Just a few days ago, I was wondering when Elden Ring would start talking about its seemingly inevitable DLC plans, given that it was its one year anniversary and that it had hit 20 million sales.  Both of these milestones were occurring at the same time.  It would appear that the enchantment worked after one year and. . . three days had passed.  In a new post on social media, FromSoftware has just now revealed that the downloadable content for Elden Ring will be called Shadow of the Erdtree:The downloadable content update is referred to as an "expansion," and while this label can have a variety of connotations depending on the developer, expansions are typically a level up from smaller DLCs and involve significant content additions.  As a direct consequence of this, I can't help but wonder whether or not this will be a $40 piece of content, and I'm certainly curious about what it will bring to the table.  The only hints we have are the picture that is displayed above and the name of the game, which is Shadow of the Erdtree.  The name refers to the enormous tree that towers over the entire map and can eventually be scaled.

The Erdtree appears to be shattered, charred, and molten in the image, which is not all that surprising given the events that take place throughout the game

1.   This suggests that the downloadable content takes place after the primary storyline rather than simultaneously with it

2.   The terrain contains a few mysterious ruins, as well as what seems to be a field full of eerie gravestones

3.   Not ghosts, unless you count gravestones as ghosts in and of themselves

4.   The next thing that I see is what I believe to be Torrent, a solitary blonde figure dressed in white riding a horned horse

5.   It's possible that this is a player-created Tarnished character, given that you can make them look like pretty much anyone you want, but it could just as easily be a DLC NPC that plays a significant role in the narrative that FromSoftware is developing for this game

6.   But considering that it's riding what seems to be Torrent, it's possible that the problem is just with the player

7.  (Update: after giving it a little more thought, I think that Miquella is the one who is riding Torrent

8.  )

Naturally, there is an endless number of things about the newly announced expansion that we do not know, including when it will be made available.  Even though it is "in development," we do not currently have a date or time frame for when it will be available.  I would guess that the earliest possible holiday would be in 2023.  My intuition tells me that this is probably more ambitious DLC than they've done in the past, given the scale of Elden Ring itself, so it's possible that it will take longer than the average amount of time that passed between the announcement of downloadable content and its actual release for previous FromSoft games, which was only a few months on average.  It's possible that we won't see it until 2024 or later.  At a certain point, everyone was wondering if they would simply move on to Armored Core and not do any DLC at all.  It is just to everyone's relief that they have said something about it at this point.  For example, the DLC for Sekiro was never released, and whereas in the past it was practically a given that major releases would receive it, this is no longer the case.

 Nevertheless, I'm delighted that they're going to do it, and of course, I can't wait to get my hands on it.  Update (March 1): I've thought about expanding on something that fans have looked into a bit more here, and that is the identity of the person who is riding the horse.  Fans appear to have arrived at the conclusion that this character is in fact Miquella, despite the fact that she may appear to be a woman when viewed from this angle.  In case you weren't following along with the backstory, let me fill you in on who that is:"One of the Empyreans is Micella, who also happens to be Malenia's brother.  After learning that the Golden Order was unable to rid Malenia of the rot, he decided to create the Haligtree in order to break the curse that prevented him from reaching adulthood and to help purge the rot from Malenia.  Therefore, it is the Miquella that was featured in the book "Malenia, Blade of Miquella," and it is quite possible that we will end up learning a great deal more about them, if not possibly taking on their role ourselves.  Well, maybe.

 It would be an exploration of a character who was not given much screen time within the game itself but whose presence looms large over the landscape of Elden Ring all the same.  Regardless, it would be a character who was not given much screen time within the game itself.  Aside from that, the image does not fully correspond to any other character in the narrative, and this is the explanation that makes the most sense.  In addition to this, it gives the impression that Miquella may have been Torrent's first owner.  The actual game doesn't provide us with a lot of lore about Torrent, but maybe we're about to get some in the near future.  Fans are already speculating that this DLC might be Miquella's dream, and as a result, we might end up battling a nightmare version of Godwyn, which would make sense given the narrative at this point in the game.  Consideration should also be given to whether or not this DLC will be released.