Elden Ring Director Thinks New DLC Bosses Will Push Players To Their Breaking Point

Shadow of the Erdtree, a mega-sized expansion for Elden Ring that’s basically a whole other game, sounds equal parts magnificent and brutal. That’s by design, according to FromSoftware director Hidetaka Miyazaki. He recently said the new enemies and bosses in the DLC are meant to push players to the breaking point.

Officially out on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC in Australia now, Shadow of the Erdtree takes players to a new region called the Land of Shadow. There, players will face over 10 confirmed bosses and likely plenty of other more hidden threats, and it will apparently be unlike anything they’ve faced up to that point in the base game.

“The new challenges for the player are going to be the boss encounters as well as the different kinds of threats that the world will impose on people,” Miyazaki recently told CNET. He added that since players have to beat Radahn and Mohg, two of the most difficult Elden Ring bosses, before they can even access the expansion, the expectation is they’ll be up for the challenge. Miyazaki said the result is that the development team “kind of really pushed the envelope in terms of what we think can be withstood by the player.”

Fortunately, some of the toughest bosses in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, which sounds like it includes something much tougher than Melania, will be optional when it comes to completing the DLC’s story arc. Still, as many early reviewers have found, including Kotaku’s own, even the mandatory battles are no joke.

For those who still need to defeat Radahn or Mohg before they can access the Elden Ring DLC, a fresh update that’s free for all players has added some new quality-of-life features, including the ability to summon your horse at the final boss and a new inventory tab to mark which items are new. Whether you’ve been holding out on joining the Elden Ring party or dipped out after the first couple hours, it’s a good time to consider going back into the Lands Between and testing your mettle against some of FromSoftware’s most devilish creations.