Why is the Elden Ring DLC taking so long?

The Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC has been in development since April 2022 according to Lead Game Designer Kenneth Chan’s LinkedIn profile, spotted by @Ziostorm1 on Twitter. Rumors have indicated the expansion is quite sizeable and this is likely to be why the developer is taking their time.

FromSoftware has only revealed the DLC to be an expansion set in the Lands Between. Other rumors purporting to show trailers and other story and gameplay information have been proven to be false.

The developer is yet to reveal a release date or even a release window for the upcoming DLC expansion, although this is expected to be some time after Armored Core 6, whose release date is sometime this year. What is more certain, though, is that FromSoftware’s attention is currently divided between this DLC and Armored Core 6, and there is no other game in development.

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Leaked Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree trailer is actually from ArtStation

The foggy trailer posted on imgur (which could be taken down at any minute) has been identified by several users on Reddit as a prior project on ArtStation by user Cayde7, who wanted to reimagine Elden Ring in Unreal Engine 5.

This makes a lot of the info beneath the imgur video rather dubious. The biggest red flags are that the Shadow of the Eldtree DLC would apparently come with Deluxe, Collector’s, and Premium editions. It also says that the expansion would be accessed through the Ordina Liturgical Town, which is a strange place to put the entrance given that it’s in an endgame area.

Some other info, like the DLC adding six new weapon types and sixteen new NPC quests, came from a prior datamine of Patch 1.07.

The long-awaited Shadow of the Erdtree DLC was revealed in late February this year and is still “currently in development.” Its release date will likely be sometime after Armored Core 6 comes out.

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Miyazaki’s approach to storytelling will influence Naughty Dog’s future games

In the blurb for the Time piece, Druckmann describes the feeling we all felt playing a Soulsbourne game for the first time. He felt “miserable” dying over and over again, but then he learned to pay attention to the details and be more deliberate. Soon enough, he was able to explore a world that rewarded him “with tension, beauty, and surprise.”

Most of all, he commends Miyazaki’s games for making the player “feel accomplished and smart” without having “to overexplain the mechanics or the lore.” They trust the player and the community to figure out how to beat a tough boss or enemy on their own. This has led the developers at Naughty Dog, who spoke with Miyazaki this year, to hand the reins over to the players in future games without so much handholding.

Miyazaki joins Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, who was named one of TIME’s most influential people back in 2007.

In 2021, it was revealed that Miyazaki was compelled to enter the games industry after playing the PS2 classic ICO.

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Elden Ring PS5 ray tracing is “far from ideal”

As explained by Digital Foundry in the video embedded below, enabling ray tracing within Elden Ring results in a drop of 15-20 FPS on average. The mode also drops the resolution, leading to a less sharp image.

The frame rate drop causes the game to dip below the PS5’s VRR window, meaning that not even the latest television tech can help smoothen out the performance problems. What’s more, with dips below 30 FPS, not even a frame rate cap can clean up the mess.

Following its analysis, Digital Foundry concludes that ray tracing on PS5 is “far from ideal,” though unsurprising as “it’s the price you’d expect to pay for extra visual features layered on top of an experience that was already sub-60 FPS.”

Elden Ring is a game where inconsistent performance can mean the difference between life and death, so I imagine most players will look to disable ray tracing, at least for combat sequences.

Hopefully FromSoftware’s next game, which it has been working on since 2022, won’t have these performance problems.

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Elden Ring 1.09 update patch notes

New feature

Ray Tracing support has been added for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and PC versions.

Ray Tracing can be activated in the settings menu:

• PS5 / XSX: Game Options > Ray Tracing
• PC: Graphics > Ray Tracing Quality

PvP-exclusive balance adjustments

The adjustments in this section do not affect single-player or cooperative play.

• The Inescapable Frenzy incantation power and grab angle have been increased.
• The Lifesteal Fist skill power, range and grab angle have been increased.
• Decreased the power of two-handed jumping attacks.
• Decreased the power of heavy and heavy running attacks of Fist and Claw weapon types.
• Decreased the power of the Founding Rain of Stars spell.
• Decreased the spell enhancement effect of the Terra Magica spell.
• Decreased the damage and poise damage of the Wave of Gold skill when hitting an opponent over a certain distance.
• Decreased the effectiveness of the Determination and Royal Knight’s Resolve skills.
• Decreased the effects of the Contagious Fury skill of the Jellyfish Shield.
• Decreased the effectiveness of the Claw Talisman.
• Decreased the effectiveness of the Lord of Blood’s Exultation Talisman.
• Decreased the attack power buff granted by the White Mask head armor.
• Decreased the jumping attack damage buff granted by the Raptor’s Black Feathers armor.
• Decreased the damage buff granted by Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear, Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear, Lightning-Shrouding Cracked Tear, and Holy-Shrouding Cracked Tear when activated with the Flask of Wondrous Physick.

General balance adjustments

• Added an invincibility window when respawning in the colosseum.
• Increased the scaling of the following attributes when infusing weapons with certain Ashes of War:
  • Magic / Fire / Flame Art / Lightning / Sacred
• Increased the attribute scaling of the following weapon types:
  • Colossal Sword / Great Axe / Hammer / Flail / Great Hammer / Colossal Weapon
• Increased the speed, range and recovery time of some attacks for the following weapon types:
  • Great Hammer / Great Axe / Great Sword / Curved Greatsword
• Flail weapons changes:
  • Increased the speed of some attacks.
  • Reduced attack recovery time.
  • Increased poise when using two-handed attacks.
• Increased running attacks speed and reduced attack recovery time for the following weapon types:
  • Straight Sword / Curved Sword / Katana / Twinblade Sword / Axe / Hammer / Halberd
• Increased the first attack speed for the following weapon types:
  • Straight Sword / Curved Sword / Whip
• Increased the speed of guard counters for the following weapon types:
  • Straight Sword / Great Sword / Colossal Sword / Great Curved Sword / Katana / Twinblade Sword / Axe / Great Axe / Flail / Great Hammer / Spear / Great Spear / Halberd
• Reduced the attack recovery time for Whip weapons.
• Increased the damage of Claw weapons.
• Added Holy damage and Faith scaling to the Great Club.
• Increased damage negation when blocking Holy damage and decreased damage negation when blocking damage from other affinities.
• Increased the effectiveness of the Twinblade Talisman.
• Slightly reduced rolling travel distance for light equipment weights.
• Decreased the hitbox size for some attacks of the following weapon types:
  • Thrusting Sword / Heavy thrusting Sword / Spear / Great Spear / Halberd

Ashes of War adjustments

• Lifesteal Fist
  • Increased target grab range.
• Surge of Faith
  • Increased projectile generation speed.
• Flame Spit
  • Increased the guard speed and blocking amount of the skill.
  • Adjusted the angle of the fireball.
• Tongues of Fire
  • Increased the guard speed and blocking amount of the skill.
• Great Oracular Bubble
  • Increased projectile generation speed and reduced the recovery time.
• Viper Bite
  • Reduced the time before rolling is possible after using the skill.
• Shriek of Milos
  • Increased close range poise damage.
• Spearcall Ritual
  • Increased projectile generation speed.
• Cursed-Blood Slash
  • Increased projectile generation speed and reduced the recovery time.
• Gold Breaker
  • Reduced the recovery time.
• I Command Thee, Kneel!
  • Increased attack generation speed.
• Starcaller Cry
  • Increased the speed of follow-up attacks.
• Spinning Wheel
  • Increased attack generation speed.
  • Added a roll & heavy attack cancel timing while using the skill.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where the Scarlet rot status buildup was not properly reflected when giving the Antspur Rapier a Cold affinity.
• Fixed a bug where the Scarlet rot status buildup was not properly reflected when giving the Rotten Greataxe a Blood affinity.
• Fixed a bug where some attacks of the Partisan, Death Ritual Spear, and Lucerne had unexpected Physical attack scaling.
• Fixed a bug where the Nightrider Glaive did not increase the damage of horseback attacks.
• Fixed a bug where the Duelist Greataxe and Rotten Greataxe did not increase the damage of charged attacks.
• Fixed a bug where the Roar Medallion Talisman effect didn’t increase the power of some incantations. 
• Fixed a bug that reduced the power of some skills while under the Golden Vow effect.
• Fixed a bug that caused the effects the Determination and Royal Knight’s Resolve skills when casted from a left-handed weapon to be added to other skills casted with a right-handed weapon.
• Fixed a bug that reduced the critical hit power of right-handed weapons while having Determination or Royal Knight’s Resolve active on a left-handed weapon.
• Fixed a bug where status build-ups were unintentionally added to some Weapon Skills
• Fixed a bug where the power and special effects of a left-handed weapon could be added to a skill cast with a right-handed weapon.
• Fixed a bug that caused an equipped Sacrificial Twig to be consumed when a player died in the Colosseum.
• Fixed the camera positioning when respawning in the Colosseum.
• Fixed a bug where a player could receive credit for a kill in the Colosseum when dying due to the Death status effect, instead of the player who inflicted that status effect.
• Improved stability in Colosseum matchmaking.
• Fixed a bug related to level correction when an invader used the Phantom Bloody Finger.
• Fixed a bug that could cause disconnections with other players in certain locations during multiplayer.
• Improved online multiplayer stability.
• [PS4] Fixed a bug that occurred when using the Finger Severer on summoned NPCs while offline that could cause the game to crash.
• Fixed a bug related to some enemies not rendering or behaving as expected.
• Several performance improvements and other bug fixes.

It’s been over a year since Elden Ring launched and developer FromSoftware is still supporting the game with post-launch patches. This is despite the dev also reportedly being busy working on an unannounced game since 2022.

Ray tracing is sure to look a treat on PS5, though FromSoftware has noted that enabling it may impact frame rate and resolution. With the game already struggling to consistently hit 60 FPS in Performance mode, players may have to play around with the in-game settings to find a good balance between visuals and smooth performance.

While ray tracing sure is a nice visual upgrade, I imagine most players are waiting for news on the “Shadow of the Erdtree” expansion.

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FromSoftware’s next game is deep in development

Kennet Chan is the producer and co-director of the previously announced Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, along with working as Lead Game Designer for Elden Ring. But as spotted by The Game Spoof, the developer also lists an ‘unannounced project’ on their LinkedIn profile which they’ve been working on since January 2022.

This suggests that Chan is developing another game on top of Armored Core 6, meaning that FromSoftware likely has an additional game in the works that it has yet to reveal.

Hidetaka Miyazaki, the creative force behind the Dark Souls series, previously outlined (via IGN) that an Elden Ring sequel wasn’t an immediate guarantee despite the original’s success, noting that the game’s sales wouldn’t “really affect what we are going to create next.” So this suggests that Chan’s project isn’t Elden Ring 2, and it might not even be another Soulslike.

On top of its work on Armored Core 6, FromSoftware has also revealed that development is underway on the Elden Ring expansion Shadow of the Erdtree, which is likely set to release after the next entry in the Armored Core series.

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How many times did players die in Elden Ring?

Players have managed to tot up more than 9 billion deaths in nearly 13 months since the game’s release. According to the death stats, over 6.2 billion were because of enemies and NPCs, while around 180 million were because of another Elden Ring player. This left approximately 1.26 billion players to fall to their death, and 1.35 billion players to die from status effects like Poison, Scarlet Rot, Blood Loss, Frostbite, Sleep, Madness, and Death Blight.

Buy Elden Ring on Amazon

There has been nearly 6 billion attempts to take down a boss in the Elden Ring. Malenia is by far the most popular of those with 329 million boss battles, with the game’s first boss Margit coming second with 281 million and Limgrave a close third with 277 million. Elsewhere, Rock Sling was the most popular spell while Blessing of the Erdtree was the most acquired incantation, perhaps as players prepare for the upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.

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The videos showing the comparisons were uploaded to Imgur (via ResetEra), showing a number of eyebrow-raising similarities. While some of Bleak Faith’s animations had their speed increased or decreased compared to Elden Ring’s, they’re still recognizable and incredibly similar to those used in FromSoftware’s open-world game.

What Bleak Faith: Forsaken “copied” from Elden Ring

Among the animations said to have been “copied” from Elden Ring is an enemy attack that sees the opponent twirling a long staff weapon, Malenia’s backstep animation, along with various poses (via Imgur).

As pointed out by ResetEra users, Bleak Faith wouldn’t be the first game to copy movesets from another release, with a notable example being Genshin Impact using similar animations to Nier Automata. However, with both Bleak Faith and Elden Ring existing in the same sub-genre that FromSoftware popularized, comparisons between the two were already inevitable, so this has inevitably led to criticisms of Archangel Studio’s new action RPG.

FromSoftware recently revealed that it was working on a new DLC expansion for Elden Ring, titled ‘Shadow of the Erdtree,’ but a report has claimed that it will release after the developer’s upcoming Armored Core 6.

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Where to pre-order Armored Core 6

Here’s a short list of outlets where you can pre-order Armored Core 6 for PS5 or PS4:

• Best Buy
• GameStop
• Target
• Amazon (Note: This links to the Xbox Series X and Xbox One versions, as the PS5 and PS4 entries are unavailable at the time of this writing.)

The official description in GameStop’s entry for the game confirms that players, in the role of an independent mercenaries, will be able to assemble and pilot their mechs on the planet of Rubicon 3.

Fifty years ago, the planet was contaminated by a strange substance that was meant to advance humanity’s technological capabilities, but it instead engulfed the world in a catastrophe, creating a Burning Star System in the process. Now, the substance has appeared on the planet once more, with extra-terrestrial corporations and resistance groups vying for control of this precious resource.

Armored Core 6 still has a vague 2023 release window, though FromSoftware is reportedly shooting for a September or October date. Only when Armored Core 6 has been finished will the developer then release the Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree expansion.

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When is the Elden Ring DLC predicted to be released?

The Elden Ring DLC release date will not be until the end of 2023 at the earliest. Sources told Exputer that FromSoftware is prioritizing the release of Armored Core 6 and only after this game hits retailers will the Elden Ring DLC become the next focus.

Armored Core 6 only has a 2023 release window at the moment. However, the same sources claim the game is aiming for September or October 2023, with a late September release date looking to be the most likely scenario. However, internal delays could see the game be pushed back, therefore also delaying the Elden Ring DLC.

Very little else is known about the upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree expansion aside from its title and a brief glimpse of concept art showing a land filled with ghostly shadows, mist, and ruined buildings. All of this sits in the shadow of the giant Erdtree. Hopefully, there will be more information soon.

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