Every time there is a new souls game there is a new series of opinion pieces by gaming pundits questioning the difficulty of FromSoft games. Elden Ring is the first one I’ve really been able to invest a serious amount of time into (and succeed).. And, as someone who has previously criticized (which may be too strong a word) FromSoft for overly-difficult games, I feel like I can toss my thoughts in on the “Is Elden Ring too hard?” debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The chief kinds of people who justify asking for greater accessibility (or difficulty options) in FromSoft games are those who are handicapped, older people with slower reflexes, people with limited free time, or a combination of all three (which is me).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Elden Ring started revealing gameplay, I had to ask myself.. Is Elden Ring’s difficulty too hard for me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, Elden Ring hasn’t really improved technical accessibility; Elden Ring like other souls-likes requires a lot of hand-gymnastics and a controller, which may not work for everybody. I myself have such bad pain that if I had to constantly react quickly and push all sorts of buttons in perfect sequence all the time I wouldn’t be playing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, Elden Ring reduces the frequency requirement of this sort of thing in the form of an open world that encourages you to get out and explore, rather than trying to push on through a boss to get to the next region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, many boss fights are optional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even more, there are numerous ways to “cheese” the game in order to level up, get better gear, and be better equipped to handle both required and optional boss fights, and this sort of thing isn’t really an exploit in the truest sense: FromSoft clearly expects you to do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On top of this, magic and ranged combat in general gives players who may not feel confident in the direct confrontation of boss fights an out. Magic and ranged combat is Elden Ring’s lowest difficulty.. However, the game still presents a good and interesting challenge, which means the game retains the classic FromSoft “Death is a mechanic” system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n