What car would Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdree’s bosses drive?

Elden Ring’s DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, is simultaneously an exceptionally generous expansion to an already brilliant open world RPG and a wicked punishment for anyone with the effrontery to think they’ve mastered Soulslikes by now. It’s a thing of beauty, and all game developers should pay attention to it because this is how to do DLC, please and thank you.

Centre stage are the crowd of new bosses added to the Land of Shadow, each of them brutally demanding and a real danger to the structural integrity of both your game controller and nearby walls.

Rather than patiently memorise their attack patterns and best them all using monk-like discipline and patience, then, we decided to delve into their perfect vehicular companions. These, then, are the cars that Shadow of the Erdtree’s most notorious bosses would drive. 

Blackgaol Knight

You’ve barely taken your first steps in Shadow of the Erdree when this utter chancer ambushes you just before the first Site of Grace. He doesn’t have the same level of spectacle and epic soundtrack of his peers later in the game, but he makes up for it by catching you unawares and demonstrating absolute savagery in his window of opportunity.

Obviously, the Blackgaol Knight drives a Suzuki Swift Sport. He licks his lips at every traffic light. He absolutely creams you off the line in a race you didn’t know you were competing in, and if your concentration lapses for a microsecond on the outside lane of a dual carriageway he is there, 0.3mm from your rear bonnet, staring impassively while he flashes his low beams on and off.

He went for the racing stripe option too, against his mum’s advice, because it looks faster.

Divine Beast Dancing Lion

Dwelling in Belurat, the Tower Settlement, the Divine Beast Dancing Lion is a fast and powerful boss, but not an especially lithe one. Naturally its head would be turned by the likes of Holden, Saab, Proton – anything with a lion on the badge, really. Elden Ring bosses are vain like that. 

However, its hulking size, coupled with the fact that it lives in a region made of stairways, towers and sheer drops means it’s simply forced to concede to practicality. Good luck trying to drive a Holden Monaro up a flight of stairs with that ground clearance. No, instead, the Peugeot 5008’s capacious interior suits it down to the ground, while the aggressive lines on the front exterior and the big cat centred on the grille give at least a passing nod to this boss’ potent combat abilities.

Messmer the Impaler

Firstly, you don’t go about with a name like Messmer the Impaler if you don’t want to be noticed. Let the records show that. Second, there’s something uniquely annoying about this encounter. Messmer’s seemingly endless strings of attacks, tricky patterns to decipher… he’s basically happiest when you’re forced to simply stand still and watch him.

All the more irritating is that when you do, it’s actually quite impressive. You certainly couldn’t accuse him of being incompetent in combat, but any compliments about his prowess are doled out through gritted teeth.

Inevitably, Messmer’s search for a car begins and ends in a BMW dealership, where he eventually opts for the M4 Competition in Sao Paolo yellow to be certain of being spotted absolutely everywhere. Ironically though, Messmer’s M4 is only ever seen in two places: filling your rear view mirror at an alarming rate, or parked at a confrontationally diagonal angle outside a Miller & Carter.

Bayle The Dread

The first thing you notice about Bayle The Dread is that he’s an enormous dragon. The second thing you notice is that he’s killed you while you were thinking about the first thing. One of the tougher fights in a DLC full of tough fights, but your battle with him is nothing compared to Bayle’s own quest for comfortable personal transport.

He’d love to razz about in a low-slung, mid-engine beast that reflects his fiery nature but he’s simply not getting in and out of an NSX without considerable time and effort. Instead, the Volvo XC90 offers the space for that ginormous wingspan and a great ride to boot. Nobody’s going to argue with his suspect parking in supermarkets because, and we may have mentioned this already, he’s a massive, deadly dragon.

Promised Consort Radahn

The final boss in FromSoft’s epic DLC addition, Radahn wields two giant blades, a dizzying array of different magical attacks, and even brings Miquella along after the battle’s first phase just to make things extra unfair. Some people are calling it one of the toughest boss encounters across FromSoftware’s entire output.

Radahn’s head is immediately turned, then, by the Rolls Royce Wraith. He’d decide that the most powerful car ever produced by a legendary manufacturer which uses ethereal spirit in its emblem feels befitting for a being of his stature. The overkill-levels of technological assistance would also appeal - satellite assisted transmission and weather prediction? Only a boss who’d call in for magical assistance mid-fight would consider such frivolities mandatory.