One of the first landmarks you’ll come across in Shadow of the Erdtree is a tall, brilliantly shining cross. Intersected at its peak by a thin crescent — most likely a representation of the Golden Order, the dark fantasy world’s ruling theocracy — it feels bluntly referential to saints and prophets and resurrections.

Shadow of the Erdtree, an expansion of the commercially successful, critically adored and deviously demanding action role-playing game Elden Ring, wants to know whose faith matters. And whether having the kind of blind faith required to follow a mysterious lord into unknown lands is a good thing after all.

Expansions of FromSoftware games tend to be steep-walled gauntlets, meant to provide a heightened challenge for players. Shadow of the Erdtree is no different. You will be tested. Your faith in your abilities, your belief in yourself, will be stretched to its limit.

You will need to trust, against facts and experiences, that you can take on enemies who would readily stomp you, that you can persevere against this new crop of knights, monsters and freaks, most of whom far exceed in rigour even the most demanding of Elden Ring’s late-game enemies.

The big bag of tricks I had gathered in Elden Ring felt largely useless against this new tier of adversaries, who casually shrugged off my fully upgraded spear tips and carefully honed sword edges. Collecting Scadutree fragments, an expansion-specific resource, grants you a much-needed boost in power.

There is a tension at the heart of most FromSoftware games, ever since Demon’s Souls. We are offered beautiful, awe-inspiring worlds, full of scenes of tenderness and melancholy. But these worlds also happen to be dreadful and largely inhospitable. We are trespassers in them and we must bite and claw our way to each breathtaking vista, to look out onto the misty valleys and craggy peaks ahead, doubtlessly full of terrifying nightmares all ready to tear us to bits.

As interlocutors to this grim spectacle, we must weigh our faith in ourselves — in our desire to see things through to the end — against the faith of a fresh cast of characters, all devoted to some extent to their newfound saint Miquella. Because of our past forays, these knights have long been vassals without lords.

In Christ-like fashion, Miquella has given up his own living form and ascended to a more heavenly position. The crosses throughout a bizarre realm wreathed in shadow mark sites where he has shed his flesh. But rather than commune with Marika, his deified mother, Miquella wants to escape the strictures and expectations of her Golden Order.

Shadow of the Erdtree naturally carries over many of the things that made Elden Ring such a hit: a profound sense of scale and depth; remarkable challenges that make exploration feel tense and exciting; and stunning visual arrangements of architecture and nature.

But this expansion also has something the original game lacked. While still very much an open world, with fields to gallop across and deep canyons and caves to plunge into, Shadow of the Erdtree bends toward the layer-cake-like level design of the original Dark Souls.

What might seem like a regular hill, green with shrubbery, stones and moss, is quickly revealed to be the very top layer of a mazelike ruin dug deep into the earth. A bottomless and impassable canyon is rarely how it first appears.

One memorable area involves finding your way through previously flooded districts, past hidden doors and beyond unassuming statues. It can feel more like the spatial puzzle game Myst than a hack-and-slash adventure.

That being said, Shadow of the Erdtree is full of violent conflict. The boss fights are often magnificent and quite memorable, especially in their inevitable second stages. You’ll be aided, more often than not, by one of the Miquella faithful, who often add a nice narrative layer to the battle by dropping angry lines before courageously rushing forward.

This is where my faith in my ability to make it to the end was tested. As an expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree wants to make things challenging enough for the fiercely dedicated fan base, the kinds of people who will spend hours analysing perfect builds or figuring out how many frames of invincibility you get based on the weight of armour.

If you’re the agnostic type, if you’re here to just take in the sights, it will probably be a long time before you’re ready to enter that final arena.

Maybe you won’t want to match your faith against Miquella’s after all. Maybe you’ll see the tests laid out ahead and think better of it. That’s fine too. There is nothing wrong with leaving the faithful to their devotion while moving on to greener, less shadowed pastures.

NYTNS