Why Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree’s ‘Winter Lantern’ Won’t Exactly Be a Winter Lantern

Highlights

• Elden Ring fans can expect new challenges, bosses, enemies, and lore in the upcoming DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, dropping on June 21, 2024.
• One of Shadow of the Erdtree’s new enemies shares similarities with Bloodborne’s dreaded Winter Lanterns, hinting at tough encounters that players will face.
• This DLC foe may actually be worse, as it could also feature elements of Dark Souls 3’s Jailers, draining max HP and posing a formidable threat in Elden Ring’s expansive world. Regardless, players should not expect it to work exactly like a Winter Lantern.

It won’t be long before Elden Ring’s DLC finally arrives. Shadow of the Erdtree has kept fans waiting for over a year, paralleling the announcement and subsequent silence of the original Elden Ring. Even so, both have endeavored to make that wait worthwhile, and players can see what Shadow of the Erdtree has in store once it drops on June 21, 2024. Once that day arrives, eager Tarnished will once again sweep the Lands Between, triumph over Starscourge Radahn and Mohg, Lord of Blood, and then jump into the Land of Shadow. New challenges will follow, but that’s exactly what Elden Ring fans seek.

Shadow of the Erdtree is expected to add plenty to Elden Ring’s massive content offering, including the aforementioned challenges in new bosses and enemies, as well as other things like new equipment and lore. Until fans get to see how everything fits into a playable context, they will continue pouring over all the teased elements in Shadow of the Erdtree’s marketing materials. Among the larger trailers and previews have been a variety of screenshots focused on particular enemies and locations, one of which recalls one of the deadliest foes from another FromSoftware title.

Elden Ring Is Getting Something Reminiscent of Bloodborne’s Winter Lanterns

​​​​​Through viewing the screenshots released alongside the first Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree trailer, fans were struck with a few observations. One was that the spirit worms were one of Elden Ring’s cutest monsters yet, and had faces primed for reaction memes. Mirroring that, a ragged figure with a massive, glowing, fleshy head immediately triggered flashbacks to Bloodborne’s Winter Lanterns, something players were less than pleased about seeing. As playfully frustrating as FromSoftware’s games can be, what Winter Lanterns could do was one of Bloodborne’s nastiest surprises.

Bloodborne’s Winter Lanterns Explained

Winter Lanterns are horrific aberrations that haunt late-game areas nested deep in the otherworldly Nightmare Frontier. Formed by a brain-shaped mass of Bath Messengers and eyes perched atop a bloody parody of the Plain Doll’s torso, this walking betrayal of safety and reason builds the Frenzy status by just looking at Hunters, and it won’t immediately stop once out of sight. Although this won’t necessarily kill players if Frenzy procs, the Lantern’s grab basically guarantees death if performed adjacent to a filled Frenzy bar. To say this has made Winter Lanterns a Bloodborne icon is an understatement; players always treat them as the biggest threat present, and FromSoftware may have internalized their legacy as a whole genre of terrifying enemies.

Shadow of the Erdtree’s Faux Winter Lanterns May Be Far Worse

Dark Souls 3‘s max HP-draining Jailers are an example of said legacy, and Elden Ring might be about to add another to the pile. Shadow of the Erdtree’s glowing, bulbous-headed enemy has a similar design approach, with what appears to be a walking stick and a hunched posture being the main visual differences between itself and a Winter Lantern. Many assume that this creature will also build one of Elden Ring‘s status effects through its line of sight, just like a Winter Lantern. However, that should be where their similarities end.

Explaining why starts with a brief lore snippet provided on social media:

“The abandoned and tragic who forage beneath the umbra pray for the embrace of a new master.​”

Assuming the “umbra” refers to Shadow of the Erdtree’s dark and twisted focal tree, these creatures look and sound like counterparts to the disturbing, yet pitiable, Wormfaces in base Elden Ring. Their disheveled clusters near a Minor Erdtree strike a different tone from the eldritch Winter Lanterns, but Wormfaces are also keyed to the instant-death Death Blight status instead of Frenzy’s burst damage, which would make Shadow of the Erdtree’s equivalents nearly impossible to fight directly. Combining Winter Lanterns and Wormfaces into this foe would likely require players to use every tree in its teaser art as cover to survive Elden Ring‘s most harrowing encounter yet.