Highlights

  • Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC offers a distinct shift in gameplay with notable quality-of-life features.
  • Monster Hunter Wilds will introduce Focus Mode, aiming to make the game more accessible to a wider variety of players.
  • Both Elden Ring and Monster Hunter Wilds prioritize quality-of-life features, potentially changing the future of their respective franchises.

Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC has finally arrived and there are a great deal of expectations it’s had to bear based on patterns in previous FromSoftware games and expansions. The same can be said about Monster Hunter’s next entry, Wilds, even though it isn’t slated for release until next year.

Elden Ring is much different than anything FromSoftware has developed before and Shadow of the Erdtree makes a similarly distinct shift in gameplay that at times is disjointed from the base game’s approach. Nonetheless, both the base game and its DLC are also more accommodating than the Soulslikes that predate them. Monster Hunter Wilds surprisingly seems to follow that same approach, fracturing its tried and true mold ever so slightly to warmly invite newcomers with an upcoming quality-of-life feature.

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree Rellana Fight
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Elden Ring, While Difficult, Emphasizes QoL at Its Core

If Elden Ring approached its open-world features the same way FromSoftware treated its previous action-RPGs there wouldn’t be baked-in NPC labels on the map or notifications on grace menus alerting players when they had a Sacred Tear or Golden Seed to cash in.

Demon’s Souls, the Dark Souls trilogy, Bloodborne, and even Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice—which is an action-adventure game rather than an action-RPG—all have ways for players to alleviate their challenges and make them laughable if they’re committed to cheese strats and other goals, but much is purposefully left hidden or fully explained without the community’s shared knowledge of extensive mechanics and lore. Elden Ring definitely hasn’t abandoned this approach wholly and yet it goes to obvious lengths to guide players in ways that are still immersive in its formula.

Quests, while still primarily obtuse and convoluted in their routing, have more in the way of clearer NPC dialogue directing players where they should turn their attention, such as the obvious game of telephone the Tarnished plays between Roderika and Smithing Master Hewg. In other words, Elden Ring’s secret weapon is how accessible it is as an open-world Soulslike, placing FromSoftware in uncharted territory that Shadow of the Erdtree greatly expands on.

Shadow of the Erdtree Behaves Almost Like a Different Game Than Elden Ring

Certain details about how Shadow of the Erdtree’s leveling system already had light shed on them as part of a hands-on preview event for Elden Ring’s DLC and even more have been found since the expansion launched. There’s evidently a new leveling/scaling system in place that only exists within the expansion itself and involves a feature called the Scadutree Blessing via Scadutree Fragments.

This is the primary means of leveling up within the DLC, allowing Shadow of the Erdtree to behave like a separate slice of Elden Ring that isn’t intrinsically tied to however players chose to build their Tarnished avatars in the base game. It’ll be interesting to see how well this balances the DLC in the long run; whether it will prevent players from entering in and being grossly overpowered or vice versa.

Players seemingly can’t be at too big of a disadvantage when they enter the DLC, though, since they’ll at least need to have bested both Radahn and Mohg in the base game to gain access. That said, bosses as regal and intimidating as the Divine Beast Dancing Lion and Rellana, Twin Moon Knight are positioned purposefully in players’ paths to curb any ill-placed optimism early on. Fortunately, QoL features are reprised for the DLC along with a slate of new ones that call into question whether the hands-off approach FromSoftware’s games typically have has been blemished.

There are many message stones now that either explicitly or implicitly state how players should proceed, for instance, while the new ‘Recent Items’ tab in the menu is surely a boon for anyone who usually has trouble locating which inventory tab a newly acquired item has been shuffled into. As for how this could impact FromSoftware’s formula in the future, it’ll be interesting to see if these QoL features are indicative of how the developer would like to dole out aid and information in-game from now on.

Monster Hunter Wilds Debuts an Upcoming Feature Tailored Toward Accessibility

Monster Hunter Wilds’ Focus Mode is designed with the specific intent of “making the distinctive Monster Hunter hunting action more accessible to a wider variety of players,” as per Capcom’s PlayStation blog post detailing the feature. The full extent of player control that will be made more accessible, such as being able to target weak points on monsters, seems as though this would make it somewhat of an ‘Easy’ mode in the grand scheme.

Some weapons also have features that are only available in Focus Mode, meaning there may be an incentive to try it out even if seasoned hunters have become closed-mindedly ingrained in their previously established hunting strategies. Indeed, the series has fostered entrenched playstyles due to it having the same weapons and core tenets lugged across each entry, so introducing a feature this delineating is a change of pace that even Rise’s Wirebugs and Rampages are unable to put a finger on and could be what turns the page into an interesting new chapter in Monster Hunter’s future.

Whether or not Focus Mode actually is as game-changing as it appears is yet to be seen, of course, but this is ultimately refreshing because Monster Hunter Wilds’ newfound accessibility might encourage players who normally find the enormous series daunting and without a viable entry point to finally make the leap, not unlike how Elden Ring was finally a viable point of entry for some who were otherwise fearful of how Soulslikes are anecdotally described.