The long-awaited DLC for Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is finally almost here. For the past few weeks, several IGN staffers have taken up the sword to conquer FromSoftware’s latest trial and we’ve all come out the other side changed forever. The DLC is truly massive, the bosses are really freaking hard, and the secrets are numerous.
That said, we’ve come together to share how long it’s taken us to beat the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.
How Long Is Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree?
Our fastest players finished the DLC in around 25 hours.
Our “slowest” players finished the DLC in around 32 hours.
Given the open nature of Elden Ring, it’s very easy to get sidetracked while exploring the massive new world, plus some bosses could take literal hours to beat. Therefore playtimes will surely vary. If you finish the DLC, come back and submit your time in How Long to Beat to see how your time compares.
Ronny Barrier – Video Producer, Guides
I’m gonna be honest, between farming smithing stones while not in the Realm of Shadow, power-leveling to try and equip some cool new weapons, and recording footage for work, I didn’t keep a strict clock on how long exactly it took me to beat Shadow of the Erdtree. But my best estimate is that I beat the final boss between 20 and 25 hours in. With that in mind, there’s still tons of secret areas to find and I think I’ve only beaten about the half of the new bosses added to this expansion.
I’m now about 30 hours in and while the end is in sight, there’s still a ton I have to do and see. Each individual’s time will obviously vary wildly based on how many boss attempts have to be repeated and how fast you tend to move on from new areas, but if you want to explore every nook and cranny, especially if you’re not looking up how to get to particular areas, you’ll be searching a long time just to even fill out your map.
Matt Kim – Senior Editor, Features
Given the nature of FromSoftware games, I’m still playing the DLC to finish up all the various loose ends and odd tasks. But as far as going from the start to beating the final boss, it took me about 32 hours. There’re probably a few bosses I’ve missed and definitely several secrets I still need to uncover, but there is a “final boss” in this DLC that I beat several hours ago, which is where I’ll consider the end of my official play time.
All in all, following the critical path — which I believe skips at least a few main bosses — would probably shave about 10 hours off my total completion time, putting me in line with some of my peers. Plus, my big obsession in any game is to complete the map as early as possible which took a lot of effort given some of the map fragments in the Shadow of the Erdtree were incredibly hard to get to early on, though it’s definitely doable.
Mitchell Saltzman – Senior Video Producer, Guides
As I mentioned in my review, it took me about 25 hours or so to reach what I imagine most people would consider to be the final boss of the DLC. At that time, I had actually only beaten 6 of the 10 big bosses that drop Remembrances when you kill them. Since then, I’ve beaten two more and I’m still on the hunt for the final two.
Even though I had four of the big bosses still left on the table, I definitely didn’t just rush to the end. I took my time and did plenty of exploring, finding all of the map pieces, enough scadutree shards to level myself up to a Scadutree Blessing of 16, and a Revered Spirit Ash Blessing of 8. I found a ton of new weapons, many of which I leveled up to +10 or +25 and respec’d my character so I could give them a shot, and I also started a second playthrough with another character that’s more geared towards magic so I could try out some of the new spells and spirit ash summons. At this point I definitely feel like I’m approaching the limit of what I can get out of this DLC, but it’s taken far more time to get here than just about any other single-player-focused DLC that I’ve ever played.
Check out our full review of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree to see our full thoughts on the latest FromSoftware DLC.
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