One and completed: Elden Ring’s first DLC growth may even be its final

The excellent news for Elden Ring followers is that the two-plus-year look forward to the sport’s first DLC, “Shadow of the Erdtree,” will finish in simply a few months. The dangerous information is that “Shadow of the Erdtree” may even be the final little bit of DLC for FromSoftware’s multimillion-selling motion RPG.

In a wide-ranging interview with Chinese site Zhihu (machine translation), Elden Ring producer Hidetaka Miyazaki mentioned “Shadow of the Erdtree” comprises quite a lot of present lore and content material that was created for the unique sport however could not match into the ultimate bundle. Miyazaki mentioned the group determined to launch all of that unused content material as one massive DLC growth, fairly than a number of smaller bits, as a result of “in the event that they had been offered individually, the liberty of exploration and sense of journey could be diminished.”

As for simply how massive the DLC will likely be, Miyazaki balked when the interviewer requested how lengthy it could take gamers to finish. Miyazaki introduced up reminiscences of being referred to as a liar after estimating in an earlier interview that the unique sport would solely take about 30 hours of play to finish—crowdsourced game-length database HowLongToBeat places the “important story” estimate closer to 60 hours.

Whereas Miyazaki was definitive on the shortage of plans for extra Elden Ring DLC, he left open the potential of additional video games that might proceed the story of the Elden Ring universe. “FromSoftware’s type of doing issues is that it usually doesn’t permit the way forward for an IP to be simply locked, however it’s higher to go away some prospects” he mentioned.

Earlier video games in FromSoftware’s Darkish Souls collection have break up extra content material throughout multiple episodic DLC expansions within the years after their respective releases (although Bloodborne solely noticed a single DLC growth, “The Old Hunters“). Final 12 months, Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Crimson confirmed that the “Phantom Liberty” growth could be that sport’s solely DLC, owing to an engine transition throughout the firm.

Elsewhere within the interview, Miyazaki mentioned the upcoming growth would carefully match the legendary problem of the unique sport’s second half. The DLC was designed with the expectation that “gamers… ought to have already got a sure understanding of the sport,” he mentioned. However gamers who’ve grinded their characters into unstoppable, overpowered machines will have the ability to flip off the leveling system within the DLC space so as to add a little bit of extra problem.

Miyazaki additionally provided a couple of hints in regards to the DLC’s plot, which is able to embrace new characters like St. Trina, a counterpart to Miquella, who was solely hinted at via item names within the unique sport. Most characters featured within the DLC will likely be utterly new to the growth, Miyazaki mentioned, if for no different motive than that “there could also be a state of affairs the place the participant kills the NPC [in the original game], inflicting him/her to be unable to seem within the DLC story.”