Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is back up to ‘Mostly Positive’ Steam reviews after difficulty and performance issues gave it a ‘Mixed’ reception

The DLC’s reputation is improving

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Despite a sterling response from journalistsandfrankly absurd sales numbers,Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtreehas put off some players due to both its high difficulty level and its performance issues, especially on PC. It seems that Steam gamers are starting to make peace with the DLC, however, as the expansion’s rating has just clawed back from ‘Mixed’ to ‘Mostly Positive.’

That means the expansion has only just hit 70% positive reviews. If you head over to theSteam pageand take a look at the chart showing how many positive and negative reviews come in each day, the highest proportion of poor ratings came in on June 22, the third day after the expansion’s launch - I’m guessing that’s about how long it took the average player to reach Rellana.

Since the weekend, fewer of both positive and negative reviews have been coming in, but the negative ones have dropped off much faster. Presumably, that means the players who find the difficulty off-putting have just given up, and those who’ve stuck with it are enjoying themselves.

Of course, it’s worth noting that many of the negative reviews cite not the difficulty, but the game’s performance as a central issue. Tech analysis from the folks atDigital Foundrysuggest that the frame rate hiccups Elden Ring suffered at launch aren’t much better now, and the issues seem particularly pronounced on PC - which, of course, would be a key point affecting Steam reviews.

Check out ourElden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree reviewif you want to know what we think of the DLC.

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Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He’s been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

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