Elden Ring’s new expansion, Shadow Of The Erdtree, poses an interesting problem for developer FromSoftware: how do you accommodate players who are not prepared as well as over-prepared for the new content in this new DLC?
The player character’s level in Elden Ring is very important in that it governs how much defense stats you have. The bulk of your numbers for resistances come from naturally gaining them via levelling up. In other words, the higher the level, the more hits you can take.
But by now all the players, whether those just gotten their playthrough just to the point where they can access the new Shadow Realm map, or have been in consecutive New Game+ playthroughs with levels over 500+, Shadow Of The Erdtree has everyone starting on equal footing. And what better serves that point clearer than the first optional boss encounter most players will bump into: the Blackgaol Knight.
The Blackgaol Knight (“gaol” as in “jail”) is a more “honest” boss fight in that they are humanoid and have movesets a Tarnished can pull off. There are definitely some moves that will make you scream “bullshit!” at the screen, like the rapid fire of fire bolts from the crossbow and that cool sword slash that fires a straight projectile (which also have a follow-up attack). But when compared to other bosses in the expansion, the Blackgaol Knight is pretty straightforward. It feels like a fair fight.
But players are struggling. The Blackgaol Knight only needs one or two clean hits from its moves to kill any player. Anyone. Even the overlevelled folks. People are sharing around their struggles and may find the game suddenly overly difficult again, but that goes to show that its solution to the problem of catering to the myriad spread of player level is working.
Shadow Of The Erdtree uses a different scale for weapon damage and resistances. In the Land Of Shadow, the numbers in that status screen are in yellow rather than in white and this is to signal that these numbers are normalised when you’re exploring this new map. Weapons with maximum +25 or +10 upgrades get diminished in power at the start, in particular. My Godslayer’s Greatsword and Winged Scythe, both maxed out at +10, deals around half the damage of the 800 or so points I have normally at level 123 when I first entered the Shadow Realm.
To get stronger, players have to roam the open world in search of Scadutree Fragments. Gather enough and you can increase the Scadutree Blessing level, which basically is your DLC-only level. It reuses the mechanics for upgrading flasks, essentially. You can find Scadutree Fragments at churches in the Shadow Realm instead of Sacred Tears for churches in the Lands Between, the base game map.
There are plenty of players who are either didn’t get the memo, or were foolhardy to try and beat Blackgaol Knight over and over. I was on the latter. As a less experienced player of these sorts of games, it was not until I upgraded to Scadutree Blessing (5) when I finally get that boss dealt with. It was worth it, for the cool armour set, but I could have saved a good three hours of me attempting to push a square peg into a round hole. That’s not the game being difficult, that’s on me being stupid. There’s always a workaround for those lacking in talent in soulslike games, and in the case with Shadow Of The Erdtree, it’s by exploring the world to get the blessings levelled up.
The new only-for-DLC levelling system Shadow Of The Erdtree has worked as intended. But it didn’t do a good enough job to signpost how much weaker or stronger you are when in the Shadow Realm versus the Lands Between. I honestly didn’t notice the difference of power in the starting few Scadutree levels. I only started feeling its impact by level 4-5. By then, normal jobber enemies can swiftly die in less than 3 hits and boss fights become more reasonable.
For most players, this one optional boss fight is the way they acclimated to the new power levels this DLC has them operating at. For those that get it, like I have, I think it’s brilliant that the game teaches you this in true soulslike form- by punishing you until you get it. And in true soulslike fashion, there are just as many others who don’t get it, and the discourse about difficulty swirls up yet again.
On one hand, I’m glad the Blackgaol Knight serves this purpose to give players a reality check that they are now back at rock bottom, whatever level they are previously, in the Shadow Realm. On the other, I wished for more options to palate cleanse players’s sense of strongness. I feel that the complaints about the game’s difficulty comes in part due to the mismatched expectations of how a strong a player is and how strong they actually are now that damage and resistance levels are normalised in a different way.
But should the devs take my criticism and sand of the edges, it robs the community of something incredible: having this shared experience at getting themselves killed by the Blackgaol Knight, over and over again until they eventually triumph. Co-op summoning is available in this fight just like most bosses, and the memetic quality this suffering has should keep Elden Ring linger in many minds still- for better or worse.
Hey, at least this fight’s optional and not the first mandatory boss fight you have to figure out and beat before being allowed to play the game proper.
Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree expansion is out now on PS4, PS5, PC (Steam), Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.