404 deaths into his Shadow of the Erdtree marathon, Twitch streamer Kai Cenat hits back at complaints that the Elden Ring DLC is too hard: "It's a skill issue"

In the midst of a Shadow of the Erdtree marathon that had already amounted to 404 deaths across 32 hours of gameplay, Twitch streamer Kai Cenat has hit back at players complaining that the Elden Ring DLC was too difficult.

Cenat, who recently beat the base version of Elden Ring after 1,700 deaths across 167 hours has turned his attention to Shadow of the Erdtree. So far, it's taken him more than 50 hours (and another 500 deaths), but he's approaching the final boss. Despite the difficult time he's clearly been having, however, he's hitting back at players who are review-bombing Shadow of the Erdtree over its difficulty.

"I'm getting through these motherfuckers," Cenat said around 32 hours into his DLC marathon, referring to the bosses he'd already overcome. As for those difficulty complaints, however, "it's a skill issue."

Directing his comments towards the complainants, he continued: "I'm ass and you're ass. But you're ass though, because you really say it's too hard. Put your big boy pants on, go out there, and go fight."

"This is the first major release since the actual game two years ago. If you went through all that hassle two years ago, why the fuck would they make a DLC for you to breeze past in a day or two? Make it make sense."

In that final sentiment in particular, Cenat has a point. FromSoft DLC has always been difficult, often far more so than the original game. That's a reality that might have been lost on large swathes of Elden Ring's audience, which was far larger than that of the studio's output. Add to that, however, the fact that Miyazaki himself suggested that Shadow of the Erdtree was around the same size as the base game's Limgrave, and it's clear that you were never supposed to bang this one out in a single sitting.

Hidetaka Miyazaki says games like Elden Ring have to be hard: "If we really wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down."