In order to access Shadow of the Erdtree – the first (and almost certainly last) slice of Elden Ring DLC – you must first defeat Mohg, Lord of Blood. This is a crucial step that sets the stage for the journey ahead. To defeat Mohg, one must first reach Mohgwyn Palace. And to reach Mohgwyn Palace, one must first complete a totally-missable early game questline. After completing this questline, you’ll reach the optional area, but you may find yourself under-powered. Alternatively, you can access a secret Waygate located in one of the farthest-flung corners of the late-game area, Consecrated Snowfield. To access the Consecrated Snowfield, you must first locate both halves of the Hildtree Secret Medallion. This requires traveling to Village of the Albinaurics and then Castle Sol. Castle Sol is a challenging place that requires you to overcome optional boss Commander Niall, who is as hard as fucking nails. And all of this is merely to access Elden Ring’s additional content. Now try explaining all of that to someone who’s just emerged from the Cave of Knowledge starting area, with a save file minutes-long and who fancies their chances against that first roaming Tree Sentinel making its way down the grassy hill in the distance on horseback. Oh, you sweet summer child, you’ve no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.

Root and branches

(Image credit: Bandai Namco)Which is the essence of Elden Ring’s beauty. It is absolutely massive, and eschews everything we once knew about typical FromSoftware games in terms of level design, pacing and environmental storytelling. Once hailed for their compact interconnectedness and deft vertical world-building – traits especially well-executed in Dark Souls (2011) and Bloodborne (2015) – Elden Ring leverages the hardware it runs on to spread itself horizontally over a humongous world map that puts any action RPG released in the last 30 years to shame.Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and moreGiven Elden Ring landed in 2022 on high-end PCs and the most cutting edge consoles, that’s maybe to be expected – but the size of the sprawling world within which its story unfolds is only notable if it’s filled with interesting things to see and do. And Elden Ring is brimming with questlines, side ventures, stunning vistas, quaint backwater burghs, quirky NPCs who never once forget a single double-crossing, taxing enemy battles, lore-specific item placement and so much more.I clocked over 300 hours in The Lands Between before I discovered its version of Dark Souls’ worst area, a deadly underground labyrinth of pipes and plateaus. It took me just as long to hoist my jaw off the floor as it did to guide The Tarnished back to relative safety on the surface.I may not be saying anything revolutionary here. GamesRadar+’s five-star Elden Ring review laid bare everything that makes this game great almost three years ago, after all. But as we reflect on the highs and lows of 2024, the long-anticipated arrival of the base game’s Shadow of the Erdtree expansion back in June is surely a crowning feature of the last 12 months, so much so, The Game Awards has made the controversial decision to include the added content among its GOTY contenders.(Image credit: FromSoftware)Whether or not deserving of that inclusion is a different conversation, but what is clear is the sheer depth and variety of content Elden Ring offers in the here and now – something that’s even more pertinent for new players. Just the thought of putting myself in the shoes of a fresh-faced adventurer who’s still to visit Stormveil Castle for the first time flips my stomach; who’s yet to be fooled by a cave-dwelling Patches, wind up in the red-rotten hell of Caelid, and get chased by a roaring bear all the while screaming at the top of their lungs in real life and upsetting their real world neighbours.Whether or not that anecdote applies to anyone but me is yet another conversation, but there are no action-RPGs out there right now that include the same bang for their buck when taking the Elden Ring base game and Shadow of the Erdtree as one single entity. I’d concede that Baldur’s Gate 3 offers comparable choice-driven gameplay in the more traditional role-playing space, but for me there’s no question which game excels through the lens of spectacle.When you throw in the vast and growing library of creative, player-made mods that exist to bolster FromSoftware’s foundations, as well as the enduring headline appeal of dream team Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R.R. Martin in the writer’s room, I firmly believe Elden Ring is on course to surpass Skyrim as the longest-lasting, most important action role-player of all time. People are still talking about the genius of the original Dark Souls some 13 years on, and it held cult status right up until the launch of Dark Souls 3 five years after the fact.Underwritten by prior Dark Souls entries, as well as Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Elden Ring has launched FromSoftware into the mainstream, in the same way The Elder Scrolls 5 was a starting point for those who missed that series’ post-DOS era ventures Oblivion and Morrowind. Skyrim is the ruler within The Elder Scrolls’ dynasty, there’s no question about that, and there’s every chance we’ll have this same conversation whenever The Elder Scrolls 6 lifts its head above the parapet.But if FromSoftware games have taught me nothing else, it’s that history is forever doomed to repeat itself. And from hereon and henceforth, it’s Elden Ring’s turn to rule atop the action RPG throne.