Elden Ring player count soars following Shadow of the Erdtree release date reveal 

Last month, FromSoftware announced that the Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC will be launching on June 21. Since then, Steam has seen the number of concurrent Elden Ring players nearly doubling during peak hours. 

The announcement of Shadow of the Erdtree’s release date on February 22 was followed by a trailer reveal, including various new information about the long-awaited expansion. The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is set in the Land of Shadow, where Queen Marika descended. This is a brand-new map physically separate from the Lands Between, which features seamlessly connected fields and dungeons, allowing a high degree of freedom. The expansion will also introduce new bosses, weapons and game mechanics. 

The announcement of the release date appears to have triggered a sudden spike in Elden Ring’s player base. While the daily peaks of concurrent Elden Ring players were around 70k to 100k during the holiday season, the number had been hovering around 50k before the holiday season and went back to similar ranges from late January. However, after details about theDLC were revealedon February 22, player counts suddenly spiked, reaching a peak of approximately 112k players on March 3 (SteamDB). The player base has nearly doubled compared to past periods, attesting to the impact of the upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree expansion. 

Several media interviews with Elden Ring’s director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, were published following the announcement. According to Miyazaki, the Land of Shadow, where the DLC takes place, is not connected to the main game’s field, and can be accessed by teleportation (Source: Famitsu). The player must defeat Starscourge Radahn and Mohg, Lord of Blood from the main storyline, and find the entrance, which is a withered arm hanging from a large broken cocoon located in Mohgwyn Palace. 

The fact that a specific level of progression in the base game is needed to enter the DLC area could be part of what caused the sudden spike in players. Furthermore, Miyazaki has revealed in an interview with Eurogamer that the expansion’s difficulty level is close to that of the base game’s later sections, and that it will even include bosses equal in difficulty to Malenia, Blade of Miquella, which means that some serious warming up is in order. 

In an interview with IGN, Miyazaki also suggested that there are a few secrets in Elden Ring that have yet to be discovered by players – which caused a good number of users to rush off to do some treasure hunting. This could be yet another factor contributing to Elden Ring’s recent player count rise. 

Although it has been two years since its release, Elden Ring has maintained a strong and consistent player base. Now, with the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion approaching, excitement for the title seems to be reigniting rapidly. 

The Elden Ring DLC “Shadow of the Erdtree” is scheduled for release on June 21 for the PC (Steam), PS4/PS5 and Xbox series X|S/Xbox One.   

Written by. Amber V based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date:
2024-03-05 13:59 JST)