Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Edition - From Software [Xbox Series X Games]

Elden Ring is the latest brooding blockbuster by FromSoftware, the studio that brought us the diamond-hard Souls games, and, intriguingly, Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin. The game is set in the Lands Between, a world created by Dark Souls architect Hidetaka Miyazaki and Martin in which the Tarnished have inherited 'Lost Grace' from their ancestors.

 It's epic, baroque high fantasy on a vast scale, populated by towering and twisted demigods and bleak, forbidding landscapes rendered in a haunting, painterly style. It is, in other words, a grand action RPG in the Souls style that promises many a hard hour in its world. The Lands Between is a dense, open world riddled with vast dungeons and huge, multi-tiered castles across a range of different biomes and environments. They are, of course, all populated by grotesque (and brutal) new enemies all ready to dismember you.

As with the Souls games, you'll have a range of weapons and skills available to you, from old fashioned melee combat to spell casting to archery, with players able to build out their character however they see fit (and without being limited by class).

 While FromSoftware hasn't exactly dialled back the difficulty this time out, the studio has stacked the deck a little more in the player's favour. Elden Ring's open world means that players have a little more agency in how they tackle challenges, with a range of combat options including a stealthier approach and easier access to help via online multiplayer.

This Shadow of the Erdtree Edition also includes the exact thing it sounds like it includes: the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, the biggest that FromSoftware has ever built. It will have them unravelling the mystery of this strange, dark world.