Elden Ring Tarnished Pack Debuts To Mixed Steam Reviews

Elden Ring Tarnished Pack Opens To Mixed Reviews, "Back To Selling Horse Armor" Via the Elden Ring Tarnished Pack store page. Published Aug 29, 2026, 10:16 AM EDT James Lucas is an Executive Editor at TheGamer who has worked in professional journalism since 2018. A Newcastle University graduate with a degree in Journalism, Media, and Culture, they have written hundreds of guides, news stories, and original reports, with bylines in IGN, NME, GaymingMag, and VG247, sourcing interviews with studio heads, legendary industry figures, prominent actors, and more. An expert on FPS games, Soulslikes, RPGs, and survival horror, James has intimate knowledge of a wide variety of titles, providing in-depth coverage and exclusive profiles. Some of the games they have extensively covered include: Half-Life 3, Counter-Strike, Elden Ring, and Fallout. They pride themselves on their consistently thorough research, leveraging nearly a decade of industry experience. You can reach them at James.t@thegamer.com FromSoftware is one of the few developers that has largely avoided microtransactions and egregious pre-order bonuses. Its games still feel like complete packages, while expansions like Shadow of the Erdtree are practically games unto themselves. Unfortunately, that reputation has taken a bit of a hit with the release of Elden Ring's Tarnished Edition. The Tarnished Pack upgrade for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation adds two new starting classes, additional weapons and equipment, NPC invasions, and... Torrent skins. Yes, FromSoftware is really having its own horse armor moment. That isn't an exaggeration for the headline, either. Players are calling out the upgrade in reviews, on Reddit, and across social media. There is currently, in 2026, a $5 bundle selling horse cosmetics. It's hardly surprising then that the Tarnished Pack has debuted to 'Mixed' reviews on Steam, with more than 1,000 ratings at the time of writing. "Should've Been Free" "I just really REALLY hope this being a paid DLC is a Nintendo-pushed exception," winter-lantern-fly wrote. "If not, the existence of this is a very bad sign for the future of FromSoft." "Nice to see the Switch 2 content added, but I'm not happy that we get a repeat of the Oblivion horse armor here," MB said. "Hopefully it ends with this." "Takes a generation to build up a reputation, takes far, far less effort to trash it. Don't slaughter the golden goose. The industry [is] literally back to selling horse armor," wrote Null. "CDPR is upgrading [an] entire game for free, BG3 has had so many free upgrades. This feels like insane greed for FromSoft. What I hope is that it's not a decision that they made themselves but it's still a problematic step forward," Brainware's review read. It might seem a bit dramatic to look at $5 armor and scream that the world is ending. It's just a couple of cool bonuses, a tip to thank FromSoftware for a sprawling RPG epic that we've spent countless hours exploring over the last few years. But it's a slippery slope, as many of the reviews rightfully point out. Horse armor probably seems inconsequential to any younger gamers looking back, especially with how egregious MTX has gotten since Oblivion launched in 2007, but it was the first domino. And it'd be naive to assume Nintendo is solely responsible, considering that parent company Kadokawa Group reportedly tried to oust CEO Takeshi Natsuno over concerns about Elden Ring's monetization. Maybe the Tarnished Pack really is a one-off. Maybe Nintendo pushed for it as part of the Switch 2 release, and FromSoftware will go right back to doing what it has always done with no external pressure from its parent company. But that's the problem with horse armor: the first purchase isn't necessarily what worries people. It's what comes next. Especially if it sells millions, like Oblivion's horse armor did. Released February 25, 2022 ESRB M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence Developer(s) From Software Publisher(s) Bandai Namco Entertainment, From Software Engine Proprietary Genre(s) RPG, Action