Elden Ring's 'Tarnished Pack' Feels like a Throwback to the Days of Horse Armor DLC

While I know that this content was the sweetener to accompany the launch of the Switch 2 version of Elden Ring under its new 'Tarnished Edition' banner, it's hard not to be reminded of old frustrations when looking at today's little bit of ELDEN RING DLC. The Tarnished Pack adds two new starting loadouts (with their gear discoverable in the world), plus three new skins to dress up your spectral horse-goat Torrent. All of this for £4/$5. Echoes of the semi-cosmetic Horse Armor DLC, a release that signalled a new era of corruption and capitalist excess for the games industry, as Second Wind detailed in a great video here.

While that's not a lot of money, it feels like these additions could have easily been included in the update that rolled out alongside the new classes, which included a few balance tweaks and changing where certain items drop in the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion. Making it a premium upgrade feels all the more unnecessary when considering that today, Vampire Survivors dropped a hefty expansion for just $1, along with a bunch of free stuff added to one of the game's earlier expansions.

But probably the worst thing is that - at least for a while - the combination of patch and DLC broke all major mods for Elden Ring, a game with a massive, incredibly active mod scene. Fortunately, Elden Ring modders are also incredibly hard-working, and things have already been mostly set right. My big mod of choice - the sprawling community rebalance and alternative multiplayer server Elden Ring Reforged - has not only updated to support the patch, but has integrated the new DLC, rebalancing the new gear and adding the alternative Torrent skins to the mod's new hub zone, the Gilded Court.

But not every mod is moving as quickly, and it'll take a while until everything's back to normal, assuming that FromSoftware doesn't roll out any more surprise patches. While it's nice to see popular classics like this still getting support, it's undeniably an inconvenience for the massive crowd that has set up camp on the game with the assumption that the ground isn't going to move from underneath them. Consider this a bit of venting, more than a wish that FromSoftware hadn't updated the game at all.

The Tarnished pack is out now for Elden Ring for £4/$5, with no discounts, along with the new update.