LectureMaster
Gold Member
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Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Review: Massive, Menacing, And Magnificent
FromSoftware’s highly anticipated DLC could be a standalone game—it's just that good
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Until Elden Ring, I avoided Soulslikes. Their punishing difficulty and rigid boundaries frustrated me immensely: I hit a wall in Dark Souls: Remastered and gave up, barely touched Bloodborne, and avoided Sekiro like it was a poison swamp. In the real world, I have mostly avoided the ire of homophobes and misogynists in the games industry, writing an article that temporarily shakes them up before fading into relative obscurity once Reddit refreshes.
Before I even make that connection between my real world and FromSoft’s game world, I subconsciously attack Shadow of the Erdtree with dogged determination, as if besting a boss would bleed into my every day and imbue me with a higher tier of self-confidence. Much like how it feels to receive near-endless hate comments from anonymous accounts or angry middle-aged men, I face Shadow of the Erdtree entirely alone—no multiplayer summons would work for me in early access, a feature I relied on in the base game.