Elden Ring is one of the most popular role-playing games of recent years. It rarely happens that a developer like Bethesda fails to capture its audience. FromSoftware, which is popularly known for making games for a very niche audience, gets to be the big winner. The success of Elden Ring is such that publisher Bandai Namco didn’t take long before greenlighting a DLC.
This DLC called Shadow of the Erdtree keeps evading fans everywhere. There’s no release date; there’s not even a teaser for it from the developers as of yet. But one thing that’s not lacking at all is speculation. And the latest part of it is pretty interesting indeed.
Has FromSoftware turned Shadow of the Erdtree into Elden Ring 2?
It’s not uncommon for a developer to start working on a DLC for their game and end up having to release it as a standalone title. Volition did it with Saints Row 4, one of 2023’s biggest hits. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom also started life as a DLC before developers realized it was getting too big and decided to turn it into a sequel.
Hence, it would not be a surprise if FromSoftware does the same for Shadow of the Erdtree too. Not releasing it as a new game, but releasing it as a DLC, giving fans a brand-new story that could easily be sold as a sequel. FromSoftware is known to give their fans their money’s worth too. A Redditor suggested something similar, and they might now be wrong.
FromSoftware’s Hidetaka Miyazaki built a huge world in collaboration with Game of Thrones writer George R. R. Martin. They are both insanely awesome at building very detailed worlds with very deep backstories. George R. R. Martin had even mentioned once that they had developed thousands of years’ worth of lore for this IP. This means that FromSoftware has no shortage of stories to tell. It appears the Lands Between will continue to challenge gamers for years to come.
Knowing all this and seeing how long FromSoftware is actually taking to develop a single DLC, it would not be wrong to expect something huge. Maybe they are indeed telling the story of Miquella; maybe he shows his form in the DLC, and maybe he somehow takes players before the time Godwyn died.
After all, FromSoftware is infamous for playing with the passage of time in their DLCs. They did something similar with Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne; in both of these games, players find themselves in the past.
What is the real sequel to Elden Ring, though?
While Shadow of the Erdtree would definitely launch eventually, fans would know how big or small it was. But what of the real sequel to this massive game? It appears fans would be waiting a long time before they see a follow-up to Elden Ring, given the fact that Elden Ring took close to five years to develop, and FromSoftware usually alternates between projects.
This means Elden Ring 2 might not be an immediate priority for them as of yet, but it would still come. Namco has already announced it as an invaluable IP. It would be interesting to see how things unfold though as the lore of Elden Ring is pretty compelling, it will always be exciting to know more and more about it. At least the Shadow of the Erdtree would be launching pretty soon, There have already been a bunch of leaks regarding the same. All that remains is for FromSoftware to show its trailer and announce a launch date.
