Why I Nearly Quit ELDEN RING

Roughly 14 months ago, I decided to finally take the plunge and tackle DARK SOULS: REMASTERED. Honestly, I thought it was more or less a masterpiece, and I was somewhat upset with myself for having put it off for so long. I found it so good, in fact, that I undertook a second playthrough almost immediately, in an attempt to mop up and whizz through all the bits I'd missed the first time round — something that I hadn't done with a videogame since my teens, back when free time was far more abundant.

From there, I speared a route through the Demon's Souls (2021) remake, before hammering a path across DARK SOULS III. Once again, I found both of these very enjoyable games. They had their own challenges to overcome, with the former being slow and methodical, and the latter having the speed dial spun round to 11! However, instead of replaying either (like I had with their predecessor), I set my sights on FromSoftware's newest challenge: ELDEN RING.

To say that I was excited to sink my teeth into this one would've been an understatement; I was raring to go! And for a while, that energy and determination to conquer The Lands Between remained in spades. Alas, I suppose that all good things do come to an end…

You see, once I arrived at the Mountaintops Of The Giants, I seriously considered bowing out after roughly 80 hours. I was not enraged by the sudden, obnoxious difficulty spike; instead, it exhausted me. I felt that the game had already gone on for long enough and had overstayed its welcome, and now the absurd challenge simply made me tired.

Up until that point, I had thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game. I'd loved taking my licks as some would-be adventurer, before inevitably succeeding on that hard-fought road to the Royal Capital — riding that sweet, sweet gameplay wave that Miyazaki and his team had always managed to sculpt to perfection.

Perhaps my error was that, until my arrival in the Mountaintops, I’d always maintained a certain expectation concerning these games: starting off weak (the character physically, the player mentally), before eventually transforming into some heroic steam roller. However, that is most certainly not ELDEN RING…

Just as you get a whiff of real power, the final third of the game hits you like a breeze block of pain, and you realise that all of your improvement was for more or less nought. Even as a warrior over level 110 (with a Vigor stat of 60 — the softcap), some enemies in that late-game region could end me in two or so hits. Like, what the hell? What was the point of me increasing my attributes for them to only end up making such a minute impact? It boggles the mind.

On top of that, my +20 Greatsword can only tickle enemies in return, due to their bloated defences. So, much like my attributes, why did the game encourage me to improve weapons at all? When you consider that the sword has a B scaling in Strength (of which my character has 75), it's no slouch either. It's carried me through thick and thin with relative ease thus far, but here, atop these damn mountains, it's a flimsy toothpick all of a sudden.

Now, I totally appreciate that these games are supposed to be challenging. However, everything post-Morgott boss battle is plain and simple sadistic bullshit! ELDEN RING genuinely just wants to crush you beneath its mighty, ELDEN boot, and honestly, that is not a design decision that I can get on board with. In fact, realising that was such a disheartening discovery that, for the first time on my FromSoftware journey, I did not even want to push on and git gud.

However, after a couple days, I came back to it — even going as far as to re-dress my character for some small amount of emotional support. After having a think, I decided that I really didn’t want this to be the first videogame I gave up on for no other reason than it was just too hard. True, both my persistence and increased familiarity with the monster-filled tundra haven’t mellowed out my opinion, as I do still think the area is utter nonsense through and through. But, simply put: I won’t let it beat me.