After eight years of holding the accolade for the best-reviewed RPG expansion with Blood and Wine, CD Projekt Red, developers of The Witcher series, gracefully acknowledged FromSoftware's Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree. The Witcher team congratulated FromSoftware for their "stellar work" in achieving this feat. The official Witcher social media account expressed their respect for Elden Ring being the new record holder and praised the entire FromSoftware team for their achievement. FromSoftware's creator, Hidetaka Miyazaki, emphasized the importance of overcoming challenges in their games, stating that lowering difficulty would diminish players' sense of accomplishment. While Elden Ring's DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, received mixed reviews, it still showcased the brilliance of the Elden Ring universe. The combination of narrative flexibility and open-world freedom in Shadow of the Erdtree was noted as an ambitious and potentially incongruous match.