As a huge fan of FromSoftware's games, I've been counting down the days until the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC for Elden Ring. 🎮 Honestly, the wait has been brutal! But thinking about what this expansion could bring has me hyped. One idea that keeps popping into my head—and I know I'm not alone here—is the return of something truly special from Bloodborne. We're not talking about trick weapons (though those were sick), but something even more game-changing for replayability: the Chalice Dungeons.

FromSoftware has a legendary track record of evolving ideas from one game to the next. Bloodborne's aggressive combat shaped Sekiro, and the open world of Elden Ring feels like the natural peak of the Dark Souls formula. But one brilliant, albeit divisive, feature from Yharnam got left behind: those endless, procedurally generated Chalice Dungeons. For Elden Ring's DLC to truly go to the next level, bringing back a refined version of this concept is the key.

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Let's be real, the Chalice Dungeons in Bloodborne were a masterpiece of optional content, but they were also... kind of a mess to figure out at first. 😅 The way they were presented was confusing, with all those different ritual materials and chalices. But once you dove in, you found a whole other game lurking beneath Yharnam. They were these self-contained levels packed with:

  • Unique bosses you couldn't find anywhere else

  • Special armor sets and, most importantly, powerful blood gems for your weapons

  • Lore drops that explained the ancient history of the Pthumerians

There were two main types: fixed-story dungeons and the real magic—the procedurally generated ones. The latter meant you could, in theory, have near-infinite content. Need more Blood Echoes to finally beat that DLC boss? Grind a dungeon. Want the most OP gem for your Chikage? Time to delve deep. It was a genius endgame loop.

However, I totally get why some players bounced off them. The criticism was valid:

  1. Visual Repetition: After a while, all those stone corridors started to look the same.

  2. Asset Reuse: Fighting the same Brainsucker or Labyrinth Mole in slightly different rooms got old.

  3. Feeling of Stagnation: It sometimes felt like you weren't making "real" story progress.

But here's the thing—Elden Ring is the perfect game to fix these issues and make the concept sing. The Lands Between is already filled with mini-dungeons (caves, catacombs, mines) that feel like spiritual successors to Chalice Dungeons in their design. You go in, fight through enemies, maybe solve a simple puzzle, and fight a boss. But the big difference? They're finite. Once you've cleared all 80+ of them across the map, that's it. For a game as massive as Elden Ring, running out of PvE challenges is a real possibility after hundreds of hours.

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This is where Shadow of the Erdtree has a golden opportunity. Imagine a new, optional game mode—let's call them "Crucible Labyrinths" or "Erdtree Roots"—that builds on Chalice Dungeons. How could it work in Elden Ring?

Access & Structure:

The colosseums are already in the game, sitting mostly unused for PvE. They'd be a perfect gateway. Or, even better, the DLC's story seems centered on Miquella and his dream-alter ego, St. Trina. We already have precedent for entering dreams (Fia's questline). What if Miquella's slumber allows us to access "memory labyrinths" of the world's ancient past? It fits the lore perfectly and mirrors Bloodborne's shifting layers of reality.

Fixing Bloodborne's Flaws:

Elden Ring's sheer scope gives it tools Bloodborne didn't have.

  • Visual Variety: Instead of just stone ruins, dungeons could be set in frozen ruins of the Mountaintops, rot-infested swamps of Caelid, astral arenas from the Eternal Cities, or even within the roots of the Erdtree itself.

  • Enemy Diversity: The game has a massive bestiary. Procedural generation could mix and match enemies from different regions in exciting, challenging ways.

  • Meaningful Rewards: Beyond just runes, these dungeons could offer:

    • Unique Spirit Ashes or weapon upgrade materials.

    • Cosmetics like altered armor sets.

    • New Ashes of War or spells tied to ancient powers.

But for me, the most exciting prospect is the lore. Elden Ring's history is vast and deliberately shrouded. Item descriptions tease the age of the Crucible, a primordial time before the Erdtree when all life was blended together. We see glimpses of it with the Crucible Knights and their incantations. A Chalice Dungeon-like mode is the ideal way to explore this. Imagine delving into a dungeon that's a living memory of the Crucible itself, fighting ancient, misbegotten forms of life and uncovering the true history of the Greater Will's arrival.

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Think about the gameplay loop this would create in 2026. You've beaten the main story and the Shadow of the Erdtree campaign. You've tried some PvP. What's left? Jumping into an ever-changing, challenging PvE mode that tests your build to its limits and rewards you with deep lore and powerful gear. It would keep the community engaged for years, sharing seed codes for particularly wild dungeons (like Bloodborne's glyphs) and competing to clear the hardest configurations.

FromSoftware has always been about refinement. They took the bonfire from Demon's Souls and made it the Sites of Grace. They took posture from Sekiro and evolved it. The Chalice Dungeon concept is a diamond in the rough, waiting for the Elden Ring treatment to polish it into something legendary. Shadow of the Erdtree has the chance to not just add a new area and story, but to gift players an endless frontier within The Lands Between. As a Tarnished with hundreds of hours logged, that's the kind of content that would make this DLC truly unmissable. 🙌 The wait will be worth it if we get to delve into those ancient dreams once more.