With only a month until release day, there’s a new story trailer for Shadow of the Erdtree, and the Elden Ring lore hounds have their work cut out for them.
FromSoftware has been slowly teasing Shadow of the Erdtree and its story beats ever since the gameplay trailer was released back in February. All we knew then was the DLC would take place in the Land of Shadow and feature a bunch of new horrors straight from the slightly warped imagination of game director Hidetaka Miyazaki.
This new Land of Shadow was connected somehow to Miquella — the dude in the egg with the withered arm. The trailer mentions him prominently, giving the impression we’ll learn more about him, his connection to the Land of Shadow, and what events led him to abandon the place to its fiery fate.
Speaking of fiery fate, the trailer also spends its short runtime on Messmer, the red-haired hottie with the snakes who seems like he’ll be the DLC’s final boss. (Although you never can tell with FromSoftware games. Once you think you’ve beaten the final boss, some cosmic entity arrives and blows up your last flask of healing.) Messmer is apparently responsible for the great purge of the Land of Shadow, and I’m curious to know why.
The story trailer was short and light and cryptic, as FromSoftware stories tend to be. I’m looking forward to the hours of YouTube deep dives I’ll digest as creators (shout out to Iron Pineapple) extrapolate the deepest of lore from the smallest of moments. Shadow of the Erdtree launches on June 21st on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.
