With 5 million sales in 3 days, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is rivaling the outstanding success of The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 DLC
Shadow of the Erdtree is on track to be one of the most successful DLC expansions ever released
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree reached 5 million sales in just three days, which is putting it on track to be one of the most successful DLC expansions ever released.
Publisher Bandai Namco and developer FromSoftware announced the news in a press release, saying "this milestone is the result of the tremendous support from fans all over the world, to whom we express our heartfelt gratitude." The devs also thanked fans directly on social media after announcing the milestone.
Earlier this month, the devs revealed that Elden Ring had sold over 25 million copies since its launch in 2022, so 20% of players picked up the DLC during that first weekend alone. That's an absolutely outstanding attach rate for an expansion pack.
Back in January, CD Projekt told IGN that its wildly successful Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty expansion had a 23% attach rate, and that stat came months after its original release. At the same time, the studio revealed that The Witcher 3's beloved expansions had attach rates of 22% and 24%.
That comparison isn't altogether arbitrary, either - Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077 have both reached 25 million sales, so they have very similar install bases to sell DLC to. In the wake of outstanding ratings for Shadow of the Erdtree, CD Projekt even congratulated the DLC on surpassing The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine, which had previously been the best-reviewed expansion ever released. Clearly, all that discourse about Shadow of the Erdtree being too hard hasn't dissuaded many players from giving it a shot and having a great time getting stomped.
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Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.