"Elden Ring is hard" isn't a factoid that'll win you any prizes in journalism, but it's an appropriate truth at the moment. Despite all of the many articles spouting how hard Shadow of the Erdtree was aiming to be, many players have been caught offguard by the difficulty spike and are complaining online. As a result, the official Bandai Namco Twitter account has been passive-aggressively tweeting advice, and the crux of it seems to be "level up your Scadutree Blessing".
News in brief
- Elden Ring players are being caught out by the DLC's difficulty
- The Scadutree Blessing can help
- Some think it's gone too far
FromSoft appears to have pulled out all of the stops for Elden Ring's first and only DLC, and a number of players are complaining about the high level of difficulty from the word go, with bosses uses long chains of attacks, big arena-covering splash moves, and moving so fast there's barely enough time to react. Y'know, all the usual stuff for a game like Elden Ring. Bandai Namco's advice to those suffering is simple: Level up your Scudatree Blessing.
The Scudatree Blessing is upgraded by gathering Scudatree Fragments, and the benefits of doing so are simple: They add a damage bonus, while reducing the damage you take. In short, it's a flat buff, and it applies only within the DLC. Unfortunately for Bandai Namco, some players may have taken this to be an olive branch for new players or those who want difficulty levels added, and are refusing to use the system. As a result, those players are likely to be having a rough time of it.
FromSoft's games have always been hard, but it does seem as if this DLC is on a new level. Even experienced are starting to tap out and wonder if the difficulty has been ramped up slightly too high this time around. There was a predictable backlash when reviews started saying this, but once streamers started echoing the sentiments, the community sat up and started taking notice.
It's possible FromSoft will start to roll out nerfs to bosses if this keeps up, but we imagine the playerbase would much rather adapt to the difficulty. After all, this is the community whose catchphrase is "git gud". Time to git gud, folks.