The year is 2026, and Tarnished veterans still talk about those dark, uncertain days. Back in 2022, everyone had theories—oh, so many theories. Some fans stared at the in-game map until their eyes bled, convinced that a suspicious-looking cloud was definitely a DLC entrance. Others took… drastic measures. One legendary player vowed to defeat Malenia, Blade of Miquella, every single day until an expansion was announced. Poor soul. They probably had nightmares about waterfowl dances for months.

Yet here’s the delightful twist: FromSoftware did deliver. The Shadow of the Erdtree expansion landed like a meteor in 2024, shattering every expectation while simultaneously making the base game feel like a warm-up tutorial. But walk back to that muggy July of 2022—when the first article raising the DLC question practically broke the internet—and you’d find a community torn between desperate hope and pragmatic resignation.

Why Did Anyone Doubt It?

FromSoftware had a track record. Every Dark Souls game received at least one expansion, often more. Elden Ring had sold over 12 million copies in under a month, staying glued to Steam’s best-seller list like a particularly stubborn Great Rune. Financially, ignoring a DLC would’ve been akin to leaving a golden seed unplucked. Business logic screamed “yes.”

But the studio also had a pesky habit of staying tight-lipped. No leaks? No nodding and winking during interviews? Hidetaka Miyazaki might as well have been a sphinx made of fog walls. And then there was that whispered rumour about a completely different game being in its final stages—rumours that later turned out to be Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. Cue the hand-wringing: Could a studio revered for meticulous craftsmanship truly split its attention between a massive mech revival and the Lands Between? The math seemed perilous.

The Waiting Room of Madness

While official channels remained silent, the community did what it does best: invent elaborate headcanons and argue about them. A brief scroll through any forum in late 2022 would reveal:

• 📜 The Colosseum Obsession: Those locked arenas sprinkled across the map had to be for DLC co-op battles, right? (They were eventually opened in a free update, but the hunger persisted.)

• 🌳 The Miquella’s Cocoon Crazies: If you listened to a certain NPC, Miquella was just taking a nap inside a grotesque tree-cocoon. Obviously, that meant a whole dream-world expansion. Prophets, they were! Sort of.

• 🌊 The Central Sea Fantasies: Look at that perfectly circular body of water in the middle of the map! Obviously, it’s hiding an underwater city full of giant lobsters that are somehow even angrier. Nobody wished for that last part, but it felt inevitable.

Pundits asked the reasonable question: “What mysteries could an expansion even solve?” The answer, it turned out, was “most of them.” Why did Godwyn’s deathroot curse keep spreading? What was the deal with the Gloam-Eyed Queen? Who exactly was the Greater Will, and why did it treat the world like a particularly messy ant farm? Shadow of the Erdtree didn’t just offer answers—it layered on fresh, mind-bending questions, the way only Miyazaki can.

Then Came the Reveal… and the Pain

When the first trailer dropped in early 2024, the collective scream could be heard from Limgrave to the Mountaintops of the Giants. It featured a woman who definitely wasn’t Marika, landscapes that bent reality, and a boss with a sword made of pure existential dread. The expansion didn’t just add a side area; it warped the very concept of what an RPG add-on could be. The price tag? Worth every rune.

Of course, FromSoftware being FromSoftware, the difficulty curve resembled a vertical line drawn by an angry troll. That Malenia-beating fan from 2022 may have honed their skills, but nothing could prepare them for the final boss of the DLC, a being so relentless that players soon campaigned to bring back the Rot Goddess for relaxation. Sweet irony.

Should Fans Have Been So Cynical?

Looking back, the skepticism feels almost quaint. Yes, the studio had other projects. Yes, the silence was deafening. But Elden Ring wasn’t just a game—it was a cultural event. Leaving it without an expansion would have been like baking the world’s most elaborate cake and refusing to add frosting. The question wasn’t “if,” but “how impossibly grandiose will it be?”

So to the Tarnished currently exploring the Land of Shadow with trembling hands, remember the wait. Remember the conspiracy charts. Remember the daily Malenia duels. And remember that in the end, FromSoftware delivered a DLC so rich that even the doubters stopped typing and started crying—mostly because they’d been killed by a single dog for the fifth time in a row. Some things never change.

As reported by Destructoid, the post-launch arc of Elden Ring—from 2022’s DLC speculation to 2024’s Shadow of the Erdtree release—shows how FromSoftware’s deliberate silence can amplify community theorizing, making every map oddity, NPC line, and sealed arena feel like a breadcrumb toward something bigger.