Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree has sold 5 million copies within the first few days of release

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree has sold more than 5 million copies in less than a week since the expansion was released. While the sales were expected to be huge for Shadow of the Erdtree, considering the surrounding hype and anticipation, it still surpassed what most fans might've expected from a FromSoftware DLC, in terms of sales figures.

With the game's recent DLC sales numbers, the base game of Elden Ring has sold over 25 million copies, which is more than the combined total of the entire Dark Souls Trilogy's lifetime sales. Suffice it to say, Shadow of the Erdtree has been a monumental success for both FromSoftware and publisher Bandai Namco.

Apart from selling incredibly well, the expansion received glowing praise from critics, making it the highest-rated DLC of all time, surpassing the previous record holder, The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine.

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Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree has made records within less than a week of its release

Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree expansion is easily the most profitable venture for FromSoftware so far, with none of their previous "Souls-borne" DLCs even coming close to its sales numbers. Although Shadow of the Erdtree received universal acclaim from reviewers ahead of its release, it did face some backlash from players, particularly on Steam.

Most complaints were aimed primarily at the game's performance issues on PC. However, some players were also critical of the game's steep difficulty curve, which is quite surprising given that FromSoftware games are known for their unforgiving difficulty, especially in DLCs.

Even the DLCs for FromSoftware's previous Souls-borne games, like Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3, have been incredibly challenging. So, given the base game of Elden Ring was already filled with difficult boss encounters like Godfrey, Maliketh, Radagon, and Malenia, Shadow of the Erdtree was expected to be quite challenging but also fair.

While the player reviews for the game did drop its rating on Steam to "Mixed," as of the time of writing this article, the Steam reviews for Shadow of the Erdtree are "Mostly Positive." Shadow of the Erdtree, much like the base game, offers a vast open world for players to explore, with a wide range of new weapon types to find and work into their existing builds.

Additionally, the DLC comes with more than 10 unique main story bosses and numerous optional bosses that can be encountered while exploring the Realm of Shadow. While the expansion's runtime is 30-40 hours, it can go up to 50 or more if you want to explore everything the new Shadow Realm has to offer.