I imagine the cross-section of people who still play Elden Ring but aren’t buying its Shadow of the Erdtree expansion is pretty small. Even so, those people are in luck since they’ll still get to take advantage of a free update going live alongside the DLC. In addition to various gameplay changes, it’ll greatly improve inventory management and even add more hairstyles.
FromSoftware teased the changes in a brief thread on Twitter today. “An update to the Elden Ring base game & a day 1 patch for Shadow of the Erdtree will be distributed on 6/20,” the company wrote. “The update includes bug fixes, balance adjustments & some new features.”
The biggest change previewed has to do with items. No longer will you be running around collecting stuff and then have no idea where it ended up in your inventory. Newly acquired items will now have an exclamation mark on their icons until players highlight them. In addition, recently acquired items will get an entirely new inventory tab all to themselves. This was a change people noticed when going hands-on with the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC earlier this month, and it sounded like a massive quality-of-life boon.
Read More: I’ve Convinced Myself This Is What The Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC Is About
Summoning Pools are also getting tweaked. Active Summoning Pools will now carry over to new game plus, and individual Summoning Pools can be toggled on and off from a new Map Functions Menu. Elden Ring is also getting five new hairstyles that players can select during character creation or when using the Clouded Mirror Stand or Rennala’s Rebirth feature. I would love the backstory behind what looks they felt were missing from the game and why.
But all of that is just the tip of the iceberg. Players can discover the rest of the changes and features coming in the update when it goes live. Shadow of the Erdtree and its patch, meanwhile, launch on June 21. The DLC is available starting at midnight local time, with pre-loading available on PlayStation, and Xbox players getting access early if they swap their regions to New Zealand. Time to get leveling in the base game if you haven’t already!
