I have written several posts about what I think might be in the Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. I will be honest with you–it’s all wild speculation. Well, most of it. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the blue-hooded woman is Roderika’s sibling (or maybe a friend, but I’m doubling down on sister),
I would love to see more of Roderika and since this DLC is widely considered to be outside the timeline of the base game, we don’t have to worry about that aspect. The ending for Roderika and Hewg is one of the most poignant storylines in the game. And, yes, there will be *spoilers* throughout this post.
In the base game, Roderika becomes like the adopted daughter of Hewg, the chained blacksmith. They sit across from each other. Roderika went to the Lands Between to be grafted, but she said she was too cowardly to do it.
Turns out she had a talent for spirit tuning–which means she’s the one who upgrades your spirit ashes. She learned under the tutelage of Hewg, who said he owed it to a spirit turner he once knew.
OH MY GOD.
It’s her mother, not her sister. The woman with the blue hood. And she’s the one who Hewg knew. Oh, please, please, please let that be the case! I would be so thrilled about that. Or maybe that blue-hooded figure is not related to Roderika, but is the woman Hewg once knew. I would be fine with that as well.
Hewg mentoered her and taught her all he knew. Then, as the game progressed, it became clear that he was not all there. He forgot things he should have known, which to me, signals that he had dementia. Roderika was worried about him as well. Then, I don’t remember exactly when, but I think after you beat the final boss, the Roundtable Hold goes on fire. which is very much a From thing. The safe area goes on fire when the story is done. Hewg won’t leave, and Roderika decides to stay by him.
This is in direct contrast to Gideon and Nepheli Loux. By the way, I always call her Nepheli Loux. I don’t know why because I don’t call anyone else out by all their names, but for her, it’s both names. Always. She is the best. Anyway, she was the adopted daughter of Gideon until she questioned him about an atrocity he committed, and he turned on her. That broke my heart because she was distrught and blamed herself, but it was all on Gideon.
Having the oddly uplifting ending of Hewg and Roderikka really heartened me. Yes, it’s still bleak. The Roundtable Hold was afire and he was losing his mind, but Roderika was determined to stay by his side.
So, yes. I want the blue-hooded lady to be Hewg’s friend. That would mean everything to me.
I do think there will be something with Roderika. Her story just does not feel done to me. Plus, From doesn’t do anything by accident. So the fact that there’s a blue-hooded (navy) woman casting Astel-like magic in the trailer means something.
I don’t want the DLC to be nails hard. I know I’m spitting in the wind with this one, though, because From always makes the DLCs harder than the main game. Miyazaki said that it was going to be Malenia levels of difficulty. She is widely considered the hardest boss in the game. Hell, in order to obtain access to the game, you have to beat a very difficult boss late in the game. You can get there relatively early via Varre’s questline, but I would not recommend it. If you do it the regular way–I’m not sure I have done it that way–but you use the same lift you use to get to the Mountaintop of the Giants to get there. You must have the Haligtree Secret Medallion in order to do so. Once you use it to open a secret pathway, you have to find the portal in a fucking snowstorm in order to get there. Yeah, that sounds like fun. I hate that area so much. I ran through it recently to see what I missed, and it turns out a lot because I was just hooning through it on my first go.
I love snow. I love snow more than almost anyone I know. But this area of the game, Cnosecrated Snowfield, is complete and utter bullshit. It’s constantly blowing snow, and it’s very reminiscent of the Frigid Outskirts of the third DLC of the second Dark Souls. That area was probably the most universally hated area of a From game before this game–even more so than the infamous Blighttown, which I didn’t hate tTHAT much, by the way. One reason people hated it so much was because it stuttered so badly when the game first came out. People were reporting 4 FPS. 4. Frames. Per. Second.
I played on the PC many years later when the mod DSfix (I believe it was called) was considered an integral part of the game. With it, the game ran at a steady 60 FPS and Blighttown wasn’t so bad. I actually had much more difficult with Sen’s Fortress, the area right after it, for very different reasons.
Anyway. The Consecrated Snowfield may not be the single worst area in any From game, but it comes very close. It’s what happnes when From buys their own hype. Let’s make it so difficult! With zero visibility! And all the hardest enemies! And, oh yeah, cliff edges you can’t see. That’s fun, right? I think it’s also a way for Miyazaki to show loyalty to the Dark Souls II team, who took a lot of shit for that game.
But, my god. I hate this area. I realized while I was playing my strength character that I have seven or so characters and most of them are stopped right before that area beacuse I hate it so much.
That’s not the point of this post, though. I know the DLC is going to be harder than fucking nails. There is not a single From DLC that I catually enjoyed while playing it for the first time. I expect that to be true for this DLC as well. It’s going to take time to grow on me.