Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree has seen FromSoftware’s magnum opus rocket up the Steam charts, but as it stands this hasn’t been enough for it to be crowned most played game, or even for it to reach the heights of launch in 2022. With some PC players calling on FromSoftware to fix performance woes and the overall balancing, the DLC appears to have been held back from making the launch weekend splash it could have, even if it’s still doing incredibly well.
Elden Ring shot up the Steam charts thanks to Shadow of the Erdtree. That much was expected, with it comfortably climbing into second on the most-played list, ahead of top free games including Dota 2 and PUBG, and even briefly topping Banana, but not quite reaching Valve stalwart Counter-Strike 2. With peaks across the weekend of around 780,000 concurrent players, the DLC has seen the playerbase shoot up from its 100,000 average in recent weeks.
That said, the launch peak on Steam in 2022 was a staggering 950,000, and while I’ve been constantly checking the numbers across the weekend hoping the DLC will crest one million, it hasn’t happened yet. We could still see a new peak for the RPG, but as the first weekend of Shadow of the Erdtree comes to a close it looks less likely – I’d love to be proven wrong, though.
The DLC is the global top seller right now though, even dethroning the ever-present Steam Deck, but I’m certain it’ll slowly drop down the list as fewer players finally venture into the Land of Shadow.
Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree fell to a ‘mixed’ Steam rating over the weekend as well, with players citing performance and balancing issues across the board. The main game still holds strong at ‘very positive,’ but the DLC hasn’t been nearly as fortunate.
FromSoftware isn’t making another Elden Ring DLC and is instead focusing on what’s next, which makes me wonder if the studio’s next project will reach the height of this success. As an open-world RPG, Elden Ring had colossal mainstream appeal, marrying FromSoftware’s penchant for a challenge with the most freedom of any of its games to date. This was a perfect storm, and while I don’t want the team to just do the same again for the sake of it, it does make me wonder where the next game will land.
All the best Elden Ring builds will help you get through Shadow of the Erdtree if you’re struggling, alongside all the Elden Ring Ashes of War in the base game and DLC to give you that much-needed backup.
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