WASHINGTON DC (WVNS) – Elden Ring, the videogame which won Game of the Year in 2022, is confirmed to be getting an expansion in the near future.
Elden Ring, which released in February of 2022 and just celebrated its one-year anniversary, was one of the most highly awarded games of all time, winning 324 separate Game of the Year awards. This beats the previously held record held by The Last of Us Part 2’s 322 awards in 2020.
The game also managed to sell 20 million copies by the end of 2022, according to an announcement from its publisher and supported by Statista data throughout the year. That is an impressive amount for a game like Elden Ring – a single-player, story driven game with no live service qualities.
Elden Ring was developed by From Software and published by Bandai Namco studios. The most recent news surrounding the game came just after its one-year anniversary on February 28, 2023. In a tweet made by From Software, a brand new expansion to the game was announced.
Rise, Tarnished, and let us walk a new path together.
— ELDEN RING (@ELDENRING) February 28, 2023
An upcoming expansion for #ELDENRING Shadow of the Erdtree, is currently in development.
We hope you look forward to new adventures in the Lands Between. pic.twitter.com/cjJYijM7Mw
There is little more concrete information from the studio as of yet, and speculation from multiple gaming news outlets is rampant. All this leaves fans of the game with is a name, and confirmation that downloadable content (DLC) is coming. The game’s official Japanese site confirms that Shadows of the Erdtree will be coming to all versions of the original game: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC via Steam, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Most videogames published today are living games. Because of prevalence of digital games that no longer come from a disc or cartridge and can be downloaded directly to consoles, games are easier to tweak. This means that nearly every videogame made today features updates that come out after the initial release of the game.
From Software is no stranger to this trend either. Their previous games, most from the Dark Souls Series of games, all had some form of DLC.
The games’ DLCs released as follows:
- Dark Souls I:
- Original Release: September 22, 2011 First DLC Release: October 23, 2012
- Dark Souls II:
- Original Release: March 11, 2014 First DLC Release: July 22, 2014
- Dark Souls III:
- Original Release: March 24, 2016 First DLC Release: October 24, 2016
- Bloodborne:
- Original Release: March 24, 2015 First DLC Release: November 24, 2015
- Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice:
- Original Release: March 22, 2019 First DLC Release: October 29, 2020
With Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice being the outlier, it stands to reason that DLC for Elden Ring can be expected on a similar timeline to the previous games released by From Software. Speculation aside, that means that the Shadows of the Erdtree expansion could release in 2023. Until then, fans of the game are free to speculate.
