Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree players are pushing back against the idea that summons make the game easier.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is already kicking players’ butts. The tough-as-nails DLC takes a challenging game and makes it even more difficult. Players have been making jokes about how a character higher than level 500 and the strongest build in the game can get pulverized by a random creature in a field. Now that it’s out, FromSoftware has successfully solidified its reputation for making difficult games yet again, but that’s not all. Players themselves and the culture around FromSoftware games can make playing Elden Ring even more difficult, since some players shame others for using certain items or fighting styles.
As FromSoftware developers have diversified the toolkits that players can use to beat their games’ many monsters, a subset of intense fans has responded by discussing which ways of beating the game are valid. Tools like the Mimic Tear Ashes can summon a duplicate of a player’s character to fight alongside them during a boss fight, or magical spells like Meteorite of Astel can fire a barrage of meteors against an enemy. These items exist within the regular base version of the game, but some people argue they can lessen specific challenges since they can be used from afar. Now, with the difficulty up even higher for Shadow of the Erdtree, prominent streamers and players on social media platforms like Reddit are taking to the platforms to discuss why it’s actually OK to use these tools — especially now that the DLC is even more difficult.
Im_dontai, a streamer with more than 1.9 million followers on Twitch, has been streaming the DLC since its release.
