How The Furnace Golem Is The Perfect First Enemy In The Elden Ring DLC

The Furnace Golem might not be the first enemy you kill in the Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, but it is definitely the first one you see. The huge burning golem walking across the plane, just the sight of it instils fear in anyone who sees it, not to mention the fact that it can kill you with one hit.

But there’s a lot more depth to this enemy. It isn’t there just for the sake of difficulty. The boss is entirely optional, and you don’t have to fight it at all if you don’t want to. But that’s exactly why this is so interesting. You can learn a lot about the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC and its philosophy just by the very first enemy you encounter in it.

The Furnace Golem And The Tree Sentinel

The Furnace Golem is a lot similar to the Tree Sentinel in the base game. When you first step into The Lands Between in Elden Ring, you come across this horse rider clad in golden armaments. The Tree Sentinel can be defeated, albeit with a little difficulty, but you don’t have to face it at all. You can just run past it, and you won’t miss out on anything except a halberd that you probably wouldn’t use until a lot later.

But, the thing with Tree Sentinel is that it is there for people who are willing to challenge themselves. The rewards are negligible compared to the effort put into it, but it’s all about personal satisfaction. Furthermore, once you land a hit on the Tree Sentinel, you’ll immediately realize that you can defeat it, which isn’t the case with the Furnace Golem.

Like the Tree Sentinel, the Furnace Golem is also the very first enemy you encounter in the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. However, the difference here is that when you land a hit on it, it feels like you’re barely even doing any damage to it. On the contrary, when it hits you, you immediately die.

The Furnace Golem Isn’t Immortal

The Furnace Golem can easily overwhelm any player, and there’s no shame in assuming it’s immortal. After all, it is an absurdly strong enemy. But if you refuse to give up and keep on trying, you’ll soon realize that the Furnace Golem isn’t immortal. While its moves can kill you with one hit, it is incredibly easy to dodge the Furnace Golem after you’ve figured out how to do it.

The seemingly infinite HP doesn’t matter, as you keep hitting its legs, it will sooner or later stagger and fall to the ground. Once on the ground, a single critical hit can take about as much as 50% of its HP. If you’re able to stagger it again, you’ll be able to kill it and win the battle FromSoftware expects you to win. 

You receive a DLC crystal tear and a furnace visage crafting item after defeating the first golem. And yes, you’ll encounter many of them in the DLC, but if you’re able to defeat the first one, you can quite convincingly defeat any number of them.

The Philosophy Behind The Furnace Golem

The Furnace Golem may seem like an unkillable enemy at first, but if you don’t give up, you’ll realize that it is very much killable and quite easily at that. It’s only a matter of mindset and signifies that any obstacle that we’re likely to encounter in the DLC, no matter how seemingly unkillable, can be defeated with enough effort.

Putting the Furnace Golem right at the entrance to the DLC also shows how ruthless the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion is. There’s going to be no mercy for the player. However, if you’re willing, you can choose to ignore the threat and return to it once you’re ready. There’s nothing forcing you to deal with the Golem the moment you step into the DLC, and I think that is a fair point.

The DLC gives you multiple options to deal with the very first enemy in it. You can either choose to completely ignore the Furnace Golem, or you can fight against it and defeat it. Or, you can also run away and return to it once you feel like you’re ready to deal with it after you’ve gathered a couple of those Scadu Tree Blessings. These options also apply to many other bosses in the DLC.

Takeaway

The Elden Ring DLC isn’t easy, and it was never going to be easy. But there are a lot of ways you can choose to deal with it, and that’s exactly what the Furnace Golem, the very first enemy in the DLC, teaches us. Anything that might seem unkillable at first can be defeated. The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is difficult, but it isn’t impossible.

The Furnace Golem and the Tree Sentinel share a lot of similarities in what they teach the player, but I personally think the Furnace Golem does it a lot better than the Tree Sentinel, considering the fact that it can kill you with one well-placed hit.

There are many tough bosses in the DLC, and many of them can be dealt with the same way you’re supposed to deal with the Furnace Golem. FromSoftware put it there for a reason, and I don’t think it is just there to show the players how difficult the expansion will be but to show that anything can be defeated with enough effort.