It’s great indeed. I just think the scaling mechanic they introduced was a miss, but it isn’t a big deal.

There is only one N in the word “ring”. Sry for the nitpick

On the topic of exploration, world design, story… basically everything except combat, it’s fantastic. Everything Elden Ring is, but better. Which is par for the course for FromSoft DLC.

On the topic of combat (boss combat in particular) it’s also everything Elden Ring is, but intensified. Which is rather disappointing for me, they’ve amplified some of the worst aspects of Elden Ring’s combat: the speed, the combo chaining, the utter lack of response windows… I can’t tell if they’re trying to cater to hitless runners, or they’re trying to start an arms race with hitless runners. Either way, I’m already seeing some long time FromSoft fans, end even Elden Ring fans, feeling alienated. People who don’t have the skill or can’t invest the time to learn to play like a hitless runner. A minority of them, for sure, but it’s a trend I hope gets rectified in the future.

The difficulty scaling mechanic is definitely interesting, I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. There was one very valid point someone else made that it makes the combat and boss fights feel somewhat pointless, since the runes you earn don’t actually help you in DLC-land. I wonder if just make a whole separate type of “shadow runes” specific to the Realm of Shadow would have been a better choice.