The release date reveal of the Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree has fans playing the game again, as the player count has climbed over 70,000 since the trailer launch. Players are gearing up to journey across the Land of Shadow when the expansion launches on June 21, 2024.
This has led to fans making one major discovery regarding the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion in the game, and they think it points to the small detail that Game Director Hidetaka Miyazaki had said was missed by the players in the base game for around two years.
Fans Discover Shadow of the Erdtree Link in Elden Ring
Following the DLC trailer release, Elden Ring director and FromSoftware head Hidetaka Miyazaki said in an interview with IGN that even after two years and despite finding almost everything, players have still not managed to discover one “small element.”
Miyazaki had added that he was looking forward to the player discovering it, and this led to fans searching through every nook and cranny in The Lands Between to hunt for the small element. Now it seems like the hunt has come to an end as one player has discovered a hidden element that is directly linked to the upcoming expansion.
Reddit user Cudakid shared a post on the game’s subreddit saying that they have made a new discovery and wondered “how much of this was planned from the start.” The post showed the Candletree Wooden Shield, the small blue shield with the symbol of a tree painted on it that can be found behind a wall in the Sage’s Cave of the Altus Plateau region.
The description of the shield reads, “A tall, medium-sized wooden shield. Light for its size and easy to handle. Thought to represent a surreptitious prophecy of cardinal sin, the lit candle-tree design was forbidden.” Fans think the Candletree symbol on the shield is the symbol of a faction in the Land of Shadow that has been missed by fans for this long.
How Is the Candletree Wooden Shield Connected to DLC?
Fans have spotted that the symbol on the Candletree Wooden Shield also appears in the DLC trailer when the big bad of the DLC, Messmer The Impaler, is shown, where he is surrounded by candles with enemies all around him. Players think that this is the symbol of Messmer’s faction, who will supposedly be the main villain in the expansion.
The player shared the images, comparing both the symbols from the game and the DLC trailer, and they look almost identical. Cudakid210 also said that the Candletree is described as a secret prophecy in the description of the shield and hints that Messmer was removed from the history of The Lands Between due to his cardinal sin.
Moreover, Miyazaki has also said that the DLC is from the original game lore created by R.R. Martin, so it’s clear that the Candletree in the game does have a significant connection to Shadow of the Erdtree. What are your thoughts about this discovery? Let us know in the comment section below.
