Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree has drawn some criticism for being too hard—spinning up the FromSoftware design discourse anew two entire years after the base game's release. Its flavour feels different this time around, though, since even supposed souls superfans have been antsy about it, earning it a "mixed" user review score on Steam at the time of writing.
There's a few culprits here. The new Scadutree Fragments scaling system has caught players off-guard, bosses are hyper aggressive with the longest combo strings Miyazaki's devised yet, and a sadly choppy performance isn't exactly helping people feel the flow.
While I think the DLC bumps against the ceiling of what FromSoftware can get away with right towards the end, I'm not really on the "it's too hard" train. Neither is Elden Ring streamer Kai Cenat who, sat in front of both a life-sized Malenia statue and an Iron Throne replica, tore into difficulty critics on stream yesterday (thanks, GamesRadar).
As shared by domainsdomain on Twitter, Cenat dropped some hard truths on his viewers while roughly 32 hours deep into his Elden Ring marathon. In case you're unfamiliar with Cenat's style, the streamer is known, chiefly, for starting FromSoftware games and not quitting until the job is done, as he did with the base game after 130 hours. He sleeps on stream, too—like some kind of voluntary Truman Show for gamers, just with more freestyle diss raps.
Kai Cenat speaks on the people who say that the Elden Ring DLC is “too hard” pic.twitter.com/FDni4mWstOJune 23, 2024
"I'm getting through these motherf*ckers, bro, it's a skill issue," he says, which is genuinely an excellent mantra for any FromSoftware boss that's giving you problems. "I'm ass and you're ass—but, you're ass though, 'cause you say it's too hard … put your big boy pants on, go out there, and go fight."
Honestly, he's at least partially right. I may have muddled and complicated thoughts on what FromSoftware's power creep means for the genre, sure, but it's my job to dissect things critically, even the things I like. That doesn't change the fact that every boss I fought was doable with a little practice (or scrapping my build). I don't think the DLC's impossible, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Cenat adds: "Here's the thing, right—this is the first major release since the actual game two years ago, correct? If you went through all that hassle two years ago, why else would they make a DLC for you to breeze past and be done with [it] in a day or two?"
As for how that's holding up, Cenat is currently 88 hours in (and sleeping) at the time of writing, seeming to have struck a wall with the DLC's final boss. Spoilers in the following clip for said bosses' identity, but he is, uh, having some problems:
Normally I'd say this contradicts his past statement but, honestly, after 10 hours of slamming my head against the same boss on Sunday, I can't even blame him for blowing his lid, especially since he doesn't have the luxury of taking a break like me (even if that's limit's self-imposed and making him lots of money). Erdtree's final boss is its own special tier of hell that even a blunt recommendation from Bandai Namco to level up your Scadutree Blessing can't fix.
