The Elden Ring DLC sounds even bigger than we thought

Lots of bosses and even more weapons

FromSoftware/Bandai Namco

Elden Ring DLC previews are out ahead of the RPG expansion’s release date later in June 2024, and Shadow of the Erdtree is even bigger than we expected. Developer Fromsoftware previously said the Land of Shadows is roughly the size of Limgrave, but until now, they gave no indication of what we might encounter there.

If you thought you’d access the DLC via Miquella’s weird little egg in Mohg’s palace, you were right. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, well, hopefully you didn’t attack White-Mask Varre the moment you stepped into Limgrave the first time.

The general consensus from those who saw roughly three hours of Shadow of the Erdtree is that the Land of Shadows is, indeed, roughly the size of Limgrave – including the Weeping Peninsula and maybe a bit of Caelid. That’s just on the surface and doesn’t factor in legacy dungeons and mini-dungeons, which Limgrave itself has in abundance. 

GameSpot’s Tam Hussain dug a little deeper into what FromSoftware cooked up in his preview and found out the Elden Ring DLC has 10 new bosses. He didn’t mention if that includes story bosses – the DLC’s equivalent of Rennala and Morgott, for example – or if the total covers world bosses such as the dragons and weird little creeps who hang out in mini-dungeons, though. 

Still, considering there are roughly a dozen main Elden Ring bosses, from Margit to the Elden Beast, that’s a surprisingly high number of big bads to challenge. It’s also more than we saw in even Dark Souls 3’s DLC and double the number of Bloodborne’s DLC bosses.

Hussain also said the DLC adds 100 new weapons, which you can take back into the Lands Between. Inverse’s Hayes Madsen said some of these include a martial arts-style weapon that staggers enemies if you pull off the right combos and a set of dual reverse swords, which scales on dexterity and lets you unleash multiple attacks in a flurry of blades. Hussain mentioned all this is spread across eight new categories of arms as well, so there’s a lot.

Elden Ring’s DLC adds two new ways to power up using Haligtree fragments you find in the Land of Shadow. You can exchange these at Sites of Grace in the DLC region for general buffs to your damage and resilience or to bump up the strength of your Spirit Ashes. These buffs don’t last into The Lands Between, so you can’t go steamrolling the back half of the game with them.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree launches June 21, 2024, for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.