Sealed Spiritsprings Make Getting Around Elden Ring's DLC Easier
Remember the Spiritsprings from Elden Ring's base game? Cloudy waves of air radiating from cracks in the ground, these would propel the player character (and Torrent) high into the air, usually allowing them to land safely on some high-up platform and access a new area. Well, they're back in the DLC, only some of them don't work. They're called Sealed Spiritsprings, and they look identical to their base game cousins, only somehow muted. The secret to activating these Sealed Spiritsprings is to find a nearby rock cairn and smash it, thus removing the hold and propelling the Tarnished skyward yet again.
The only way to figure out this information in-game is to discover it organically, or buy a note from Moore at the Main Gate Cross Site of Grace.
Sealed Spiritsprings Enhance Shadow Of The Erdtree's Verticality
Sealed Spiritsprings both accentuate and complicate the very thing that makes Elden Ring's DLC map unique: its increased verticality. The Land of Shadow has more variation in elevation than most of the base Elden Ring map regions, except maybe the Mountaintops of the Giants. That necessitates a lot of upward and downward travel, which would be all too simple if the map were dotted with working Spiritsprings. Instead, Elden Ring requires players to solve a problem (albeit a simple one) by breaking rock cairns before they can use the easy way out. At other times, players must navigate unintuitive paths to get up cliffsides, or trust risky jumps to reach distant valleys.
The overall effect is that everything in the DLC, even something as simple as getting around, feels interesting, challenging, and ultimately rewarding. It's emblematic of that classic FromSoft tough love: there are great rewards to be found, if only players are willing to overcome challenges big and small. Sealed Spiritsprings may only pose a small challenge once they're understood, but even getting to that point takes a fair bit of effort. But learning how to find and solve them can open up countless new areas in Elden Ring's Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC.
Shadow Of The Erdtree's Greatest Puzzles
Shadow Of The Erdtree's greatest puzzles aren't the ones that involve solving riddles or manipulating levers. No, the most interesting puzzles involve the player's relationship with the Elden Ring world itself. From Software's DLC has gone to great lengths to ensure that players are forced to think differently about how they experience the game, and in many cases, the player character's verticality plays a major role in that experience.
This is apparent in the way that Sealed Spiritsprings are introduced into the game. The player must overcome challenges like finding and activating Sealed Spiritsprings in the DLC to access new areas, and it adds depth and Rewards to the game experience.
