Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree’s new trailer is a dramatic call to arms

With only a month until release day, there’s a new story trailer for Shadow of the Erdtree, and the Elden Ring lore hounds have their work cut out for them.

This new Land of Shadow was connected somehow to Miquella — the dude in the egg with the withered arm. The trailer mentions him prominently, giving the impression we’ll learn more about him, his connection to the Land of Shadow, and what events led him to abandon the place to its fiery fate.

Speaking of fiery fate, the trailer also spends its short runtime on Messmer, the red-haired hottie with the snakes who seems like he’ll be the DLC’s final boss. (Although you never can tell with FromSoftware games. Once you think you’ve beaten the final boss, some cosmic entity arrives and blows up your last flask of healing.) Messmer is apparently responsible for the great purge of the Land of Shadow, and I’m curious to know why.

The story trailer was short and light and cryptic, as FromSoftware stories tend to be. I’m looking forward to the hours of YouTube deep dives I’ll digest as creators (shout out to Iron Pineapple) extrapolate the deepest of lore from the smallest of moments. Shadow of the Erdtree launches on June 21st on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.