New Elden Ring mods were shared online in the past few days, making the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion’s difficulty more manageable and improving the base game’s visuals considerably.
The first mod, Shadow of the Erdtree Journalist Mode, tweaks the Crimson Amber Medallion so that it reduces all damage taken by 50% in Journalist Mode and completely negates damage in Researcher Mode. As for every Elden Ring mod, you will have to use the offline launcher to use this mod.
The second new Elden Ring mod, Infinidetail, doesn’t introduce any gameplay tweak but rather improves the game’s visuals by reducing/eliminating LOD, increasing draw distances, improving decals, lightshaft quality, depth of field, water, and more. As seen in the screenshots below, these changes go a long way in improving the visuals, although only those with high-end PCs will be able to enjoy these improvements with acceptable performance. Unfortunately, the mod is only compatible with the game’s previous version, 1.10.1, and it has yet to be updated for its latest version, 1.12.
While reducing the difficulty of a FromSoftware-developed game is generally not a great idea, I can definitely understand why someone would want to make the Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree expansion a little easier, as all enemies hit quite hard until the player has gathered enough Scadutree Fragments to take advantage of the Scadutree Blessing mechanics. If one can manage the high challenge level, however, one will find in the expansion the best possible conclusion to one of the best action role-playing games released in recent years, as I highlighted in my review.
