Elden Ring’s upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree expansion is less than two weeks from its June 21 release date — so if you want to play it immediately upon launch, you’ll want to get to work now. That’s because there are some requirements to play Shadow of the Erdtree. You don’t need to have completed the game, but you do need to have beaten two specific bosses to enter Shadow of the Erdtree’s Shadow Realm: Starscourge Radahn and Mohg, Lord of Blood.
“Friendly PSA for all those looking forward to #ELDENRING Shadow of the Erdtree,” publisher Bandai Namco posted to X. “You have less than 2 weeks to prepare!”
Don’t fret if you aren’t fully prepared; you can take comfort in the fact that there are plenty of people right there with you. Each of these bosses has an achievement tied to them: Shardbearer Radahn and Shardbearer Mohg, respectively. By tracking those achievements on each platform, we can see the percentage of people who are — and aren’t — ready for Shadow of the Erdtree. Let’s break down the numbers.
Shardbearer Radahn
- Windows PC via Steam — 54.5% of players have the achievement, so roughly 45% of people haven’t beaten the boss
- PlayStation 5 — 46.6% of players have the achievement, so around 53% of people have yet to beat Radahn
- Xbox Series X — 32.8% of players have this achievement, so roughly 67% of players need to beat Radahn
Shardbearer Mohg
- Windows PC via Steam — 38.7% of people have the achievement, so around 61% of people still need to beat Mohg
- PlayStation 5 — 34.7% of people have the achievement, so around 65% of people haven’t beaten the boss
- Xbox Series X —22.8% of players have this achievement, so around 77% of players need to beat Mohg
Xbox players have a lot of catching up to do! There are likely a whole bunch of people who haven’t beaten either boss, which makes the task even harder. But on average, 55% of players still need to beat Radahn, while an average of 68% of players still need to take on Mohg.
Of course, these numbers are likely a little skewed by people who bought the game but barely played it; on Steam, just 77.8% of people reached Elden Ring’s Roundtable Hold, which is basically the player hub. We can assume that the 22% of Steam players who stopped before reaching the Roundtable Hold probably won’t pick up Shadow of the Erdtree — or, maybe, it’ll be their welcome back to the world.
There’s very little in Elden Ring that’s easy, so if you’re looking for help in your Shadow of the Erdtree prep, head over to Polygon’s Starscourge Radahn and Mogh, Lord of Blood guides.
