“Right now even with 60 vigor you get one-shot by nearly every enemy that’s not pure fodder (like the classical wandering nobles in the base game),” Steam user ‘Flippikus’ writes. “And the Scadutree fragments that should make your damage and defense increase (exclusively while in the DLC) don’t help that much and are mostly locked behind bosses.”

The negative reviews, which also continually praise the world’s design and art direction, can’t handle some of the other choices, especially the boss fights. “Bosses in this DLC are exceptionally weak. While visually they are fantastic, their balance is totally off,” ‘Chanddy’ writes. “The combos they do are really annoying to learn [and] way too long – sometimes chaining up to ten different attacks before you get even a brief second opening to return damage.”

In terms of performance, players are upset that Shadow of the Erdtree is locked at 60 frames per second, with micro-stuttering and a lack of ultrawide or DLSS support as well. These things can be fixed or added down the line, but as of right now, it appears that the expansion isn’t incredibly well optimized.