Shadow of the Erdtree is gonna get easier. Bandai Namco has seemingly heard the great hue and cry from reviewers and players alike that Erdtree is far too difficult. In response, the publisher is implementing a “calibration update” that will reduce the level of difficulty by making players stronger. According to the patch notes for this update:

The attack and damage negation has been increased for the first half of the maximum amount of blessing enhancements, and the second half will now be more gradual.

The attack and damage negation granted by the final level of Blessing enhancements has been slightly increased.

The key to understanding this update is the Scadutree Fragments. They are DLC-specific upgrade materials that increase a player’s attack and defense. The fragments are scattered throughout the map, requiring considerable exploration to find, but the increased power they grant makes them a high-priority resource.

There are 20 tiers of Scadutree Blessings in the game. The calibration update will increase the power granted by the first 10 levels, while the power granted by the second 10 will taper off a bit. This means players in the first part of the DLC should see a sharper increase in power, making the early game bosses (including the dreaded Rellana) a bit easier. Finally, the last blessing will also get a buff ostensibly to help out those struggling against the brutal final boss. I’ll not name that boss here because it’s too soon for a spoiler like that, but rest assured, such a buff is warranted.

There’s a second note in the update dealing with a bug related to ray tracing settings. Loading a previous save from a previous version of the game might automatically enable ray tracing. The notes suggest that if you have issues with your frame rate, check to see if ray tracing has been turned on accidentally.

Erdtree’s difficulty has been dominating the discussion of the DLC. Game director Hidetaka Miyazaki himself said that the difficulty level is intentional, and lowering it could potentially “break the game.” Some players, streamers, and reviewers have countered that even for a Soulsborne game, it’s a little too much. There are even mods that artificially lower the difficulty, including one that halves all incoming damage bearing the unfortunate name of “journalist mode.”

Hopefully, this little buff will squash the difficulty discourse but will probably serve only to exacerbate it, as now there will be a class of players who can gloat that they beat the game before the nerf... like game journalists.