Prepping for Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree? This mod offers a tougher foe than Malenia to battle - capitalism

Ok, so you haven't got very long left to get all of the prepration you want to do out of the way ahead of Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC dropping on June 21. Don't worry, though, if you think you're in need of an extra challenge to sharpen you skills before heading into the Land of Shadow, here's a mod that can help.

Just in case you didn't know already, there are actually some steps you'll need to have taken just to be able to access the DLC at launch - as in, if you haven't, you'll have them to do once it does arrive. Right, now that's out of the way, here's a thing you definitely don't need to experience pre-DLC, but should try anyway for a laugh.

The mod is simply called 'Capitalism Mod', and it's the work of modder thefifthmatt, who's been responsible for a lot of the fun Elden Ring randomisers you've likely seen streamers playing around with over the past year or so. After all, what could make FromSoft's work more fun than not knowing which enemies or items you might encounter as you scythe through locations for the third, fourth, or hundredth time?

While it's essentially doing a similar job, having been created for a purposefully tough challenge run by Elden Ring maestro LilAggy, the capitalism mod makes things difficult not by swapping out foes for harder ones, but by penalising you for literally everything you do as you try to play the game. Yup, it "takes runes from you when you move, consume stamina, take damage, deal damage, or exist", and "if you reach 0 runes, you get stuck or die."

How does that mirror capitalism, you ask? Well, thefifthmatt explains: "souls are already a highly applicable metaphor for primitive and capital accumulation (the dark soul is literally enclosed), but also because it incentivizes actions which maximize hoarding and capital accumulation for its own sake at the expense of otherwise reasonable behavior."

"The mod's mechanics also bear some resemblance to real-world attempts to apply these incentives with microtransactions and in-game currencies," they add, "There are admittedly no relations of production in the mod, but if you really want you can imagine Marika extracting surplus value from you."

So, that's a thing. If you're looking for guides to getting anything in the Lands Between done as you get back into the game and finish prepping for Shadow of the Erdtree, make sure to check out our array of recently updated ones for everything from reaching Mohgwyn Palace to getting Adula’s Moonblade.