Shadow of the Erdtree echoes the original Dark Souls in several ways. For me, that's a boon; it's a huge reason why I liked it so much. Give me a tightly wound map with areas stacked on top of each other and I'm fully in. But as frustration over the DLC's difficulty continues to be the talking point—which prompted FromSoftware to issue a patch this week to ease the challenge a bit—it's clear that not everyone wanted or even expected Elden Ring to go full Dark Souls.
And I think that's the problem: Much of Elden Ring's success comes from its wide open world and the number of ways you can approach combat in it. Shadow of the Erdtree squeezes everything into a denser map, has fewer dungeons and miscellaneous items, and doesn't warn you in big neon lights that your character is significantly weaker than even the regular enemies in the Land of Shadow. It's an abrupt shift from the pacing of the original game—which many players likely haven't touched for two years—and the smaller scale funnels you toward its main dungeons faster.
