It’s been a good run for The Witcher 3‘s Blood and Wine expansion. After eight years of topping the chart as the best-reviewed DLC of all time, Elden Ring has swooped in to inherit the crown with Shadow of the Erdtree. The game’s first and only DLC is now the highest-rated expansion to date, scoring a whopping 95 on Metacritic at the time of writing.
This marks a narrow victory over Blood and Wine‘s Metascore of 92, but CD Projekt Red is very much unbothered – quite the opposite, in fact. The studio is taking the broken streak in their stride, sending a congratulatory note to fellow developer FromSoftware.
“For the last eight years, The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine had the honour of being the best reviewed expansion for a role-playing game, but @ELDENRING gets to wear that crown now,” said CD Projekt Red on X/Twitter. “Congratulations to the entire team at @fromsoftware_pr on their stellar work!”
A stylish illustration was also included in the post, featuring Geralt defeating Mohg – an optional boss that needs to be defeated as part of the DLC’s prerequisites – with his signature silver sword. In a follow-up post, the Polish studio pieced together 16 screenshots of their staff taking on Mohg, which not only serves as a nice show of support for the industry, but showcases the spirit of community gaming.
The highly-anticipated Shadow of the Erdtree expansion was released on 21 June, a week after the base game sold over 25 million units worldwide. Featuring an unexplored region called the Land of Shadow, it traces Miquella’s path and adds a wealth of new content for players, including new weapons, items, bosses, and more. Expect to die a lot more this time round, for even Elden Ring veterans are struggling with an early boss. Godspeed, Tarnished.
As for The Witcher franchise, CD Projekt Red is currently ramping up development on The Witcher 4, codenamed Polaris. It will kick off a new trilogy in the series, joining two other games in the pipeline: a remake of the original game and a multiplayer spin-off.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
