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WithElden Ring’s upcoming DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, now with a firm release date (July 16, 2025), the wait is (finally) almost over! With the recent trailer drop, quite a bit of information has released to accompany it, including a unique approach to scaling the combat difficulty in the DLC. In a recentFamitsu interview(translationhere), Hidetaka Myazaki — the game’s director and FromSoftware’s President — mentioned Shadow of the Erdtree will be using an attack power scaling system similar to the one found inSekiro: Shadows Die Twice. At first blush, I had mixed feelings about this revelation.
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While I absolutely adore Sekiro and can’t wait for FromSoftware to iterate further on its lightning-fast, rhythm-action combat, it’s simply not an RPG. While Elden Ring features complex and varied build opportunities utilizing its array of eight primary stats, Sekiro didn’t include stats or build variety — it’s a straight-up action game, focusing specifically on quick combat with flurry of parries and some powerful special abilities. It handles growing more powerful differently; rather than allocating some form of Souls across a stat array, it utilizes “Memories” to enhance your attack power. After defeating major bosses, they drop these Memories, which you can then bring to a meditation point and consume in order to raise your Attack Power. A simple system, though perfect for a game as focused as Sekiro. In a game with more complex build options like Elden Ring, that system just doesn’t seem to gel. After reflecting on it more, however, the move to integrate Sekiro’s Attack Power scaling into your relative “power level” for the DLC is actually genius.
Leveling The Playing Field
FromSoftware’s DLC is traditionally viewed as containing some of their most creative levels and most brutal boss fights. Ever since the original Dark Souls released Artorias of the Abyss in 2012, FromSoft has nurtured their reputation of delivering their best — and most challenging — content. All the way through the Ringed City DLC for Dark Souls 3, FromSoftware has continued this trend of crafting their best boss encounters with which to truly test their players' limits. It stands to reason that Shadow of the Erdtree will continue this tradition. But with a game as vast as Elden Ring, the gulf between player level is undoubtedly vast. Though certainly difficult, players can and have finished the game without leveling up at all, and while level 150 is considered the kind of ‘optimal’ level for the end game, many players have undoubtedly leveled far beyond that point — some to max out their favorite stats, while others (myself included) continue leveling simply to bring all of their stats to an ‘optimal’ range, allowing for equal access to the game’s countless build options.
This begs the question: how does one balance the DLC for a game as vast and ambitious as Elden Ring? The answer, it seems, is to adopt Sekiro’s Attack Power system. When asked about any potentially new or unique mechanics coming arriving with Shadow of the Erdtree, Hidetaka Miyazaki had this to say:
Think of the attack power system in Sekiro. Separate from the original level system, there is an “attack power” that is only enabled in the DLC areas. This was introduced in order to give freedom to meet the threats mentioned earlier, so you can do something like exploring other areas before going back to challenge bosses that were too strong the first time, allowing you to more easily experience this even in the high-level range.
Rather than relying on your character’s stats as the end-all-be-all for your overall effectiveness, this attack power scaling system will make it so your apparent strength in the DLC isn’t determined just by your base game stats, and so keeps players from being overpowered in the DLC areas. This change is a stroke of genius, and one that I expect we’ll see implemented in all of FromSoftware’s future DLC.
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Just How Similar To Sekiro Will It Be?
Details on exactlyhowthis scaling system will work are slim, but there are some clear ways this might be implemented.
FromSoftware wouldn’t want to remove the usefulness of actually investing in your combat stats, so it will need to be something that complements your strategic stat investment, not overrides it. Also, due to the variety of stat builds, the system would need to be able to accommodate players who crafted aQuality build(Strength and Dex equally leveled) just as well as other types of builds, like a sorcerer with sky-high Intelligence for castingdevastating sorceries, or someone with a more spread-out focus to take full advantage of a unique weapon like theSword of Night and Flame.
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What This Could Mean For Future Games
Coming from any other developer, I might be more concerned at the specifics of exactlyhowthey’ll pull this off, but I have full confidence in FromSoftware’s game design acumen. If they’re happy with the system they’ve settled on, I fully expect it to be an elegant solution to avoid players entering the DLC way overleveled.
The fact that it is unique to the DLC is also a smart move, as it prevents players from skipping ahead to DLC content, growing immensely powerful with this new Attack Power mechanic, then returning to the base game even more overpowered. Should this new mechanic work well, which I’m fully confident it will, it really does seem like the right path forward for future FromSoftware Soulsborne games.
As much as I’d love to somehow see it integrated into a base game, I think it would conflict too strongly with the more freeform stat approach that FromSoftware RPGs utilize. Abandoning those stats entirely in favor of an Attack Power system would be a bridge too far for many of their fans, as it would inevitably strip away some of those core RPG features that players expect from these games. Perhaps there’s some sort of middle ground, like if stats like Strength, Dex, and Intelligence contributedsometo attack power, but they primarily functioned as meeting certain weapon or spell prerequisites, while a Sekiro-style Attack Power system made up the bulk of direct damage output, regardless of stat investment.
The Attack Power mechanicdoesmake for an extremely effective power ramp, as it ensures you are always growing more powerful specifically after meeting certain thresholds. Icouldsee some version of this Attack Power system integrating into future games as a core mechanic, but it would require an even defter hand. Perhaps Shadow of the Erdtree is FromSoftware’s testbed for that very thing — to help determine if this mechanic works as intended, and to see how players respond to it.
Either way, I can’t wait to find out for myself when Shadow of the Erdtree releases on all platforms later this year on June 17, 2025. With new lore, new weapons, areas to explore, and bosses to defeat, it’s certain to dominate my Summer.
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