The hotly anticipated Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, is coming out in a week with new weapons, bosses and dungeons in a vast new area. But even players who don't get the expansion will see some tweaks, as the base game is expected to get a free patch on June 20, the day before the DLC launches on June 21.
"The update includes bug fixes, balance adjustments and some new features," reads the official Elden Ring post on X. These mostly appear to be quality-of-life improvements to inventory management and more that everyone will enjoy. For instance, when new items are added to the inventory, they'll be labeled with an exclamation mark. There's also a new tab called "Recent Items" added to the tab bar at the top.Â
Summoning Pools, the statues that let you bring other players into your game, will be carried over into subsequent playthroughs (new game plus, or "NG+"), so you won't have to find them again. And you can individually enable and disable each summoning pool on the map menu, effectively allowing you to prevent players from entering your game in places you don't want.
Read more: Elden Ring DLC Preview: Tough Bosses, New Weapons and More Mystery
Finally, Elden Ring studio FromSoftware has added five new hairstyles to the game, which can be selected when creating your character or chosen in the middle of a playthrough using the Clouded Mirror Stand or when using Rennala's Rebirth feature.
That's only a handful of upgrades compared with the many additions coming with Shadow of the Erdtree. For $40, the DLC adds over 100 new weapons and eight new weapon categories, 10 major bosses and an unspecified number of legacy dungeons in an area roughly the size of Limgrave, the starting zone in Elden Ring.