Destructoid's Erdtree review follows the same template as their last 400 reviews
The Original Review
“Shadow of the Erdtree is a worthy expansion that lives up to the legacy of the base game.”
Chris Carter has reviewed approximately four hundred video games for Destructoid, and at this point his review template is so ossified you could carbon-date it. Paragraph one: context about the franchise. Paragraph two: describe the opening hours without spoiling anything. Paragraph three: praise the combat. Paragraph four: mention one minor flaw so it doesn't look like a press release. Paragraph five: recommend it. This is not criticism. This is a Jira ticket marked DONE.
The Shadow of the Erdtree review follows this template with the precision of a man who has automated his own creative process. Carter describes the new areas as 'sprawling' and the bosses as 'challenging' — two adjectives so overused in FromSoftware reviews that they should be retired like basketball jerseys. At no point does he engage with what makes this DLC structurally different from the base game's open world design. The Scadutree Fragment system fundamentally changes how players approach exploration by tying power progression to discovery rather than level grinding, and Carter treats it like a footnote. That's like reviewing a restaurant's tasting menu and spending three paragraphs on the bread basket.
The 9/10 is probably correct, which is the most damning thing I can say about this review. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and even a review-by-numbers approach will occasionally land on the right number. But you don't get credit for the right answer if you can't show your work. Carter arrived at 9/10 the same way a coin flip arrives at heads — through mechanism, not meaning.
