FromSoftware drops another story trailer for Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC—giving us a glimpse at the fiery rampage that made Malenia's golden boy flee the Lands Between

Harvey Randall
·2 min read
A tarnished kneels before a glowing holy symbol in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.
A tarnished kneels before a glowing holy symbol in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.

Come, ye weary tarnished! FromSoftware has dropped another trailer for its long-awaited Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, which you can go ahead and set your hollowed eyes on right now. Maybe with a pair of shades handy, because everything's a little on fire and I don't want you to hurt your eyes.

The trailer itself—a gorgeous cinematic filled with beautiful character designs, goosebumps-prompting music and glossy 3D renders, details how the "tyranny of Messmer's flame" prompted a war that saw Miquella (of whom Malenia is infamously the blade) abandon his "golden flesh, his blinding strength, even his fate. But we are not deterred. We choose to follow."

Several of the freaky boss monsters and enemies from the earlier trailer make an appearance here, too, such as the Chinese Lion Dance-inspired freak and the giant burning wicker man—there's a couple of those, actually, marching over the scorched landscape, which makes me very concerned we'll have to fight multiple.

I'm honestly just happy for the Elden Ring enjoyers among us living in a golden age of new details after the well had stayed dry for months. Announced early last year, Shadow of the Erdtree quickly gave rise to a sea of speculation and, well, desperation as the months ticked on with nary a peep from father FromSoftware.

Such was entirely in-keeping with the studio's tight lips, though, the silence only broken almost a whole year later when an actual trailer broke with a release date, making it all but the sole reason for a week's delay to Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail. In fact, something similar happened with the base game itself, which took such a merry roundabout route to its later release that "going hollow" became common parlance for waiting an eternity for game news among soulslike enjoyers.

And now we're here with a fresh batch of frames to comb through one-by-one. I'm personally looking forward to all the off-the-wall theories about just what Miquella's motives were before travelling to the Land of Shadow. Maybe they had better wi-fi there, who's to say.