Call & Response: Bonfireside Chat: Shadow Keep
Added 2024-11-14 06:17:07 +0000 UTCHey folks! It's time to write in with your responses on Shadow Keep in Elden Ring. The relevant areas are Shadow Keep and Specimen Storehouse. Submit your response as a comment on this post! As always, keep some guidelines in mind.
Keep your responses and stories specific to Shadow Keep
Please keep your responses brief. Think two short paragraphs, or around 200 words.
Specificity is preferred over generalities.
We tend to get a lot of responses, so please don't feel bad if we omit your response, or edit it for length.
The deadline is the end of the day, Monday, November 18th.
Comments
I entered the keep from the east plains entrance thinking this was the critical path, missing the hippo boss man and boy was I unprepared for those heat seaking fire snakes. It was a rude awakening when that first fire knight appeared over the peak of that roof and kind of disappointed me from there on - for an enemy so cool it's a shame that their so annoying and their item drop rates are so low. Although my favourite item description in the dlc is the description for Salza's hood - "A prodigious amount of cloth wound around it, giving the impression of a greatly swollen head, and wearing it increases intelligence." Favourite From soft trope is big head = smart. I will once again ask - any notable fucked up little dudes/guys for the area?
•i s a a c•
2024-11-18 10:15:16 +0000 UTCI found it amusing to discover that Messmer was: A - not the main boss of the DLC by any means, following how prominently he had featured in the trailer B - that his room is presaged in such a inauspicious way. You just happen upon it really, and it's off in a little unassuming corridor in the west wing of the Keep I wonder if that was the intention, i.e. to play him down?
Charlie Frame
2024-11-17 20:59:22 +0000 UTCIt took me so long to find both Messmer and the area where they're experimenting on the jars in the Specimin Storehouse. In fact the latter I only found after defeating Messmer and wondering "Okay now what?" I like to think I'm pretty methodical about exploring legacy dungeons, so to find out I'd missed a very obvious corridor right near the start of the Storehouse was a surprise to me. While I'm not 100% convinced SOTE is close to as good as the base game, I think Shadow Keep and the Storehouse are easily top-tier, and I really love how this enormous place can be approached multiple different directions and explored in so many different ways. The only thing that let it down was having to be a relay between Ansbach and Freyja. The whole quest was repetitive and hard to follow. Can't they just speak to each other?
Charlie Frame
2024-11-17 20:53:10 +0000 UTCLoved the Specimen Storehouse as someone who finished the base game and went “wtf, no archives level?”, but after discovering the main-gauche it triggered an entirely different complaint I have had about Elden Ring: As happy as I was to see powerstancing return, I was immensely disappointed to discover that I could only do it with paired weapons of the same type. As someone who typically makes a swashbuckling duelist archetype character in every game, I was wholly crushed that I was THIS close to having some of my favorite move sets (curved sword + thrusting sword, dagger + thrusting sword) but, alas, I had to settle for paired rapiers throughout my playthrough. I told myself that fromsoft must have had a good reason to create a reductive powerstance system to replace the beloved DS2 system and moved on. Then I found the main-gauche. In what was very likely the peak moment of the DLC for me, I finally had my rapier in my main hand and a parrying dagger in the off hand and I very cool and flowy dual wielding moveset. I was in heaven, but then the sense of betrayal set it. “You mean to tell me we could have had this the whole time???” To this day I still don’t really understand why the DS2 power stance system could not have been upcycled into Elden Ring, but the main-gauche gives me at least a sparkle of nostalgic joy for what once was.
MIKEISTKRIEG
2024-11-17 15:45:00 +0000 UTCVote for worst boss in the game goes to our good friend the Golden Hippo. Biggest disappointment from the trailer to the actual game too. I mean, what is this Wuzzle of a From boss? Not really a hippo at all. More like a porcupinoceros. Anyway, hated fighting Hippopocalypse for as long I did pre-patch, not realizing how optional he was. Bemused that he was nerfed the very morning after I finally beat him. If not for the scadufrags, i'd never fight him or his ilk again.
Matthew Bennett
2024-11-16 20:47:24 +0000 UTCThe Specimen Storehouse is when I realized how generous the DLC is with experience, and that the Golden Scarab is the best talisman in the game. I was rolling in runes here, and a few extra levels are always the best buff.
Joseph
2024-11-16 20:39:47 +0000 UTCI genuinely think the Fire Knights might be my least favorite new enemy in the DLC. Their near endless poise and annoying combos gave me flashbacks to the 2024 Lords of the Fallen and its insistence on reusing enemies who had way too much going on. Getting hit by Rain of Fire when I was so far from Salza that he hadn't even rendered in yet was the icing (firing?) on the cake for maximizing my frustration. It was a bizarre contrast to get past the final one guarding their leader, only for Messmer to feel like a far more reasonable and enjoyable experience. It brought to mind how Placidusax and Nameless King were both tough fights that still felt more fair and intentionally designed than the hardest non-boss encounters. I wonder how much combat testing these moment-to-moment areas get compared to the bigger spectacles. P.S. For some reason, Messmer's footsteps making the slap sound instead of something heavier was really distracting to me. I checked the description of his greaves, and it doesn't say what they're actually made of, so I can only assume he used metal texture spraypaint on some flip-flops.
Sid Menon
2024-11-16 01:04:41 +0000 UTCWho tf skips Ansbach to go talk to Freyja on a first playthrough? What’s up with that?!
Mateus Silva
2024-11-14 20:54:11 +0000 UTCEver since Demon’s Souls, I’ve been terrified of using the front door in these games. So I avoided Shadowkeep’s front gates, fearing an ambush or trickery, and eventually found the entrance to the Church district. I proceeded through a relatively short section, defeated Gaius, and began to explore elsewhere. All the while feeling quite disappointed in what was hyped as *the* dungeon for the DLC. It wasn’t until many hours later that I explored all I could elsewhere and checked the front gates on a whim, only to discover an incredibly intricate dungeon, and it quickly became one of my favorites. Perhaps I should have tried bravery to start!
Naveen Sivakumar
2024-11-14 17:39:22 +0000 UTCThe Fire Knight Hilde summon confirms exactly that: "Hilde was a dear friend to Salza the sage, and joined those who urged that the specimens be preserved." Salza is found guarding the Rauh ruins, and his armor says: "A disciple of the elder Wego, he refused to burn down an old ruin, at the risk of his own life."
Mystic Referee
2024-11-14 14:59:26 +0000 UTCI had a thought when I got to Shadow Keep that reminded me of a now-defunct rumor about an upcoming From software game called "Spellbound". I remember one of the earliest descriptions of this "leak" was that it took place inside of a large central area and had multiple open world areas around it. I found this interesting because this is kind of what Shadow Keep is like. It is an enormous dungeon with multiple entrances and exits that would facilitate that original leaked idea. So maybe it is possible Shadow Keep was a dry-run for that type of world OR the leaker did see stuff about shadow keep and suspected it was a new game. Would love to hear your thoughts!
Taylor Osbourne
2024-11-14 14:50:01 +0000 UTCI like to farm souls here quite a bit the combat in this level is super fun but I wish there was more to the lore here regarding the secret rite scroll and the ansbach/freyja quest. Would’ve been nice to be able read more of these books/notes like the little shiny lore notes in bloodborne. I got bamboozled by the gap in the bookshelf where you can see light shining through when I first came here took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to get in there. Best part of this area combat wise has to be smashing the little people into a bloody pulp with my chicken wing really gets my bloodlust activated. Worst part has to be endless fire knight dagger wombo combos.
Hurin
2024-11-14 14:42:54 +0000 UTCYeah it’s bizarre they left the message about the golem backstab and the notes in abyssal woods to hide from the lantern dudes. You’d think the ‘git gud’ studio would set up scenarios where you’re rewarded for figuring things out yourself. Wis vs the usual Dex challenges they make us solve.
Richard Bradshaw
2024-11-14 13:19:11 +0000 UTCEven after reading all the warnings about shadow keep, I still managed to break Miquella's rune, and a lot of the quest lines. How do you think Fromsoft could have telegraphed this better, without being too obvious? They're notorious for having opaque quest lines, but there are some bizarre "hand holdy" elements in the DLC, like the developers note in the forges. Also, not sure if I was the only one, but I definitely expected some of the specimens to come to life or that we'd have to fight some of the living versions of the specimens.
Eric
2024-11-14 12:47:02 +0000 UTCOne vibe I got from the specimen storehouse and what it represents (as a Brit) is the feeling of a conquering force reducing a culture to a bunch of stolen trinkets, a bit like the British Museum. My interpretation is that the war has gone on for so long, a need to understand their foe (or even a guilty conscious effort to retain a record of them) has come over Messmer. The masses of books are presumably writings on the hornsent culture, with people studying it despite the living culture on their doorstep. This is another way they show an oppressive force looking down on a culture and interpreting it in their own way rather than from the hippos mouth. Speaking of, the hippo at the entrance is another spoil of war/curiosity that has been absorbed, much like those lion things with the massive blades. I can imagine them being sent back to the lands between as a curiosity for other lords to show off as a status symbol, like pineapples.
Richard Bradshaw
2024-11-14 12:36:41 +0000 UTC
