A savvy Elden Ring Youtuber named Ziostorm recently made a fascinating discovery and shared it on Twitter, that is that the highly anticipated DLC expansion for Elden Ring, Shadow from the Erdtree, has seemingly experienced development for around a year, and therefore work around the DLC started shortly after the game launched.

The LinkedIn profile of 1 Kenneth (Kin Yue) Chan, a director, and producer at Japanese studio FromSoftware, states that he's been focusing on Shadow from the Erdtree since April 2022. That would imply that FromSoftware continues to be developing this DLC expansion for around a year, likely a bit more.

This makes one thing clear. Unlike the situation for many AAA titles within this modern age, FromSoftware didn't immediately intend to make DLC for Elden Ring but probably only chose to do so following a game's massive success. And though not designed in stone, this seems to suggest the expansion will probably be massive.

DLC development time is exponentially shorter than creating a game on your own, as all of the foundations for gameplay, mechanics, systems, and UI was already built, so all that's left to create is the content within the DLC. So, the truth that they've been focusing on it annually suggests that Shadow from the Erdtree will add in much new stuff for players to savor.

Furthermore, the DLC does not have a release date yet, not a release window. It could be a ways away. A prior report claimed that Shadow from the Erdtree would release after FromSoftware's upcoming game, Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, but take by using a touch of suspicion, because it hasn't been confirmed.

If that is the situation though, and Armored Core 6 launches in August (out of the box claimed by Insider Gaming), it will be a while for Shadow from the Erdtree release, which only lends credence to the possibility of it being a notable sizable expansion.

That being said, FromSoftware is probably split between multiple different projects, not only Shadow from the Erdtree and Armored Core 6, therefore it could definitely be that the divided focus is what's been causing this to be DLC expansion to take such a long time.