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I am lost in Elden Ring. And not in a romantic, figuratively speaking, 'getting lost in a good book'-type way either. I literally don't know where I am – a predicament I did not expect to be in before the arrival of official Elden Ring DLC. Like many of you, I've spent literally hundreds of hours combing the desolate plains of the Lands Between, to the point where I think I now know the placement of just about every one of its nooks, crannies, and skeleton-ridden dungeons. In this instance, I think I might be in the Capital Outskirts, judging by the location of the Erdtrees lighting up the darkness, but that's just a guess because it's after nightfall and I can't see two feet in front of my face.
This isn't official Elden Ring DLC, but is instead Grimrukh's Survival Mode – a brilliant overhaul mod for PC that introduces a host of survival mechanics, including hunger, thirst, temperature, disease, a weapon-crafting tree, and darker, positively terrifying nights. I've already penned an Elden Ring DLC wishlist that details everything I'd love to see from an expansion whenever it lands, but, honestly, Survival Mode is doing more than enough to tide me over in the meantime.
Survive the night
Elden Ring has secret fight clubs that offer no end of challenge and spectacle
It's not until I stumble into a dungeon that I realise I am, indeed, in the Capital Outskirts, having taken an inadvertent tumble from higher ground while mounted on my magical steed, Torrent. They too have sadly been nerfed by virtue of Survival Mode, making my offence in the darkness much less aggressive. The fact that I must craft items to fight hunger and thirst, and also protect myself against temperature effects, gives Survival Mode a Zelda Breath of the Wild-like feel, while doing everything you can to outlast the night gives off strong Minecraft, Terraria, and The Long Dark vibes.
Of course, the nightmarish beasts that roam the Lands Between make everything so much more horrifying – something made even scarier by the fact that this mod's weapons tree means weapons can no longer be found out in the wild, nor bought from merchants. Instead, each tool must be crafted from new materials and other "base" weapons, of which there are scant few. To make matters worse, disease is a constant threat as you roam each plague-ridden plain, which makes foraging for craftable cure recipes absolutely essential.
Fold in the fact that passing time increases your hunger and thirst, stamina is lost when prolonged periods are spent out in the cold, and the fact that item drop rates have been slashed across the board, and you really do have your work cut out for you making it through one single night in the Lands Between, never mind a full questline. Suddenly, Elden Ring's main bosses, and the dastardly routes to them, become secondary – with you instead scavenging for supplies in all corners of the map in order to eat, drink, craft armour, and/or cure whichever disease you've found yourself stricken with for the umpteenth time.
Given the unprecedented success of Elden Ring, DLC in some shape or form is, surely, inevitable at this point. Given the timelines that previous FromSoftware games have kept to, most notably the Dark Souls series, I'm somewhat surprised the developer hasn't revealed or even teased something in official terms yet – because while the game might only have launched in February, Dark Souls 3 revealed its Ashes of Ariandel DLC five months to the day after the base game's release. Similar timelines apply to Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, and Bloodborne, and you'd have to assume that FromSoftware knows where it's going next with its most successful project to date.
Survive the day
"Can you risk taking the shortest route to your goal knowing you're ill-equipped and might end up with hypothermia? Is it even worth going out at all after dark, even with a torch?"
I'd love to see something that explores the story of Melania's cursed brother Miquella a bit deeper whenever official DLC does land, but, in all honesty, Survival Mode is so good that I'm now in no rush to launch into something new. By simply plunging us into darkness at night, the Lands Between suddenly feels fresh and unexplored. Elden Ring in its vanilla state is hardly what you'd call a forgiving game, but Survival Mod's ultra-punishing mechanics lend every decision an extra layer of weight.
Is it worth taking on those enemies to access that chest, knowing you might wind up wounded and spend the next two hours hunting for medicine? Can you risk taking the shortest route to your goal knowing you're ill-equipped and might end up with hypothermia? Is it even worth going out at all after dark, even with a torch? The thought of these questions alone is making me anxious.
All of which is of course testament to the quality of Grimrukh's work (with additional help from Souls modders Jan Zielasko, Thens, and King Bore). With 377 weapon crafting recipes, and scores of health and status boosting items, not to mention hunger, thirst and the subtle but sophisticated tweak of plunging the Lands Between into total darkness overnight, Survival Mode really turns Elden Ring on its head, to the point where it straddles strange ground – it's familiar because you know this world well by now, but it's also totally alien given the aforementioned changes, and that in itself is disconcerting. Grimrukh has proven his prowess for these types of game-changing projects with Dark Souls Nightfall, an in-progress total conversion mod for the first Dark Souls game that turns Lordran upside down in a similar way.
Grimrukh says that with Survival Mode now released into the wild, updated to v1.5, and with the project's source code now available for all players to bend and break to their every whim, he's firmly returned to work on Nightfall. And suddenly, I suspect I won't be alone when I myself make a firm return to Dark Souls' Lordran. Who needs Elden Ring DLC anyway?
Fancy a change of pace from the Lands Between? Here are the best games like Elden Ring out now.
