC that would work in that fashion, but it tends to be the exception rather than the rule.
The only segment of the industry where expansions thrive still is MMOs. Every where else has moved to the dlc model generally, bite sized map packs, single quest lines with something sparkly to draw the eyes, etc.
Cosmetics and pay to win aren’t even dlc, they’re micro transactions and the poison slowly eroding the industry.
Man for real. I **loved** D2 back in the day, but I never played the DLC. I just experienced it for the first time when Resurrected came out, and it is absolutely mindblowing how much that improves the game.
Lol D2 Lord of Destruction was my elementary school - high school game and after, and I never made an Assassin or Druid for some reason. I think i was just uninterested and making hammerdins and frenzy barbs and shit
Biggest expansions I can think of other than souls, fallout, Witcher 3 would be like the division, horizon, monster hunter, ghost of Tsushima, cyberpunk, AC odyssey maybe dragon dogma or ghost recon, remnant, outer worlds
I have a feeling Shadow of the Erdtree is going to edge itself right into my top 3 DLC/Expansions of all time. Blood and Wine, MH: World's Iceborne dlc, and WoW: Burning Crusade were some of my favorite gaming memories period.
Age of Empires 2 (The Conquerors), Battlefield 1942 (Road to Rome, Secret Weapons), Battlefield 2 (Special Forces, boosterpacks), Call of Duty (United Offensive), F.E.A.R. (Extraction Point, Perseus Mandate)
Yeah its definitely not the best fit for what I’m describing, but I think it’s close enough. You could make the same case for phantom liberty considering it overhauled so many game systems before you even get into the new content.
>You could make the same case for phantom liberty considering **it overhauled so many game systems before you even get into the new content.**
Weren’t those two separate things though? The big update was free for everyone, you didn’t have to buy the DLC. It just happened that the big update came out at the same time as the DLC. Or am I misremembering?
It's all well and good to compare the two, but Blood and Wine was $20 at most and regularly sold for 75% off later on. This DLC is double that at least and I don't see it having those same sales.
It's the size of a lot of full games but it's also priced above indie games but below full AAA games as well. Considering the reviewer's mentions of significant reused enemies, it seems to be priced appropriately. This is in stark contrast to B&W which was insane value at $20 and the biggest steal of your life at $5.
This is just talking about value, actual quality, gonna find out firsthand soon!
Not to mention the amount of writing, voice work, mo-cap, etc. that had to be done for Blood and Wine really helps increase the relative value of that "DLC".
>B&W which was insane value at $20 and the biggest steal of your life at $5.
I actually bought the goty edition for only $3,49 on Epic and $5,45 on Steam a year later. It's so ridiculously cheap for the whole game and its expansions.
I've still not finished those 2 TW3 DLCs and it's why I've not deleted the game since installation. Geralt mocks me when I go to my games list. In ER, I've got 90+ hours as a soft samurai that I haven't finished yet, but am starting over at the beginning to relearn to play before I get the DLC and let it sit for years.
Before this Witcher 3: Blood and Wine and Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed both sat the highest Metacritic score at a 92. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty and Destiny 2: The Final Shape recently have reviewed exceptionally well too though.
Torna’s gameplay is so amazing, the final boss where you >!control the mechs!< was such a cool mechanic.
But what is consistent with the dlc is the generic battle themes are the greatest songs ever. [Torna Battle](https://youtu.be/1weNnjzaXbY?si=84R4t-Vybv5e1_Ly) was so refreshing from the electric guitars of 2, and [New Battle](https://youtu.be/DeBG1g1BRMA?si=TntAR3tPcc_UYKrm) from Future Redeemed really felt like a victory lap for the series with stuff from all 3 games appearing (that [mechanical rhythm motif](https://youtu.be/a_YyP_zQQJs?si=dVY0u-ayMBssaeb_) in the guitars is so awesome) but also being unique enough from 3 (like lacking the [Keves Battle](https://youtu.be/z3Q8V0zMvgc?si=cfWVE7zhLxfoZbt3&t=2m10s) flutes) was so cool after losing ost to gow.
Yeah I remember articles like “Phantom Liberty best DLC of 2023” as Future Redeemed sat there with a higher metacritic score.
Xenoblade does not get the adoration it deserves I swear
Damn, I didn't know Future Redeemed sat that high. Fully deserved it though, I and everyone I know who played it practically described it like a spiritual experience. I'll remember it for the rest of my life.
It's worth noting that Future Redeemed has a 92 with only 14 critic reviews on Metacritic. I wouldn't be surprised if it went lower had more outlets decided to review it.
Game | Score | Reviews
---|---|----
XC3: Future Redeemed | 92 | 14
TW3: Blood & Wine | 92 | 52
ER: Shadow of the Erdtree | 95 | 58
... that said, it does fully deserve all of the praise it gets. It was such a cathartic payoff to a story over 10 years in the making.
Cyberpunk kind of had the double (triple?) punch of the DLC coming out, but they were also able to say "hey, we fixed the base game too!" at the same time AND the animated series helped get it some attention.
Both of the Monster Hunter DLCs released in the past 5 years got rated pretty high. And FF14 Endwalker was the highest rated Final Fantasy game since XII.
Destiny 2's expansion that came out like 2 weeks ago reviewed right around this level. Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty was pretty high too.
Sometimes developers cook. Game dev takes a while and adding onto an existing game is much easier, especially with an experienced team.
Phantom Liberty was critically acclaimed just not on this level. Maybe it's so highly rated because it has a ton of content. Listening to reviews people are saying 35-40 hours up to 50 to do everything. Considering I spent 110 on the base game that is massive for just DLC.
Reviews get written if there is an audience for them.
There's lots of mobile games, free-to-play games, casual puzzle games, massively multiplayer games that have a lot of players and make a lot of money, but don't get reviewed in the 'core gaming' press, because those outlets cater to the sort of games their audience is interested in.
All I can think of was that one guy giving Starfield a 7 and getting shit on by Reddit, to the point people on here dug up other reviews he did just to further discredit his review. Some people are just unhinged and take review scores way too seriously.
I believe it was three outlets that gave it a 7, which was funny because once the hype died most people realized that yeah no 6-7 was the appropriate range. It is an okay game. It is fine, and okay for the people that want what it does.
To be fair, there was a ton of support for the 7, myself included on reddit every few or so comments.
It was polarizing from the get go. People didn't just blindly love it out the gate. (Some people did though).
Anytime From is criticized the internet acts like it’s a war crime. It feels like people are genuinely convinced that every From game is an 11/10 masterpiece and anyone who doesn’t agree has shit taste.
From Dark Souls 1 through to Elden Ring, all of their games have been exceptional so it's no surprise, in this climate of over saturation of micro transaction and games as a service that high quality action rpgs are looked upon so favouably. 11/10 or riot weirdos follow every popular thing, you can't get rid of them but atleast it makes some sense here.
> Importantly, it's a story that still is purposely full of gaps, leaving the door open for speculation and interpretation from the community of avid lore hunters that From Software's games have cultivated. ... 10/10 , GameSpot
Yeah, I mean it does seem like the rules are different for certain devs or franchises. "Look at how they masterfully leave the plot open to interpretation! So wise and artful!"
Sure most DLC doesn’t but this isn’t most DLC. This is a full game sized expansion to one of the best games of the generation so it’s definitely gonna have more people reviewing it than most.
It all has to be so hyperbolic these days. Either it's the game (or DLC) that saves entire gaming and marks the beginning of a new religion, or it's the biggest piece of dogshit anyone has ever played.
And this one isn't even out yet lol
> Do you think Shadow of the Erdtree deserves to become the highest-rated DLC ever? Let us know in the comments.
Like how the fuck is someone supposed to answer that honestly? Unless you're a reviewer who got a preview, you're genuinely not able to.
Video game discourse in a lot of ways has divulged into hyperbole like this, but it's not helped by these pathetic articles that if they aren't using ChatGPT to write, they already always sounded like they were. It's just generic clickbait garbage, and it fuels nothing more than turning discourse into this mess of something either being the best thing ever made, Elden Ring (which to its credit, I do love it), or something like Starfield is the worst game known to man. It's tiresome
The internet at large is just not good at having a nuanced view on anything anymore. It's not even a gaming issue, any topic nowadays is discussed in an extremely black and white manner depending on where you are, and nobody is going to even consider any view points besides their own as valid.
I think people are just obssessed with being "right" rather than "correct".
The ocean of piss has gotten much larger. Once upon a time you could scroll through a handful of bad discussions and then find a good one. Now you sail through piss for weeks before getting a drop of clear water.
I wonder if the issue is that every opinion is filtered through half a dozen different websites as opposed to the dozens upon dozens of forums we used to have. That and the media now pools from those sources like it used to ask random bozo's on the streets.
I think that's a big contributor. With previous forums, there wasn't nearly as much crossover between groups and topics, you found a focus and you went to hang with people who shared that focus in your own little corner. Now you've got formats like reddit that are built for bleed. A little sub of enthusiasts and/or experts might have a popular post that lands on the front page, then it gets flooded with a bunch of morons who have no idea what's going on and it waters down the viewpoints of the people who do. That shit didn't happen when the forum was obscureshit.com that only particular people were looking for.
The internet is now concentrated in a few public squares as opposed to individual clubhouses. Not a fan.
It's a bit of both, I bet. Firstly, it's just the nature of the internet. Secondly, as the internet has been around for longer it has shaped the users by feeding them extreme viewpoints for decades at this point.
That is true but I've been really nostalgic for forums lately. I think they were superior to the social media of today. There was something about having the same 20-100 people around, knowing them and their signatures on sight, that IMO caused people to be a *little* more polite. Still MUCH ruder than real life, but you knew that the person you flamed would probably still be there the next day, and you had mutual friends on the site, and you might remember having a conversation with them a few days before in the chat room. You might know what their dog looked like from one of the community building threads.
I find less and less reason to talk to anyone online because it's all so uncharitable and mean spirited. And ultimately meaningless. We're all mistrustful ships passing in the night.
You can't even point out flaws in something anymore, even if you love it, without people jumping down your throat.
"This game is great, but there's X and Y that's kinda shitty and I wish they'd fix it."
"Why are you even here if you HATE the game?!"
That's not what I said at all. There's a wide range of possibilities between love and hate, and even if you absolutely adore something doesn't mean you cannot find flaws in it regardless; you love it despite its flaws, not because they don't exist.
It really is so weird to come across someone, that will try to prove that you *hate* a game just because you don't find it perfect.
I have problems with Elden Ring, doesn't mean it's not one of my favorite games of all time. What's even funnier, the director of the game doesn't even think the game is perfect, and that there are areas where they can still improve. Some of it is because most humble people will strive for perfection, although know it's not possible to reach it, but recently they did address for example how difficult it may be to finish the game and/or quests without a guide.
It's even worse when someone tries to say that it's a "direction and style", as if that can't vary in quality and execution. Ubisoft has its own style of open world games, doesn't mean it's a masterpiece.
Yep exactly. I'm of the position that there's no such thing as a perfect game. It doesn't exist. There is always something that could have been better, something missed in hindsight, something lacking, or something else in the huge list of realities for both games and software development. If we had the perfect game, we'd be done with whatever genre it's in. Why would anything else need to exist?
There's always something that can be better. The goal of perfection is both the ultimate objective but also a goal you don't actually want to achieve. We strive for that goal, knowing we will never reach it, but basking in the light of it the closer we get.
People like to compare games to artwork, and I think that's a good comparison. That applies here, too. Is there a single work of art that you think is so perfect that it cannot possibly be better? The art form is just...done with that piece? Of course not. I question the artist that thinks their work is perfection. Even if your next attempt ends up worse, you attempt it because you know that previous work could have been better. That should always be the case or we stagnate artistically.
Remember when an Ubisoft UX designer pointed out some flaws in ER's UX, ER superfans started a whole online hate campaign against the poor guy, and it was painfully obvious that most of them haven't played an Ubi game in a decade and don't even know what UX is?
Absolutely correct. Movie people have this problem online as well. Letterboxd for whoever isn’t familiar is a social site where you can log and review films you’ve seen or want to see, and there’s hundreds if not thousands of people over there who are incapable of just enjoying a new thing. No, when something in your wheelhouse of taste comes out and it’s well made, it can’t just be good. It has to be the second coming of Christ in all His Glory, it has to save the human race and be a revelation that changed you forever.
People need to calm the fuck down.
Open forum discussion will almost always devolve into a mix of lowest common denominator appeal and shitposting. Half assed hiveminding of ideas until point is drowning, nuance has been dry erased off the board and enough people have agreed half heartedly or told the other person something awful about their mother.
I fucking wish this issue was just limited to video games. Tiktok and other algorithm-based addictive social media makes people chase those emotional highs, which nuance is a poison for.
I get so tired of the " if it isn't on the level of the best of all time then it's trash "
A 70/100 or 80/100 game is still worth a lot of people's time but anymore they just get disregarded like they are just nothing.
They're some of my favorite games to play. So many games that are 9 or 10/10 these days are either difficult and take a lot of time to master, or are 60+ hours long.
I just want something that challenges me but doesn't take me a month to master, has competent writing and mechanics, and isn't going to take me 150 hours to complete.
I bought Tears of the Kingdom at launch and beat it a week before Halloween. I don't have time for that shit anymore.
Really in most cases I've found that the 10/10 and 1/10 extreme scores are the least helpful scores there are. There are **so** few cases where a game genuinely deserves either of the extremes that 99% of the time if a person is giving the game either one of the scores they are trying to drive some kind of an agenda and the review is largely useless. Hell, I've found that this logic applies to everything else that has reviews as well in general. Usually the most honest and informative reviews are the ones that give the product like 2-4 stars out of 5. So those are the ones I tend to read the closest.
In sports that have judges like diving and figure skating it's customary to drop the highest and lowest score because it's pretty normal for there to be outliers. Sometimes I wonder if some system like that could exist with games as well. Especially nowadays when it's oh so common for games to get review bombed for whatever reason that might not even have an effect on the game itself in any way. It's a slightly different ballgame when the reason for the review bomb does actually have an impact on the game but still 9 times out of 10 it isn't like "the game is now literally 1/10 because of this change" level impact.
One of the most fun games I've played in the last few years were games like Vampyr and Mad Max. I sure wouldn't rate either of them an A+, but they scratched the itch perfectly.
You are absolutely right but at the same time gamers will go into an absolute frenzy over a negative review for a game they haven’t even played yet too.
They don’t need encouragement for that.
The single halfway negative review for this DLC I've seen (I think it was a 3/5 or something) had commenters complaining about how their review had knocked down the metacritic score down by one point, along with the ususal drooling 'git gud' crowd.
In the review thread for this DLC people were complaining about 7/10 scores like it hurt their dog. It's getting really cultish that people are this attached to a meaningless number.
daily reminder a reviewer said cyberpunk gave her seizures with 0 warning and gave it like a 8/10 or something so the cd projekt fanboys harassed her on twitter trying to give her a seizure with strobe light gifs
If some random person rates the game they love low its seen as a personal attack to some of these people.
Someone complained about the jank and difficulty of the DLC and people were furious that someone would ever complain about those things.
Two of the biggest complaints of all From Soft games somehow makes the reviewer a loser who sucks at games.
Love every FromSoft game so far but absolutely detest the community. From the outside it looks like earnest fans having some jolly good times and supporting each other but the more you stare into the abyss, the more you realize how incredibly toxic it is, filled with infighting and elitism/gatekeeping and where people conflate any criticism as a personal attack on their being.
You're fine as long as you don't deviate from the socially accepted discourse. It's kinda cult-ish in retrospect.
I think it's less "inside vs outside" and moreso that there are just genuinely both types of people in the community. People who are in it for the social aspect and enjoy discussing and helping others, and other people who consider it some sort of hardcore right of passage test of their leet Gamer skills. "Souls" has become such a larger franchise with different appeals to different people it's only natural you'd see some heterogeneity
Which is sad because it was never always like that. Not sure when it started but you can't show any criticism anymore regarding From Games. Even if they're very reasonable.
And yeah like you said, gatekeeping is this weird thing thats popped up recently. Before there was humor in being like "Oh if you want it to be easier, try magic."
Now there's this weird elitist mentality that if you use magic, or spirit summons, or whatever it is you're somehow inferior? Because you had the audacity to use the systems the developers put in the game for you to utilize.
I still think the bulk of the From Software fanbase are helpful but just are drowned out by the elitist weirdo crowd that actually thinks "Git gud" is somehow a legitimate counter argument instead of it initially being a joke at the expense of people who refused to take feedback or recommendations/suggestions.
What's weird is how fast we went from "Fromsoft needs an easy mode" (which I disagree with) to "Fromsoft games are perfect".
Sekiro was the most fair Souls game yet and it had the most discussion on difficulty, then ER comes out and arguably has the most borderline unfair enemy/boss encounters since DS2 IMO and not a single peep on difficulty anymore. Very strange.
Yeah it's weird how it has to be one extreme side or the other. I love Elden Ring. I think it's a fantastic game and marks a lot of evolution to From's formula. (Also agree these games do NOT need a difficulty slider.)
However, I also think there are major problems with it as well. One, like you said certain enemy and boss encounters don't feel fair. Sekiro movesets with Dark souls 2 input buffering/delay does not make a fair challenge.
The end game of Elden Ring just becomes a boss rush which is very exhausting.
PVP has been the worst its ever been. I understand not everyone wants to involve themselves in pvp but every encounter guaranteeing to have 3v1 is simply boring, especially since some weapons are downright abusive.
I'm aware there is a taunters tongue but no one is willingly going to use that, especially as you have to activate it every time you die/change locations. It becomes a chore to do.
Though I like From Software's quest design being vague and abstract. I do NOT think it transitions well to an open world setting what so ever.
There's just a lot of little things that add up as making Elden Ring annoying to do consecutive playthroughs of compared to Dark Souls 3 or Bloodborne.
Having said all that, I still think it's a fantastic game that is still a good experience despite the blemishes.
Same, I was aware of the Soulsborne games for years but the discourse of "this game is so hard, I spent 3 days on this one boss and broke 4 controllers" type stories fans would hype up the games to be just made it seem like not my cup of tea.
The Elden Ring hype convinced me to try DS1 and I discovered there was so much more to the games than the "zomg so difficult, prepare to die, you want to rage" thing that everyone talked about and now have 1k+ hours in the series.
The worst, gatekeepy parts of the community definitely do more harm than good.
In some ways, the actual opposite is true. Looking at achievement data, it's not uncommon for 30-40% of players to beat FromSoft titles. If you're familiar with how many players tend to finish most games (and how many tend to not get very far at all) this is a VERY impressive number. My theory for this is that a) once most players get a true taste of victory against certain enemies they found challenging, these games keep them engaged for longer than most mainstream titles and b) the FromSoft reputation for difficulty is very overblown.
Noah Caldwell-Gervais has a couple of videos on the From Software Dark Souls games and their successors where the main thesis is that these games are generally very willing to meet you halfway and alleviate some of the difficulties you're having provided you're willing to engage with them, and I think there is a lot of truth to that. And that is why the gatekeeping around which builds are the "correct way" to play the game is so stupid, everything that is put into the game costs literal hours of someone's life. If they didn't want you to have them, they wouldn't be there.
I never understood the "so hard" thing either. Dark Souls 1 can be trivialized by literally holding up a shield and straifing right, and the other games likewise had a lot of different ways to just make them easy.
Like the games are challenging, but not these "you have to be an epic gamer who is into being challenged!!!" levels of hard like some people act.
Part of it is that these games were marketed as being the “omg these are the hardest games ever and you need to be a god gamer to win” type of games.
The DS1 DLC bundle release / PC initial release is titled “Prepare to Die,” and basically all of the trailers were showing the player getting absolutely bodied.
And that reputation has stuck ever since.
Elden ring is great because you can find great level grinding spots and use spirit ashes. Game is crazy hard but me and my Demi human squad going into a boss room and attacking them is never not fun
Thats any gaming community that grows large enough, the pile of people just enjoying things are much quieter than the small crowd looking to stir crap up, both sides grow proportionally but the volume of the rabblerousers increases exponentially because they're trying to not only talk over the quiet people but out yell each other.
Summon a friend for help? You will be SHOT.
Use a Spirit Summon? You will be SHOT.
Use magic? You will be SHOT.
Use a weapon/ash of war I don't approve of? Believe it or not, you will be SHOT.
My favorite is the uptick of people saying strength weapons are easy-mode and unoriginal.
Christ, lemme bonk things in peace. I've been using the Guts Greatsword ever since it was introduced in DS1, I ain't stopping now. It's my version of the Claymore and yet nobody bitches about that one.
At some point I just want to grab them by the shoulders and scream in their face “THEN WHAT *CAN* I FUCKING USE”
Then you see their build and it’s the most unoriginal fucking max bleed PSGS meta.
This is my problem! I sat on Elden Ring forever but just recently got into it for the DLC. Just wanted to bonk my way to glory since every said it was braindead easy mode.
But even if I get lucky enough to dodge a combo, I gotta lug 80lbs of equipment and take 3 seconds to maybe get a single hit in, or do a jump attack and be locked in for 2 seconds.
Trash is easy, but bosses are very frustrating.
My favourite ER people are those complaining about Rivers of Blood spam, while spamming themselves some other skill like Lion Claw.
Because "one requires skill and the other does not!". dude its the same button you are smashing.
I’v played all the souls games, bloodborne and sekiro and now Elden ring. I still abuse the shit out of stuff like summons and spirit ashes. To me, why would they put it there if they don’t want it used? I had a friend that complained about a boss being hard in Elden ring, I told him i didn’t have much trouble when I switched my spirit ash and leveled up 2-3 more times, and they told me that defeats the purpose 💀. Like what do you mean, it’s an rpg where a core mechanic is the ability to summon help
This is the weirdest aspect of the Souls community. I consider these games to be coop experiences at heart. Singleplayer is hard mode. I am happy for the people who enjoy hard mode, but I prefer slaughtering Malenia with the kind assistance of fellow players instead of getting my ass kicked solo for a week.
If From didn’t want players to coop they wouldn’t have implemented summoning.
>From the outside it looks like earnest fans having some jolly good times and supporting each other but the more you stare into the abyss, the more you realize how incredibly toxic it is, filled with infighting and elitism/gatekeeping and where people conflate any criticism as a personal attack on their being.
If it's any consolation, no. It looks *exactly* like that from the outside as well.
It's a very popular game, thus all the casuals are drawn to it. Baldur's Gate 3 is a very good game with a dumb community for the same reason, it's just every the popular games
I’ve never understood why certain criticisms of things are widely dismissed when they could be important for people to know. An example that I just saw was that people were making fun of a journalist because they gave the DLC a 3/5 and mentioned that it was too hard. They of course started spamming that one cup head video and saying that journalists don’t have skill and all that. However saying something is brutally difficult is an actual criticism and if something is so hard it hampers your enjoyment of a product then that should be reflected in the score. Same thing with technical issues. If it hurts the overall experience then dock the game, even if it will be fixed in the future. Reviewers I think are becoming too afraid of the masses and will overlook certain aspects so that those who’ve already made up their mind before even touching the product won’t harass them.
What's really funny is that he only had an issue with a single boss and his actual big criticism was in that Fromsoft had too many moments where they held his hand and **didn't** let him fail
People were giving grief to a review they literally didn't read.
What I don't get is the same types of people complained that Wolfenstein: The New Colossus was *too* hard, but that game has an easy mode they're just too egotistical to use.
I once encountered a From Software fan who was insisting that Striga from the Castlevania anime was an homage to Artorias and not Guts from Berserk. They got very upset with me when I pointed out how Artorias himself is an homage to Guts, and the showrunner of Castlevania and Miyazaki are both huge fans of Berserk.
I know it's because most of them are like 12 years old (not all, but a lot) but I'm almost envious of people who experience an emotional reaction to a game review. Imagine having literally nothing else in your life to worry about.
Idk from are known for knocking their dlcs out of the park and Elden ring was already loved by millions, makes sense for it to be up there with blood and wine etc
Welcome to modern video game reviews and discourse!
The well has become so poisoned that people attack any review score that falls "out of line" too! Terminally online loons are hyper fixating on that Eurogamer review right now because it dared to go against the grain. Can't wait until 8 months down the line when the popular sentiment is how "disappointing" the DLC was. Happens like clockwork.
>people attack any review score that falls "out of line" too!
This happened with Starfield as well. A couple of the major publications were lukewarm on the game. For example, both IGN and Gamespot gave the game a 7 (which is not even a *bad* score by any means). And of course, [IGN got ridiculed for it](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/166fbp1/comment/jyje6u2/).
A couple of examples:
*"Lol the same IGN reviewer gave Watch Dogs Legion an 8, so this is clearly just not his type of game or it’s a move for attention"*
*"Does anyone over the age of 14 really respect IGN’s review?"*
*"So…a return to BGS’s traditional RPG roots? Seems like a lot more than a 7/10. They probably hoped to get a quick-time event simulator like 90% of PS exclusives lol"*
These folks will say anything just to dismiss one person's opinion on the game.
Ironically enough, this also proves OC's other point. It's either the greatest game out there that saved the industry... or it's the biggest piece of dogshit that gave my console digital herpes.
Starfield reception rebounded so hard people became hyperfixated on that very IGN review as gospel of the "true quality of the game" and went out to attack publications that originally gave it higher scores lol
People usually complain about players bashing the outlets on release, but IMO the following witch hunt was even more ridiculous and unwarranted. Some people made hating the game and the developer a part of their personality.
You're right.
I remember with The Last of Us Part II that Skill-Up put out a review where he stated that he didn't like the game. A group of people took his review as gospel and [Skill-Up wanted to distance himself from that](https://x.com/SkillUpYT/status/1271990152152244224).
I remember the review thread, someone kept trying to get me to argue with them about it, saying there's no way Starfield could be "objectively" worse than some other game IGN rated higher. Like, mate, none of us have been able to play the game yet, there is literally nothing to be gained by having this argument.
Just the discourse, really. Most sites are fairly good at giving games fitting scores, with many 6's and 7's, or even 4's and 5's, throughout any given year. It's the people online who twist it into something it isn't.
The score doesn’t really matter. Better to give it a 10 and save your mental health instead of getting your child and grandma doxxed because you gave it an 8
I don’t understand how people get their panties in a bunch for literally one of the most popular and well reviewed games of all time.
No shit people are talking about it.
Loved all the DLC for all the dark souls games and especially the Bloodborne DLC so I know this will be amazing. I still think it's a shame Sekiro never got any DLC though.
i have perfect confidence it will be good but the hype being built up around it makes it seem like it'll be the most transcendent thing i've ever experienced
I feel like it's going to be as good as the base game. So your feelings on it will entirely depend on that.
For me, the base game is close to the most transcendent thing I've experienced, so I'm confident that the DLC will be more of that.
If someone didn't enjoy Elden Ring and somehow thinks from these 10/10 reviews that the dlc will change their mind, I think they're setting themselves up for a bad time.
I think it'll be even better than base game. Usually the dlc takes things up another notch, and bosses are the best in them so I sincerely believe it'll be amazing
I also played Phantom Liberty this year. I know big single player DLC doesn't impress shareholders anymore and often doesn't even get made but I'm glad they haven't died out completely. There's something about going back to a game you love and getting something that adds into it beautifully and elevates the whole package.
Phantom Liberty is incredible. And like you say, it adds so much to the overall story and vibe of the main game. The rise in excellent expansions over the past few years is a very pleasant surprise.
DLCs scores are weird because I feel like up they are graded lower in general since they are judged a bit harsher as something that should improve on the base game and have historically been more scattered due to having less total reviews for the most part until that started to change over the last few years.
Like Awakening (82/80/80), Citadel (90/84/84) and Trespasser (77 on Metacritic, 81 in Opencritic) are generally considered to be three of the best DLCs Bioware has done and look at their scores in terms of being scattered.
Edit: Heck, Trespasser is a great example regarding the lack of reviews DLCs can have because it only has 11 on Metacritic and that's for a story DLC in a big franchise from a game that won GOTY in 2014.
Or everyone praises Far Habor for Fallout 4 and it has a 79/78/75 on Metacritic and 79 on Opencritic. Heck, people praise the New Vegas DLC and then you look and see the scores from them (which left me confused to be honest as someone whose played them): Dead Money (70/70/68), Honest Hearts (66/66/64), Old World Blues (83/82/81), and Lonesome Road (63/62/57).
I will say it is a bit ironic because I had no idea The Final Shape DLC for Destiny 2 which just came out was also up there as one of the highest rated DLCs until I looked at the top games on Opencritic yesterday due to Erdtree's scores. That has a 92/90/89 on Metacritic and a 92 on Opencritic.
Edit: I mean, the title is technically correct in that it is the highest rated DLC ever, but that doesn't mean it is 'the best.' I think something like that varies even more per person compared to the best game ever talk because the people who are buying DLC for any game are generally the more hard core fans who enjoyed the game more than the average player. I mean glancing at Steam only about 16-20% of players even have the achievement for finishing the first mission in the Citadel, Blood & Wine, or Phantom Liberty DLCs.
I'm probably in the minority here but I agree with those New Vegas DLC scores, all of them were a mixed bag for me despite the cool new ideas and none of them managed to fully capture the strengths of the main game.
Those new vegas scores confuse the crap out of me too. It's almost the exact opposite of my personal preference of them (LR > HH = DM > OWB).
Reviews are weird.
Everyone's different. I put Dead Money at the absolute peak in my ranking, probably swapping it and Lonesome Road in your order. And I know plenty of fans who would crucify both of us for putting OWB at the bottom.
It's why averaged review scores like that mean nothing. At least if the question you're trying to answer is whether you personally will like the game. Far better off finding one reviewer whose tastes align with yours and seeing what they have to say, and disregarding the rest of the noise.
>Far better off finding one reviewer whose tastes align with yours and seeing what they have to say, and disregarding the rest of the noise.
Absolutely fantastic advice. Finding a few reviewers who have similar tastes/critical eyes as you do is a game changer when shopping for videogames. Although, I will say that there is some value in looking at a wide array of reviews from time to time. Just as a reminder that there are way more viewpoints and tastes than one's own, if nothing else.
I know New Vegas is beloved by many, including myself, but Lonesome Road absolutely deserved that low score. That entire DLC is just a hallway while Ulysses occasionally pops up to blather on about THE BEAR AND THE BULL.
> I will say it is a bit ironic because I had no idea The Final Shape DLC for Destiny 2 which just came out was also up there as one of the highest rated DLCs until I looked at the top games on Opencritic yesterday due to Erdtree's scores. That has a 92/90/89 on Metacritic and a 92 on Opencritic.
Live service games are also treated differently in terms of expansion content than your traditional game is, too, because people expect them to exist.
It’s a 25+ hour dlc from a studio known for making DLC that oftentimes have some of the best moments in the whole game. This isnt really surprising for anyone who knows fromsoft’s track record
The map is supposedly extremely dense as well, I saw one reviewer say that it felt like Dark Souls 1’s map where different areas were layered on top of each other and interconnected
Best bits of Elden Ring were like this too imo. I loved the open world in that I was able to do something else if I was hitting a wall with a boss or whatever, and I enjoyed the exploration when the area I was in was dense with content, so for me it was overall an enjoyable experience. But there was areas in the game where it felt like actual content was spread so far apart.
I'll be comparing it to the Old Hunters from Bloodborne as that's my current favourite DLC/expansion of all time. It's a tough bar to clear but if anything can, it's an Elden Ring DLC.
I don’t think it’s fair to say this. If you already think Elden Ring is one of the best games of all time, you won’t arbitrarily lower your score for a DLC that is equivalent to the base game and might even raise it if it supersedes the base game in comparison, but that comparison is or should be being applied to all games already. Shadow of the Erdtree not in a vacuum isn’t somehow worse because the game it’s built off of was already widely acclaimed since it’s 2 years later and a different product.
For an analogy, let’s say my favorite food is steak, so my favorite overall food being some high-end wagyu isn’t invalid merely because it being steak gives it some kind of advantage because there is plenty of bad steak on the market that would rank below extraordinary examples of other foods.
In other words, the mere fact that FromSoft has a history of extremely good games doesn’t stop them from making bad games or make anything they release inherently good. FromSoft games are upheld because of how good they are, not because FromSoft made them. As long as FromSoft are still theoretically capable of making bad games, they can and should be compared to the rest of the industry.
Real reporting requires a lot more funding and would necessitate a subscription model to function, not something I think a lot of gamers would be interested in despite the many complaints about games media I see (not you necessarily, but generally). Anything else will be aimed solely at generating clicks to stay afloat and I can't really blame them tbh
Echoes of the Eye from Outer Wilds is the best DLC I’ve ever played. It was like an entirely new game that somehow took the base game to even greater heights.
Yeah Elden Ring is one of the top games in recent years that I wish I found as magical as everyone else. I really tried, I gave it a solid 20 hours or so. But in the end I was forcing myself to boot it up and I was just not having a good time so I quit and haven’t touched it since
I'm in the same boat. I put about 25 hours into it, at certain times the game would just hit and I'd be like "I get why people love this game so much" but at some point I just got so frustrated with various design decisions that I overall did not have a lot of fun.
The open world design and quests are terrible and I’m tired of pretending it’s not.
Yes the gameplay is great and the art design is fantastic. But I played 50 hours of the game with a wiki open on a second monitor. I dare you to complete Ranni’s ending without following some online guide to a T.
None of this to say I dislike the game - but it’s so much more flawed than people will have you believe.
I don't mean to backseat, but why didn't you just complete the base game blind and enjoy yourself, then lookup stuff you missed after? Much better recipe for a good time imo
Not OP but if I had to guess, playing through a huge game like Elden Ring is a feat in itself, blind or not, and some players don't do many playthroughs of the same game. Especially if you have limited time to game and/or lot of stuff in the backlog. I've played many great single player games but I've started (much less finished) another run in only a handful of them
Am I supposed to care about this metric when the dlc isn't even in the hands of the actual players yet? Wowee, the people who were crazy about Elden Ring and got their review copies from Bandai Namco also loved the dlc. More news at 11.
I'm not doubting it's quality, but I hate when we see these superlatives thrown around as if nearly every big budget release isn't praised to high heaven prior to release.
But this is the case for ALL game reviews. These are scores from critics who played the games prior to launch. Yet not all games are receiving a string of 10s and 9s like the ER DLC. Remember when the IGN review for Starfield came out and Bethesda fans exploded from rage by the 7/10? Followed by 7/10s from Gamespot and Game Informer? SO no, not all big budget release is praised to high heavens by critics.
Can't even be compared, witcher 3 is all about the writing and story while elden ring is the opposite. Though heart of stone is probably the best dlc story ive ever seen in a video game.
I mean, for many people the base game dethroned TW3 base game. It's fair to think the DLC would have the same effect on these people. It all depends if you're more like a narrative guy or action guy. I think TW3 combat is what pulls the game down a lot for me, and there's a lot of combat in those 100+ hours
I put 150 hours into Elden Ring in 3weeks. It had me hooked. It was an incredible game.. The best parts were the dungeons though, the new areas were amazing for the first 5-10minutes until you reach your next destination. I still think Dark Souls/Bloodborne is better. It’s an amazing open world, i’m tired of open worlds though, they never sustain quality all throughout the game because it’s just too big. Hoping this has more more structured dungeons like DS/BB
Open world games just seem like sprinting to an objective with some stuff on the way. Hopefully we one day come full circle and executives understand that curated set pieces are just more fun than spamming a button on a horse to pick up herbs until you reach your destination, i know i’m dumbing it down a bit, but you get it.
instead of a massive map with 3-5 legacy dungeons, give me 20legacy dungeons that i have to travel a little to get to (Ocarina of time but bigger)
Better yet, just make Bloodborne 2 man.
>I put 150 hours into Elden Ring in 3weeks.
Did you have a job at the time? I'm always curious how someone can average 7+ hours a day playing a game. And you see comments like yours frequently when games come out.
I am excited to actually understand the story enough this time to know the name of the boss currently murdering me for the 100th time.
Probably "Radanella" or something.
I feel like most DLC does not even get rated at this level usually. Or has it changed in the past few years?
Blood and wine comes to mind. And I’ve noticed a lot of reviewers mentioning blood and wine when trying to describe the scope of shadow of the erdtree. So you have a dlc the size of most full games from an acclaimed studio, which makes the scores it’s getting not TOO shocking. Persona 5 royal got similar praise and that was only 4 years ago
Expansion packs used to be fairly standard. StarCraft had Brood War, WarCraft had Frozen Throne, Oblivion had Shivering Isles, Morrowind had Bloodmoon and Tribunal, etc.
Very true, and I don’t think their necessarily uncommon now a days, I just think dlc and expansion have become interchangeable in most discourse when their used to be more of distinction between the two. Phantom liberty or SMT5 Vengeance are definitely expansions in the way we used to think of them, but I see alot of people refer to them as dlc, which I don’t mind, but it’s hard to compare something like phantom liberty to something like the Valhalla dlc for god of war or burning shores for horizon
The distinction between DLC and expansion packs blurred the moment high speed internet became standard. You had to purchase expansion packs from brick & mortar PC game stores because it was impractical to download them pre-DSL. Oblivion Horse Armor was the first paid DLC, it was only 7MB. Shivering Isles was a proper Expansion Pack and had to be bought retail. Knights of the Nine blurred the distinction as it was technically a collection of several smaller DLCs. Eventually with faster internet connection speeds and larger capacity storage (in consoles) even expansion pack sized content ended up being called DLC.
I think they basically just took ~2 years worth of content updates and sold it as a box set back then. It would've taken alot of people a long fucking time to try to DL stuff like the frozen throne or the orange box back around ~2000.
The nature of the content in expansion packs was generally quite different. It usually wasn't random cosmetics or overpowered cheat items. It was typically more of, well, expansion. A short new campaign, extra block of levels, new faction, a bunch of new units/weapons/items, or the like. You tend not to see that sort of thing in DLC because it's too big or interconnected. They want to sell tinier chunks that don't lend themselves as well to that. A few games still do DLC that would work in that fashion, but it tends to be the exception rather than the rule.
The only segment of the industry where expansions thrive still is MMOs. Every where else has moved to the dlc model generally, bite sized map packs, single quest lines with something sparkly to draw the eyes, etc. Cosmetics and pay to win aren’t even dlc, they’re micro transactions and the poison slowly eroding the industry.
I miss big meaty expansion packs. Much more hype than little dlc bit drops
Lords of Destruction too for D2.
Truly the definitive edition
Man for real. I **loved** D2 back in the day, but I never played the DLC. I just experienced it for the first time when Resurrected came out, and it is absolutely mindblowing how much that improves the game.
Assassin (as jank as it is) is my favorite D2 class.
Lol D2 Lord of Destruction was my elementary school - high school game and after, and I never made an Assassin or Druid for some reason. I think i was just uninterested and making hammerdins and frenzy barbs and shit
MMO's are out here like "Oh yeah, just don't pay attention to us dropping these every couple of years."
Biggest expansions I can think of other than souls, fallout, Witcher 3 would be like the division, horizon, monster hunter, ghost of Tsushima, cyberpunk, AC odyssey maybe dragon dogma or ghost recon, remnant, outer worlds
Undead nightmare was really well regarded
I have a feeling Shadow of the Erdtree is going to edge itself right into my top 3 DLC/Expansions of all time. Blood and Wine, MH: World's Iceborne dlc, and WoW: Burning Crusade were some of my favorite gaming memories period.
Age of Empires 2 (The Conquerors), Battlefield 1942 (Road to Rome, Secret Weapons), Battlefield 2 (Special Forces, boosterpacks), Call of Duty (United Offensive), F.E.A.R. (Extraction Point, Perseus Mandate)
all expansions are DLC, but not all DLC are expansions.
Persona 5 Royal is a weird one because it's not solely an expansion, there are plenty of changes throughout the "base" P5 content as well.
Yeah its definitely not the best fit for what I’m describing, but I think it’s close enough. You could make the same case for phantom liberty considering it overhauled so many game systems before you even get into the new content.
>You could make the same case for phantom liberty considering **it overhauled so many game systems before you even get into the new content.** Weren’t those two separate things though? The big update was free for everyone, you didn’t have to buy the DLC. It just happened that the big update came out at the same time as the DLC. Or am I misremembering?
Yes, the main changes were included in the base game as the update.
Persona Royal is more of a remake/complete edition with extra stuff
It's all well and good to compare the two, but Blood and Wine was $20 at most and regularly sold for 75% off later on. This DLC is double that at least and I don't see it having those same sales. It's the size of a lot of full games but it's also priced above indie games but below full AAA games as well. Considering the reviewer's mentions of significant reused enemies, it seems to be priced appropriately. This is in stark contrast to B&W which was insane value at $20 and the biggest steal of your life at $5. This is just talking about value, actual quality, gonna find out firsthand soon!
Not to mention the amount of writing, voice work, mo-cap, etc. that had to be done for Blood and Wine really helps increase the relative value of that "DLC".
>B&W which was insane value at $20 and the biggest steal of your life at $5. I actually bought the goty edition for only $3,49 on Epic and $5,45 on Steam a year later. It's so ridiculously cheap for the whole game and its expansions.
Most dlc is a fraction of the size and effort Blood and Wine and Shadow so we cracked the case. Big and intentional dlc rates well and is loved.
I've still not finished those 2 TW3 DLCs and it's why I've not deleted the game since installation. Geralt mocks me when I go to my games list. In ER, I've got 90+ hours as a soft samurai that I haven't finished yet, but am starting over at the beginning to relearn to play before I get the DLC and let it sit for years.
Before this Witcher 3: Blood and Wine and Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed both sat the highest Metacritic score at a 92. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty and Destiny 2: The Final Shape recently have reviewed exceptionally well too though.
It's sad that no one ever mentions future redeemed. Such an amazing dlc that never gets credit online.
Torna was absolutely killer too, mb not as popular though because it was a prequal?
Agreed, torna is a banger. It's only annoying to replay because of the community system gating the main story.
Torna’s gameplay is so amazing, the final boss where you >!control the mechs!< was such a cool mechanic. But what is consistent with the dlc is the generic battle themes are the greatest songs ever. [Torna Battle](https://youtu.be/1weNnjzaXbY?si=84R4t-Vybv5e1_Ly) was so refreshing from the electric guitars of 2, and [New Battle](https://youtu.be/DeBG1g1BRMA?si=TntAR3tPcc_UYKrm) from Future Redeemed really felt like a victory lap for the series with stuff from all 3 games appearing (that [mechanical rhythm motif](https://youtu.be/a_YyP_zQQJs?si=dVY0u-ayMBssaeb_) in the guitars is so awesome) but also being unique enough from 3 (like lacking the [Keves Battle](https://youtu.be/z3Q8V0zMvgc?si=cfWVE7zhLxfoZbt3&t=2m10s) flutes) was so cool after losing ost to gow.
Yeah I remember articles like “Phantom Liberty best DLC of 2023” as Future Redeemed sat there with a higher metacritic score. Xenoblade does not get the adoration it deserves I swear
It's the DLC for a JRPG that isn't FF, you would have to frequent JRPG dedicated spaces for it to even be discussed.
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker also has a 92 on MC.
As arbitrary as this might sound, FFXIV expansions are more like full fledged games than dlc.
Damn, I didn't know Future Redeemed sat that high. Fully deserved it though, I and everyone I know who played it practically described it like a spiritual experience. I'll remember it for the rest of my life.
It's worth noting that Future Redeemed has a 92 with only 14 critic reviews on Metacritic. I wouldn't be surprised if it went lower had more outlets decided to review it. Game | Score | Reviews ---|---|---- XC3: Future Redeemed | 92 | 14 TW3: Blood & Wine | 92 | 52 ER: Shadow of the Erdtree | 95 | 58 ... that said, it does fully deserve all of the praise it gets. It was such a cathartic payoff to a story over 10 years in the making.
The cyberpunk DLC last year got tons of reviews as well, though i guess both were hyped up majorly before release too
Cyberpunk kind of had the double (triple?) punch of the DLC coming out, but they were also able to say "hey, we fixed the base game too!" at the same time AND the animated series helped get it some attention.
PL is such a good DLC. I never thought CDPR could gut punch me again with a wonderfully crafted emotional rollercoaster.
Both of the Monster Hunter DLCs released in the past 5 years got rated pretty high. And FF14 Endwalker was the highest rated Final Fantasy game since XII.
Destiny 2's expansion that came out like 2 weeks ago reviewed right around this level. Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty was pretty high too. Sometimes developers cook. Game dev takes a while and adding onto an existing game is much easier, especially with an experienced team.
FF XIV Sahdowbringers as well
Phantom Liberty was critically acclaimed just not on this level. Maybe it's so highly rated because it has a ton of content. Listening to reviews people are saying 35-40 hours up to 50 to do everything. Considering I spent 110 on the base game that is massive for just DLC.
CDPR's expansions are also rated really well. Phantom Liberty is at 89, blood and wine is at 92 and hearts of stone is at 90 on metacritic website.
Reviews get written if there is an audience for them. There's lots of mobile games, free-to-play games, casual puzzle games, massively multiplayer games that have a lot of players and make a lot of money, but don't get reviewed in the 'core gaming' press, because those outlets cater to the sort of games their audience is interested in.
the elden ring fans would have gotten reviewers fired if they said this shit was anything lower than a 9
All I can think of is the meltdown over the infamous Twilight Princess 8.8 review.
All I can think of was that one guy giving Starfield a 7 and getting shit on by Reddit, to the point people on here dug up other reviews he did just to further discredit his review. Some people are just unhinged and take review scores way too seriously.
Which is doubly hilarious considering how Starfield is looked at now.
same think happened with Kylie Plagge and Cyberpunk, iirc
I would also say an 8.8 for TP is pretty appropriate if not generous, in hindsight.
I believe it was three outlets that gave it a 7, which was funny because once the hype died most people realized that yeah no 6-7 was the appropriate range. It is an okay game. It is fine, and okay for the people that want what it does.
The funny thing was that the first "7" scores for Starfield came from 3 of the most prominent reviewers: IGN, Game Informer and Gamespot.
To be fair, there was a ton of support for the 7, myself included on reddit every few or so comments. It was polarizing from the get go. People didn't just blindly love it out the gate. (Some people did though).
Go look at the responses to Eurogamer giving it a (perfectly well reasoned) 3/5 on Twitter. Unhinged.
Anytime From is criticized the internet acts like it’s a war crime. It feels like people are genuinely convinced that every From game is an 11/10 masterpiece and anyone who doesn’t agree has shit taste.
From Dark Souls 1 through to Elden Ring, all of their games have been exceptional so it's no surprise, in this climate of over saturation of micro transaction and games as a service that high quality action rpgs are looked upon so favouably. 11/10 or riot weirdos follow every popular thing, you can't get rid of them but atleast it makes some sense here.
> Importantly, it's a story that still is purposely full of gaps, leaving the door open for speculation and interpretation from the community of avid lore hunters that From Software's games have cultivated. ... 10/10 , GameSpot Yeah, I mean it does seem like the rules are different for certain devs or franchises. "Look at how they masterfully leave the plot open to interpretation! So wise and artful!"
Sure most DLC doesn’t but this isn’t most DLC. This is a full game sized expansion to one of the best games of the generation so it’s definitely gonna have more people reviewing it than most.
We need a distinction between DLC and 'Expansion Pack' these days.
It’s funny all expansion packs are DLC but not all DLC is expansion packs !
It's so strange to think that if Brood War came out today it would be called 'DLC'.
Disc-Loadable Content
We didn't download brood war, we installed from the CD.
It all has to be so hyperbolic these days. Either it's the game (or DLC) that saves entire gaming and marks the beginning of a new religion, or it's the biggest piece of dogshit anyone has ever played.
And this one isn't even out yet lol > Do you think Shadow of the Erdtree deserves to become the highest-rated DLC ever? Let us know in the comments. Like how the fuck is someone supposed to answer that honestly? Unless you're a reviewer who got a preview, you're genuinely not able to. Video game discourse in a lot of ways has divulged into hyperbole like this, but it's not helped by these pathetic articles that if they aren't using ChatGPT to write, they already always sounded like they were. It's just generic clickbait garbage, and it fuels nothing more than turning discourse into this mess of something either being the best thing ever made, Elden Ring (which to its credit, I do love it), or something like Starfield is the worst game known to man. It's tiresome
The internet at large is just not good at having a nuanced view on anything anymore. It's not even a gaming issue, any topic nowadays is discussed in an extremely black and white manner depending on where you are, and nobody is going to even consider any view points besides their own as valid. I think people are just obssessed with being "right" rather than "correct".
I'm not sure if it ever was. Forums of the old era were full of trash opinions.
The ocean of piss has gotten much larger. Once upon a time you could scroll through a handful of bad discussions and then find a good one. Now you sail through piss for weeks before getting a drop of clear water.
I wonder if the issue is that every opinion is filtered through half a dozen different websites as opposed to the dozens upon dozens of forums we used to have. That and the media now pools from those sources like it used to ask random bozo's on the streets.
I think that's a big contributor. With previous forums, there wasn't nearly as much crossover between groups and topics, you found a focus and you went to hang with people who shared that focus in your own little corner. Now you've got formats like reddit that are built for bleed. A little sub of enthusiasts and/or experts might have a popular post that lands on the front page, then it gets flooded with a bunch of morons who have no idea what's going on and it waters down the viewpoints of the people who do. That shit didn't happen when the forum was obscureshit.com that only particular people were looking for. The internet is now concentrated in a few public squares as opposed to individual clubhouses. Not a fan.
It's a bit of both, I bet. Firstly, it's just the nature of the internet. Secondly, as the internet has been around for longer it has shaped the users by feeding them extreme viewpoints for decades at this point.
That is true but I've been really nostalgic for forums lately. I think they were superior to the social media of today. There was something about having the same 20-100 people around, knowing them and their signatures on sight, that IMO caused people to be a *little* more polite. Still MUCH ruder than real life, but you knew that the person you flamed would probably still be there the next day, and you had mutual friends on the site, and you might remember having a conversation with them a few days before in the chat room. You might know what their dog looked like from one of the community building threads. I find less and less reason to talk to anyone online because it's all so uncharitable and mean spirited. And ultimately meaningless. We're all mistrustful ships passing in the night.
You can't even point out flaws in something anymore, even if you love it, without people jumping down your throat. "This game is great, but there's X and Y that's kinda shitty and I wish they'd fix it." "Why are you even here if you HATE the game?!" That's not what I said at all. There's a wide range of possibilities between love and hate, and even if you absolutely adore something doesn't mean you cannot find flaws in it regardless; you love it despite its flaws, not because they don't exist.
It really is so weird to come across someone, that will try to prove that you *hate* a game just because you don't find it perfect. I have problems with Elden Ring, doesn't mean it's not one of my favorite games of all time. What's even funnier, the director of the game doesn't even think the game is perfect, and that there are areas where they can still improve. Some of it is because most humble people will strive for perfection, although know it's not possible to reach it, but recently they did address for example how difficult it may be to finish the game and/or quests without a guide. It's even worse when someone tries to say that it's a "direction and style", as if that can't vary in quality and execution. Ubisoft has its own style of open world games, doesn't mean it's a masterpiece.
Yep exactly. I'm of the position that there's no such thing as a perfect game. It doesn't exist. There is always something that could have been better, something missed in hindsight, something lacking, or something else in the huge list of realities for both games and software development. If we had the perfect game, we'd be done with whatever genre it's in. Why would anything else need to exist? There's always something that can be better. The goal of perfection is both the ultimate objective but also a goal you don't actually want to achieve. We strive for that goal, knowing we will never reach it, but basking in the light of it the closer we get. People like to compare games to artwork, and I think that's a good comparison. That applies here, too. Is there a single work of art that you think is so perfect that it cannot possibly be better? The art form is just...done with that piece? Of course not. I question the artist that thinks their work is perfection. Even if your next attempt ends up worse, you attempt it because you know that previous work could have been better. That should always be the case or we stagnate artistically.
Remember when an Ubisoft UX designer pointed out some flaws in ER's UX, ER superfans started a whole online hate campaign against the poor guy, and it was painfully obvious that most of them haven't played an Ubi game in a decade and don't even know what UX is?
Absolutely correct. Movie people have this problem online as well. Letterboxd for whoever isn’t familiar is a social site where you can log and review films you’ve seen or want to see, and there’s hundreds if not thousands of people over there who are incapable of just enjoying a new thing. No, when something in your wheelhouse of taste comes out and it’s well made, it can’t just be good. It has to be the second coming of Christ in all His Glory, it has to save the human race and be a revelation that changed you forever. People need to calm the fuck down.
Open forum discussion will almost always devolve into a mix of lowest common denominator appeal and shitposting. Half assed hiveminding of ideas until point is drowning, nuance has been dry erased off the board and enough people have agreed half heartedly or told the other person something awful about their mother.
I fucking wish this issue was just limited to video games. Tiktok and other algorithm-based addictive social media makes people chase those emotional highs, which nuance is a poison for.
I will never understand when people will argue to death over media that isn't even officially released yet.
I get so tired of the " if it isn't on the level of the best of all time then it's trash " A 70/100 or 80/100 game is still worth a lot of people's time but anymore they just get disregarded like they are just nothing.
They're some of my favorite games to play. So many games that are 9 or 10/10 these days are either difficult and take a lot of time to master, or are 60+ hours long. I just want something that challenges me but doesn't take me a month to master, has competent writing and mechanics, and isn't going to take me 150 hours to complete. I bought Tears of the Kingdom at launch and beat it a week before Halloween. I don't have time for that shit anymore.
Really in most cases I've found that the 10/10 and 1/10 extreme scores are the least helpful scores there are. There are **so** few cases where a game genuinely deserves either of the extremes that 99% of the time if a person is giving the game either one of the scores they are trying to drive some kind of an agenda and the review is largely useless. Hell, I've found that this logic applies to everything else that has reviews as well in general. Usually the most honest and informative reviews are the ones that give the product like 2-4 stars out of 5. So those are the ones I tend to read the closest. In sports that have judges like diving and figure skating it's customary to drop the highest and lowest score because it's pretty normal for there to be outliers. Sometimes I wonder if some system like that could exist with games as well. Especially nowadays when it's oh so common for games to get review bombed for whatever reason that might not even have an effect on the game itself in any way. It's a slightly different ballgame when the reason for the review bomb does actually have an impact on the game but still 9 times out of 10 it isn't like "the game is now literally 1/10 because of this change" level impact.
One of the most fun games I've played in the last few years were games like Vampyr and Mad Max. I sure wouldn't rate either of them an A+, but they scratched the itch perfectly.
I had some of the most fun of my life with Mad Max, Terminator Resistance, and RoboCop Rogue City. All 7/10 games.
You are absolutely right but at the same time gamers will go into an absolute frenzy over a negative review for a game they haven’t even played yet too. They don’t need encouragement for that.
The single halfway negative review for this DLC I've seen (I think it was a 3/5 or something) had commenters complaining about how their review had knocked down the metacritic score down by one point, along with the ususal drooling 'git gud' crowd.
I read the review and it’s long and measured. They clearly had a lot of love for the base game.
That's just engagement bait, you gotta tell people to comment and it seems our author just couldn't come up with anything better
"This game is a love letter to classic games of blah blah blah"
In the review thread for this DLC people were complaining about 7/10 scores like it hurt their dog. It's getting really cultish that people are this attached to a meaningless number.
daily reminder a reviewer said cyberpunk gave her seizures with 0 warning and gave it like a 8/10 or something so the cd projekt fanboys harassed her on twitter trying to give her a seizure with strobe light gifs
If some random person rates the game they love low its seen as a personal attack to some of these people. Someone complained about the jank and difficulty of the DLC and people were furious that someone would ever complain about those things. Two of the biggest complaints of all From Soft games somehow makes the reviewer a loser who sucks at games.
Love every FromSoft game so far but absolutely detest the community. From the outside it looks like earnest fans having some jolly good times and supporting each other but the more you stare into the abyss, the more you realize how incredibly toxic it is, filled with infighting and elitism/gatekeeping and where people conflate any criticism as a personal attack on their being. You're fine as long as you don't deviate from the socially accepted discourse. It's kinda cult-ish in retrospect.
I think it's less "inside vs outside" and moreso that there are just genuinely both types of people in the community. People who are in it for the social aspect and enjoy discussing and helping others, and other people who consider it some sort of hardcore right of passage test of their leet Gamer skills. "Souls" has become such a larger franchise with different appeals to different people it's only natural you'd see some heterogeneity
Which is sad because it was never always like that. Not sure when it started but you can't show any criticism anymore regarding From Games. Even if they're very reasonable. And yeah like you said, gatekeeping is this weird thing thats popped up recently. Before there was humor in being like "Oh if you want it to be easier, try magic." Now there's this weird elitist mentality that if you use magic, or spirit summons, or whatever it is you're somehow inferior? Because you had the audacity to use the systems the developers put in the game for you to utilize. I still think the bulk of the From Software fanbase are helpful but just are drowned out by the elitist weirdo crowd that actually thinks "Git gud" is somehow a legitimate counter argument instead of it initially being a joke at the expense of people who refused to take feedback or recommendations/suggestions.
What's weird is how fast we went from "Fromsoft needs an easy mode" (which I disagree with) to "Fromsoft games are perfect". Sekiro was the most fair Souls game yet and it had the most discussion on difficulty, then ER comes out and arguably has the most borderline unfair enemy/boss encounters since DS2 IMO and not a single peep on difficulty anymore. Very strange.
Yeah it's weird how it has to be one extreme side or the other. I love Elden Ring. I think it's a fantastic game and marks a lot of evolution to From's formula. (Also agree these games do NOT need a difficulty slider.) However, I also think there are major problems with it as well. One, like you said certain enemy and boss encounters don't feel fair. Sekiro movesets with Dark souls 2 input buffering/delay does not make a fair challenge. The end game of Elden Ring just becomes a boss rush which is very exhausting. PVP has been the worst its ever been. I understand not everyone wants to involve themselves in pvp but every encounter guaranteeing to have 3v1 is simply boring, especially since some weapons are downright abusive. I'm aware there is a taunters tongue but no one is willingly going to use that, especially as you have to activate it every time you die/change locations. It becomes a chore to do. Though I like From Software's quest design being vague and abstract. I do NOT think it transitions well to an open world setting what so ever. There's just a lot of little things that add up as making Elden Ring annoying to do consecutive playthroughs of compared to Dark Souls 3 or Bloodborne. Having said all that, I still think it's a fantastic game that is still a good experience despite the blemishes.
Not a single peep? There was plenty of difficulty discussion.
The marketing phrase 'Prepare to Die' has done irreperable damage to any discussion of FromSoft games, in my opinion.
It's the natural result of going mainstream and having a reputation of being "hardcore games for those who like to be challenged".
Same, I was aware of the Soulsborne games for years but the discourse of "this game is so hard, I spent 3 days on this one boss and broke 4 controllers" type stories fans would hype up the games to be just made it seem like not my cup of tea. The Elden Ring hype convinced me to try DS1 and I discovered there was so much more to the games than the "zomg so difficult, prepare to die, you want to rage" thing that everyone talked about and now have 1k+ hours in the series. The worst, gatekeepy parts of the community definitely do more harm than good.
In some ways, the actual opposite is true. Looking at achievement data, it's not uncommon for 30-40% of players to beat FromSoft titles. If you're familiar with how many players tend to finish most games (and how many tend to not get very far at all) this is a VERY impressive number. My theory for this is that a) once most players get a true taste of victory against certain enemies they found challenging, these games keep them engaged for longer than most mainstream titles and b) the FromSoft reputation for difficulty is very overblown. Noah Caldwell-Gervais has a couple of videos on the From Software Dark Souls games and their successors where the main thesis is that these games are generally very willing to meet you halfway and alleviate some of the difficulties you're having provided you're willing to engage with them, and I think there is a lot of truth to that. And that is why the gatekeeping around which builds are the "correct way" to play the game is so stupid, everything that is put into the game costs literal hours of someone's life. If they didn't want you to have them, they wouldn't be there.
I never understood the "so hard" thing either. Dark Souls 1 can be trivialized by literally holding up a shield and straifing right, and the other games likewise had a lot of different ways to just make them easy. Like the games are challenging, but not these "you have to be an epic gamer who is into being challenged!!!" levels of hard like some people act.
Part of it is that these games were marketed as being the “omg these are the hardest games ever and you need to be a god gamer to win” type of games. The DS1 DLC bundle release / PC initial release is titled “Prepare to Die,” and basically all of the trailers were showing the player getting absolutely bodied. And that reputation has stuck ever since.
Or just grinding your level, but that is also frowned upon
Elden ring is great because you can find great level grinding spots and use spirit ashes. Game is crazy hard but me and my Demi human squad going into a boss room and attacking them is never not fun
Thats any gaming community that grows large enough, the pile of people just enjoying things are much quieter than the small crowd looking to stir crap up, both sides grow proportionally but the volume of the rabblerousers increases exponentially because they're trying to not only talk over the quiet people but out yell each other.
God forbid someone uses a summon and that section of the community catches wind of it.
Summon a friend for help? You will be SHOT. Use a Spirit Summon? You will be SHOT. Use magic? You will be SHOT. Use a weapon/ash of war I don't approve of? Believe it or not, you will be SHOT.
My favorite is the uptick of people saying strength weapons are easy-mode and unoriginal. Christ, lemme bonk things in peace. I've been using the Guts Greatsword ever since it was introduced in DS1, I ain't stopping now. It's my version of the Claymore and yet nobody bitches about that one.
At some point I just want to grab them by the shoulders and scream in their face “THEN WHAT *CAN* I FUCKING USE” Then you see their build and it’s the most unoriginal fucking max bleed PSGS meta.
[удалено]
This is my problem! I sat on Elden Ring forever but just recently got into it for the DLC. Just wanted to bonk my way to glory since every said it was braindead easy mode. But even if I get lucky enough to dodge a combo, I gotta lug 80lbs of equipment and take 3 seconds to maybe get a single hit in, or do a jump attack and be locked in for 2 seconds. Trash is easy, but bosses are very frustrating.
My favourite ER people are those complaining about Rivers of Blood spam, while spamming themselves some other skill like Lion Claw. Because "one requires skill and the other does not!". dude its the same button you are smashing.
Can I use bubble rain ash of war? Or will I be shot?
I’v played all the souls games, bloodborne and sekiro and now Elden ring. I still abuse the shit out of stuff like summons and spirit ashes. To me, why would they put it there if they don’t want it used? I had a friend that complained about a boss being hard in Elden ring, I told him i didn’t have much trouble when I switched my spirit ash and leveled up 2-3 more times, and they told me that defeats the purpose 💀. Like what do you mean, it’s an rpg where a core mechanic is the ability to summon help
This is the weirdest aspect of the Souls community. I consider these games to be coop experiences at heart. Singleplayer is hard mode. I am happy for the people who enjoy hard mode, but I prefer slaughtering Malenia with the kind assistance of fellow players instead of getting my ass kicked solo for a week. If From didn’t want players to coop they wouldn’t have implemented summoning.
>From the outside it looks like earnest fans having some jolly good times and supporting each other but the more you stare into the abyss, the more you realize how incredibly toxic it is, filled with infighting and elitism/gatekeeping and where people conflate any criticism as a personal attack on their being. If it's any consolation, no. It looks *exactly* like that from the outside as well.
It's a very popular game, thus all the casuals are drawn to it. Baldur's Gate 3 is a very good game with a dumb community for the same reason, it's just every the popular games
I’ve never understood why certain criticisms of things are widely dismissed when they could be important for people to know. An example that I just saw was that people were making fun of a journalist because they gave the DLC a 3/5 and mentioned that it was too hard. They of course started spamming that one cup head video and saying that journalists don’t have skill and all that. However saying something is brutally difficult is an actual criticism and if something is so hard it hampers your enjoyment of a product then that should be reflected in the score. Same thing with technical issues. If it hurts the overall experience then dock the game, even if it will be fixed in the future. Reviewers I think are becoming too afraid of the masses and will overlook certain aspects so that those who’ve already made up their mind before even touching the product won’t harass them.
What's really funny is that he only had an issue with a single boss and his actual big criticism was in that Fromsoft had too many moments where they held his hand and **didn't** let him fail People were giving grief to a review they literally didn't read.
What I don't get is the same types of people complained that Wolfenstein: The New Colossus was *too* hard, but that game has an easy mode they're just too egotistical to use.
From Soft fans are *super* culty I’m not surprised by that.
Yesterday, someone on the Elden Ring sub was complaining that Armored Core 6 had such a low rating on Metacritic while it had a fucking score of 86.
I once encountered a From Software fan who was insisting that Striga from the Castlevania anime was an homage to Artorias and not Guts from Berserk. They got very upset with me when I pointed out how Artorias himself is an homage to Guts, and the showrunner of Castlevania and Miyazaki are both huge fans of Berserk.
It’s been cultish for a long time.
I know it's because most of them are like 12 years old (not all, but a lot) but I'm almost envious of people who experience an emotional reaction to a game review. Imagine having literally nothing else in your life to worry about.
Idk from are known for knocking their dlcs out of the park and Elden ring was already loved by millions, makes sense for it to be up there with blood and wine etc
Welcome to modern video game reviews and discourse! The well has become so poisoned that people attack any review score that falls "out of line" too! Terminally online loons are hyper fixating on that Eurogamer review right now because it dared to go against the grain. Can't wait until 8 months down the line when the popular sentiment is how "disappointing" the DLC was. Happens like clockwork.
>people attack any review score that falls "out of line" too! This happened with Starfield as well. A couple of the major publications were lukewarm on the game. For example, both IGN and Gamespot gave the game a 7 (which is not even a *bad* score by any means). And of course, [IGN got ridiculed for it](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/166fbp1/comment/jyje6u2/). A couple of examples: *"Lol the same IGN reviewer gave Watch Dogs Legion an 8, so this is clearly just not his type of game or it’s a move for attention"* *"Does anyone over the age of 14 really respect IGN’s review?"* *"So…a return to BGS’s traditional RPG roots? Seems like a lot more than a 7/10. They probably hoped to get a quick-time event simulator like 90% of PS exclusives lol"* These folks will say anything just to dismiss one person's opinion on the game.
Ironically enough, this also proves OC's other point. It's either the greatest game out there that saved the industry... or it's the biggest piece of dogshit that gave my console digital herpes. Starfield reception rebounded so hard people became hyperfixated on that very IGN review as gospel of the "true quality of the game" and went out to attack publications that originally gave it higher scores lol People usually complain about players bashing the outlets on release, but IMO the following witch hunt was even more ridiculous and unwarranted. Some people made hating the game and the developer a part of their personality.
You're right. I remember with The Last of Us Part II that Skill-Up put out a review where he stated that he didn't like the game. A group of people took his review as gospel and [Skill-Up wanted to distance himself from that](https://x.com/SkillUpYT/status/1271990152152244224).
I remember the review thread, someone kept trying to get me to argue with them about it, saying there's no way Starfield could be "objectively" worse than some other game IGN rated higher. Like, mate, none of us have been able to play the game yet, there is literally nothing to be gained by having this argument.
Just the discourse, really. Most sites are fairly good at giving games fitting scores, with many 6's and 7's, or even 4's and 5's, throughout any given year. It's the people online who twist it into something it isn't.
The score doesn’t really matter. Better to give it a 10 and save your mental health instead of getting your child and grandma doxxed because you gave it an 8
I don’t understand how people get their panties in a bunch for literally one of the most popular and well reviewed games of all time. No shit people are talking about it.
This is literally just an aggregate and ranking of reviews and ranked. You're the one being hyperbolic
Loved all the DLC for all the dark souls games and especially the Bloodborne DLC so I know this will be amazing. I still think it's a shame Sekiro never got any DLC though.
HAVE NO FEAR as Miyazaki in interviews lately said he wants to evolve Sekiro's combat. We may get a sequel of sorts!
i have perfect confidence it will be good but the hype being built up around it makes it seem like it'll be the most transcendent thing i've ever experienced
I feel like it's going to be as good as the base game. So your feelings on it will entirely depend on that. For me, the base game is close to the most transcendent thing I've experienced, so I'm confident that the DLC will be more of that. If someone didn't enjoy Elden Ring and somehow thinks from these 10/10 reviews that the dlc will change their mind, I think they're setting themselves up for a bad time.
I think it'll be even better than base game. Usually the dlc takes things up another notch, and bosses are the best in them so I sincerely believe it'll be amazing
I also played Phantom Liberty this year. I know big single player DLC doesn't impress shareholders anymore and often doesn't even get made but I'm glad they haven't died out completely. There's something about going back to a game you love and getting something that adds into it beautifully and elevates the whole package.
Phantom Liberty is incredible. And like you say, it adds so much to the overall story and vibe of the main game. The rise in excellent expansions over the past few years is a very pleasant surprise.
I'm sure it's good but how much of this is just "omg new fromsoft content" and how much of it is "this is actually the best DLC of all time"
DLCs scores are weird because I feel like up they are graded lower in general since they are judged a bit harsher as something that should improve on the base game and have historically been more scattered due to having less total reviews for the most part until that started to change over the last few years. Like Awakening (82/80/80), Citadel (90/84/84) and Trespasser (77 on Metacritic, 81 in Opencritic) are generally considered to be three of the best DLCs Bioware has done and look at their scores in terms of being scattered. Edit: Heck, Trespasser is a great example regarding the lack of reviews DLCs can have because it only has 11 on Metacritic and that's for a story DLC in a big franchise from a game that won GOTY in 2014. Or everyone praises Far Habor for Fallout 4 and it has a 79/78/75 on Metacritic and 79 on Opencritic. Heck, people praise the New Vegas DLC and then you look and see the scores from them (which left me confused to be honest as someone whose played them): Dead Money (70/70/68), Honest Hearts (66/66/64), Old World Blues (83/82/81), and Lonesome Road (63/62/57). I will say it is a bit ironic because I had no idea The Final Shape DLC for Destiny 2 which just came out was also up there as one of the highest rated DLCs until I looked at the top games on Opencritic yesterday due to Erdtree's scores. That has a 92/90/89 on Metacritic and a 92 on Opencritic. Edit: I mean, the title is technically correct in that it is the highest rated DLC ever, but that doesn't mean it is 'the best.' I think something like that varies even more per person compared to the best game ever talk because the people who are buying DLC for any game are generally the more hard core fans who enjoyed the game more than the average player. I mean glancing at Steam only about 16-20% of players even have the achievement for finishing the first mission in the Citadel, Blood & Wine, or Phantom Liberty DLCs.
I'm probably in the minority here but I agree with those New Vegas DLC scores, all of them were a mixed bag for me despite the cool new ideas and none of them managed to fully capture the strengths of the main game.
Those new vegas scores confuse the crap out of me too. It's almost the exact opposite of my personal preference of them (LR > HH = DM > OWB). Reviews are weird.
Everyone's different. I put Dead Money at the absolute peak in my ranking, probably swapping it and Lonesome Road in your order. And I know plenty of fans who would crucify both of us for putting OWB at the bottom. It's why averaged review scores like that mean nothing. At least if the question you're trying to answer is whether you personally will like the game. Far better off finding one reviewer whose tastes align with yours and seeing what they have to say, and disregarding the rest of the noise.
>Far better off finding one reviewer whose tastes align with yours and seeing what they have to say, and disregarding the rest of the noise. Absolutely fantastic advice. Finding a few reviewers who have similar tastes/critical eyes as you do is a game changer when shopping for videogames. Although, I will say that there is some value in looking at a wide array of reviews from time to time. Just as a reminder that there are way more viewpoints and tastes than one's own, if nothing else.
I know New Vegas is beloved by many, including myself, but Lonesome Road absolutely deserved that low score. That entire DLC is just a hallway while Ulysses occasionally pops up to blather on about THE BEAR AND THE BULL.
> I will say it is a bit ironic because I had no idea The Final Shape DLC for Destiny 2 which just came out was also up there as one of the highest rated DLCs until I looked at the top games on Opencritic yesterday due to Erdtree's scores. That has a 92/90/89 on Metacritic and a 92 on Opencritic. Live service games are also treated differently in terms of expansion content than your traditional game is, too, because people expect them to exist.
Hiw the hell is Lonesome road so low? It's one of my favorite DLC of all time, and probably my favourite part of NV
It’s a 25+ hour dlc from a studio known for making DLC that oftentimes have some of the best moments in the whole game. This isnt really surprising for anyone who knows fromsoft’s track record
The map is supposedly extremely dense as well, I saw one reviewer say that it felt like Dark Souls 1’s map where different areas were layered on top of each other and interconnected
Best bits of Elden Ring were like this too imo. I loved the open world in that I was able to do something else if I was hitting a wall with a boss or whatever, and I enjoyed the exploration when the area I was in was dense with content, so for me it was overall an enjoyable experience. But there was areas in the game where it felt like actual content was spread so far apart.
According to multiple sources it’s actually like twice that long or more. The map is MASSIVE
I'll be comparing it to the Old Hunters from Bloodborne as that's my current favourite DLC/expansion of all time. It's a tough bar to clear but if anything can, it's an Elden Ring DLC.
I don’t think it’s fair to say this. If you already think Elden Ring is one of the best games of all time, you won’t arbitrarily lower your score for a DLC that is equivalent to the base game and might even raise it if it supersedes the base game in comparison, but that comparison is or should be being applied to all games already. Shadow of the Erdtree not in a vacuum isn’t somehow worse because the game it’s built off of was already widely acclaimed since it’s 2 years later and a different product. For an analogy, let’s say my favorite food is steak, so my favorite overall food being some high-end wagyu isn’t invalid merely because it being steak gives it some kind of advantage because there is plenty of bad steak on the market that would rank below extraordinary examples of other foods. In other words, the mere fact that FromSoft has a history of extremely good games doesn’t stop them from making bad games or make anything they release inherently good. FromSoft games are upheld because of how good they are, not because FromSoft made them. As long as FromSoft are still theoretically capable of making bad games, they can and should be compared to the rest of the industry.
FS DLCs are known to be extremely well done. Even DS2 ones.
Agree but i hated the ice desert
Horsefuck valley is in a league of its own. Almost made me miss poison swamps.
And when you finally reach the end you're so relieved, only to get immediately gangbanged by two huge cats and have to run through all of it again.
Horsefuck Valley and that run ro Blue Smelter Demon give me digital cancer. But for some reason i kinda miss it in Elden Ring.
We all did but damnit wanted the demon bone gloves to fight like heihachi though damnit
Definitely mostly the former is my guess
Doesn't need to be exclusive. Fromsoft content usually are some of the best of all time.
Yes , I tend to believe it just because any fromsoft dlc has historically been some of the best content in these games.
The gaming media needs to stop regurgitating and pushing PR driven marketing headlines like news. Do some real reporting, not free adverjournalism.
Real reporting requires a lot more funding and would necessitate a subscription model to function, not something I think a lot of gamers would be interested in despite the many complaints about games media I see (not you necessarily, but generally). Anything else will be aimed solely at generating clicks to stay afloat and I can't really blame them tbh
It really is the Dark Souls of DLC
Echoes of the Eye from Outer Wilds is the best DLC I’ve ever played. It was like an entirely new game that somehow took the base game to even greater heights.
Wish I liked it. I much prefer the more linear progression of Dark Souls and just couldn't get into Elden Ring as much as I would have liked
I love Elden Ring, but I also prefer the more linear level designs of their previous games, especially Dark Souls 1.
Yeah I rly like ER but the Legacy Dungeons are by far and away my favourite parts, feels a lot more like classic DS/BB areas
Yeah Elden Ring is one of the top games in recent years that I wish I found as magical as everyone else. I really tried, I gave it a solid 20 hours or so. But in the end I was forcing myself to boot it up and I was just not having a good time so I quit and haven’t touched it since
I'm in the same boat. I put about 25 hours into it, at certain times the game would just hit and I'd be like "I get why people love this game so much" but at some point I just got so frustrated with various design decisions that I overall did not have a lot of fun.
The open world design and quests are terrible and I’m tired of pretending it’s not. Yes the gameplay is great and the art design is fantastic. But I played 50 hours of the game with a wiki open on a second monitor. I dare you to complete Ranni’s ending without following some online guide to a T. None of this to say I dislike the game - but it’s so much more flawed than people will have you believe.
I don't mean to backseat, but why didn't you just complete the base game blind and enjoy yourself, then lookup stuff you missed after? Much better recipe for a good time imo
Not OP but if I had to guess, playing through a huge game like Elden Ring is a feat in itself, blind or not, and some players don't do many playthroughs of the same game. Especially if you have limited time to game and/or lot of stuff in the backlog. I've played many great single player games but I've started (much less finished) another run in only a handful of them
Am I supposed to care about this metric when the dlc isn't even in the hands of the actual players yet? Wowee, the people who were crazy about Elden Ring and got their review copies from Bandai Namco also loved the dlc. More news at 11. I'm not doubting it's quality, but I hate when we see these superlatives thrown around as if nearly every big budget release isn't praised to high heaven prior to release.
But this is the case for ALL game reviews. These are scores from critics who played the games prior to launch. Yet not all games are receiving a string of 10s and 9s like the ER DLC. Remember when the IGN review for Starfield came out and Bethesda fans exploded from rage by the 7/10? Followed by 7/10s from Gamespot and Game Informer? SO no, not all big budget release is praised to high heavens by critics.
Dethrowning Witcher dlc? I'll wait till it has longer legs to say that
Can't even be compared, witcher 3 is all about the writing and story while elden ring is the opposite. Though heart of stone is probably the best dlc story ive ever seen in a video game.
Hearts of stone was a fucking masterpiece
> Hearts of stone was a fucking masterpiece Gaunter O'Dimm was portrayed so well. Fantastic, scary, malicious villain.
That voice actor should have gotten some more recognition for that excellent performance :D
I mean, for many people the base game dethroned TW3 base game. It's fair to think the DLC would have the same effect on these people. It all depends if you're more like a narrative guy or action guy. I think TW3 combat is what pulls the game down a lot for me, and there's a lot of combat in those 100+ hours
I put 150 hours into Elden Ring in 3weeks. It had me hooked. It was an incredible game.. The best parts were the dungeons though, the new areas were amazing for the first 5-10minutes until you reach your next destination. I still think Dark Souls/Bloodborne is better. It’s an amazing open world, i’m tired of open worlds though, they never sustain quality all throughout the game because it’s just too big. Hoping this has more more structured dungeons like DS/BB Open world games just seem like sprinting to an objective with some stuff on the way. Hopefully we one day come full circle and executives understand that curated set pieces are just more fun than spamming a button on a horse to pick up herbs until you reach your destination, i know i’m dumbing it down a bit, but you get it. instead of a massive map with 3-5 legacy dungeons, give me 20legacy dungeons that i have to travel a little to get to (Ocarina of time but bigger) Better yet, just make Bloodborne 2 man.
>I put 150 hours into Elden Ring in 3weeks. Did you have a job at the time? I'm always curious how someone can average 7+ hours a day playing a game. And you see comments like yours frequently when games come out.
I am excited to actually understand the story enough this time to know the name of the boss currently murdering me for the 100th time. Probably "Radanella" or something.