Summary
Elden Ringis once again blowing up on Steam, having recorded over 766,000 concurrent players on the platform over the fourth weekend of June 2024. This massive popularity spike appears to be driven by the recent release ofElden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.
The game’s one and only expansion launched internationally on Friday, June 21. Just ahead of that debut,Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtreehad already made historyas the most critically acclaimed video game DLC ever produced. Specifically, its OpenCritic aggregate score currently sits at 94 (out of 100), with the expansion also boasting an impressive 98% reviewer recommendation rate.
Elden Ring Records Highest Concurrent Player Count on Steam Since March 2022
It didn’t take long for that historic level of critical acclaim to be matched by some impressive player figures, asElden Ringmanaged to hit 766,158 concurrent Steam players on June 23, according toSteamDB data. The last time that FromSoftware’s soulslike had a higher popularity peak on Valve’s platform was on July 30, 2025, 11 days following its widely celebrated release.Shadow of the Erdtreeis almost certainly the catalyst for this spike, asElden Ring’s already-resurging Steam player countincreased by 150% immediately following the expansion’s June 21 release.
Given how the action RPG hasn’t appeared on the Steam Top Sellers chart—which ranks revenue on a per-game basis—in recent days, it stands to reason that the majority of the people currently enjoyingElden Ringare returning players. That’s precisely whom the DLC caters to, as even the mere act of accessing it requires quite a bit of legwork that most people won’t complete until the endgame. Specifically,Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtreecan only be started by defeating Radahn and Mohg, the latter of whom is located in a well-hidden area of the Lands Between.
Despite managing to propel the game back to its launch month level of popularity,Shadow of the Erdtree’s early player impressions don’t match up with its immense critical acclaim. Specifically, the DLC currently sits at “Mixed” user reviews on Steam, based on nearly 28,000 player impressions. Looking at the contents of its negative reviews, many appear tobemoanElden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtreeas being too hard, particularly with regard to its bosses, which have often been described as “overtuned” and more frustrating than challenging.
Some PC players have also cited performance issues as the reason for rating the DLC negatively. Anyone who’s struggling with maintaining a stable frame rate in the Land of Shadow may want to try setting the game to run in a borderless window, which some player reports indicate performs better than the default fullscreen mode.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
WHERE TO PLAY
Shadow of the Erdtree is the first and only DLC expansion for FromSoftware’s groundbreaking Elden Ring. It takes players to a whole new region, the Land of Shadow, where a new story awaits the Tarnished.
