Why I think Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is 2024’s Game of the Year

DLC or not, Shadow of the Erdtree is 2024's Game of the Year for me.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree / FromSoftware

Here I am, once again evangelising my experience with Elden Ring. But can you blame me? Yeah sure, it might be DLC, but what does that even mean when Elden Ring did more for me than any other gaming experience this year? Shadow of the Erdtree is a game I played for longer than most this year, and enjoyed more than any other. DLC or not, Elden Ring is once again my game of the year for 2024.

Believe me, I didn’t want to do this. Some people finished their first Elden Ring playthrough and immediately got stuck into their second, but that’s not me. After 80 hours, I was happy to put the game down and take some deep breaths. I loved it, but was ready to move on. Which left me feeling a bit apprehensive about Shadow of the Erdtree. 

I knew I had to start a new game, build a new character, and do some actual prep work before playing the DLC. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that, and therefore, wasn’t sure I was ready for more Elden Ring. The anticipation was tinged with dread, but ultimately, I adored returning to The Lands Between and equally loved my time spent in the new Land of Shadows.

Furnace Golem / FromSoftware/GLHF

Using my full knowledge of the game to smash through the main bosses and gear up to be far more powerful than I should be felt like playing a different game, and even with all that, I still essentially reset to zero when coming up against the new DLC areas and enemies.

Read more: Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree review – FromSoftware flexes its open-world design

The Land of Shadows is more Elden Ring, sure, but the geography and environment design is smarter than ever. Elden Ring’s denser early areas were great – Limgrave, Caelid, the Weeping Peninsula – but they soon gave way to large, flat expanses like Liurnia, the Mountaintops of the Giants, and the Consecrated Snowfield. It felt like all the focus had been put on the early areas and Altus Plateau, with other environments left feeling barren. Shadow of the Erdtree’s areas all feel dense, however. It’s a smaller overall world, but instead of riding in one direction until you find your goal, you’ll often have to take cave paths under the map, or a bridge over the top of the area, in order to access brand new locales.

It’s smarter design, harking back to looking down from Firelink Shrine in the original Dark Souls, only to get a glimpse of Blighttown. Here, when emerging at the Gravesite Plain, you can head over to the right to take a good look at the Cerulean Coast, which you probably won’t actually find your way to for several hours. The game teases you with possibilities, not just in where to go, but what to use. New weapons, styles, and abilities feel purpose-built to draw you away from your safe character build, and toward bolder strategies.

A headless Marika statue with an Elden Ring Scadutree Fragment in front of it / FromSoftare/GLHF

I will glaze Elden Ring and Shadow of the Erdtree all day long, but even I have to admit that it’s not perfect. It’s a shallow criticism, but this DLC didn’t have a single boss with an absurd second health bar transformation? And although I understand the lore reasons for the final boss all too well, I have to admit that it felt a little underwhelming, almost as if there had to be more waiting for me after. But there wasn’t.

My adventures through the Land of Shadow, and the implications of my actions, felt like they should dramatically change the world, the landscape. But they don’t. It all just, kinda, ends, then and there. I know that FromSoftware’s games are notoriously being worked on up until the last minute, but jeez, it really makes the moment fall flat.

Read more: All FromSoftware Souls games ranked from easy to impossible

Luckily, everything that led up to it was memorable and impactful, keeping me thinking and strategising right until the final hour. That’s what makes Elden Ring so incredible; not cutscenes, lore, or characters, but the world and your journey through it. It’s truly unlike any other open world game, and that’s why Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is my Game of the Year for 2024.