The Forsaken Hollows’ DLC is now available on Elden Ring, which is an update in the continuous NIGHTREIGN by FromSoftware. The declaration came along with a rather ambiguous note about faith and strength, but the reaction of the community has been… let’s just say, it revolves around a character who loves walls to an excessive degree.

Therefore, it is now live, the new DLC. The Forsaken Hollows is open to players who wish to undertake new quests and explore a new character. The big change is a new character, the Undertaker, who has a unique power of automatically dodging ‘darkness’ attacks. What then has triggered the talks? The main artwork shows her probably licking a purple tainted wall, and this has totally drawn the internet’s attention. The official ELDENRING account has announced it by saying ‘Don’t be misled by faith and charity. Let it be the irresistible power that turns the Ruin into dust.’ What a profound statement! But the players were up to a fun activity called wall-licking.

‘Why is she eating purple fungus on the wall?’ user makutyre asked and really? This is quite a reasonable question. Another user, VynomAndrek, pointed out humorously, ‘And as a bonus action, she will clean your walls!’ The wall-licking has become the main meme of the release even before the character’s mechanics have been fully examined. The Undertaker character is also being very warmly received. ‘I’m in love with her,’ wyldr7 stated, while faithreplicate simply said, ‘i love her.’ So, the vibe is good even though it is a bit mixed up regarding her eating habits.

On the other hand, it is not all about wall-licking and merry making. The release has sparked instant and rather heated debates about the quality and structure of the content. One of the issues is the new Forsaken Hollows being totally behind the two specific ‘Night Lord’ quests which players are supposed to undertake. Because of this, a part of the gaming community is treating the new area as being geographically and politically cut off from the game’s world. User GP The Degenerate shared his concern: ‘I seriously hope they are going to make a second DLC for which the mod will be given sufficient time and resources. The new content is cool but hiding it behind the original night lord expeditions just… Why? No new weapons, no new evergaols, and everything is on only two night lords. Enjoyable, but deficient.’

The impression of something being ‘deficient’ is echoed in other criticisms. Some are requesting clarifications, for example, onearmedwolff who asked, ‘is she unlockable or do I have to pay $15.’ The very term of the undertaker is also provoking debate with people like ToruIsAlive joking that ‘Undertaker’ sounds like a terrible translation for a corporate suit and suggesting ‘UnderCaker’ as a more appropriate name. Besourinh0 retorted, ‘Well, undertaker is a real job,’ which, you know, is technically correct but doesn’t make it less amusing to call it a wall-licking fighter’s name.

Then, there is the opposite side of the coin—pure, unrestrained salt. One user, Sir_Scientist, went on a rant over the new area, which he called ‘the worst experience I’ve ever had in any game I’ve played in my entire life.’ They demanded either the implementation of voice chat or the shutting down of the servers. The reaction from others was… not that compassionate. The responses were a combination of ‘skill issue’ and ‘womp womp,’ with _silentsteps420 advising, ‘quit crying online about it champ.’ It was a classic git gud moment, brutal and swift.

In the midst of the chaos, gamers are trying to understand the new features. PoisonPicklz said he was up all night trying to figure out the mechanism behind the Undertaker’s auto-dodge and he thanked the official post for the info that it works against darkness attacks. This, however, led to more confusion, with Mojo_King_Bee saying, ‘Absorbing darkness attacks? Like it also activates when she takes a hit from Manus or something? I don’t even remember any “darkness” attacks in this one.’ Edward22112 tried to clarify it is for ‘blue-colored grab attacks.’ Therefore, the meta is being built in real-time, with the help of both the memes and the meltdowns.

Fashion souls requests, of course, have already started to come in. User bloody_poptart made a very heartfelt request for the Undertaker to get the Sister Friede skin from Dark Souls 3 as it perfectly goes with her theme. ‘I know Revenant has a Sister Friede skin already but dude, I’m asking you to make an exception 😭🙏,’ they posted, along with a discussion about the Xbox and PlayStation platforms. The Elden Ring community continues to be as passionate as ever.