Shadow of the Erdtree is already bringing Elden Ring players together before they’ve even accessed the expansion’s content. As a requirement to get into the DLC area, you must have defeated Starscourge Radhan and Lord Mohg, and generous folks are currently posting up outside of the latter’s arena to offer help in these trying times.
Just peering into the Elden Ring subreddit for a few moments revealed one such post of a player offering help. The user claimed just yesterday that they’d “be here all night to help people who need to defeat Mohg” ahead of Shadow of the Erdtree’s launch last night. The regrettably named, but nonetheless valiant, ‘Throbbing Uncle’ is offering more than just another sword to swing though. They also state that they’ll “heal you and die for you if I have to.” One comment under the post reads, “Man, you are why I love the souls community.”
A response to that comment linked to another subreddit called Beyond the Fog, which seems aimed at helping players find one another for help. Since the expansion dropped, and in the time immediately leading up to it, there’s been a notable uptick in posts looking for or offering assistance with Mohg. Unlike Radahn, who’s a fairly gimmicky boss that comes at about the midpoint of the game, Mohg is a certifiably difficult and optional fight closer to the end of the game. If I hadn’t already fought him back when Elden Ring launched, I’d also be relishing any help with the bastard.
This kind of behavior, as the earlier comment suggests, is actually pretty typical of the community that FromSoftware’s games have nurtured. When Elden Ring first launched, players got stuck on the immensely difficult boss fight against Malenia—the sibling of Shadow of the Erdtree’s central character. Though many, like myself, might’ve powered through with the use of some NPC summons, others benefitted from the grace of player Let Me Solo Her.
Let Me Solo Her has become the blueprint for advanced players across multiple kinds of games, but especially FromSoft titles. They put their summon sign down in front of Malenia’s boss arena and, as the name suggests, would insist on doing the fight for the player in need of help. They’d also do this without armor for extra flair, and though the player would go on to embrace chaotic challenge runs and some modest fame, the kernel for that all began as an earnest attempt to help the Elden Ring community.
Now it seems, players are keeping the spirit of Let Me Solo Her alive and assisting one another in order to clear Shadow of the Erdtree’s most difficult stipulation. Hopefully, folks continue lending one another a hand, because from the sounds of it, this expansion is unrelentingly brutal. When the game starts knocking people down, I really hope folks like Let Me Solo Her and our new line of Mohg haters are there to pick them back up.