Fandom Elden Ring jest ogromny - więc trudność rozmowy się zmieniła

It wouldn’t be a FromSoftware release without any perennial discourse over difficulty, and while Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree follows suit, this time, there’s a twist. Players aren’t debating whether or not FromSoftware’s notoriously hard games should offer an easy mode or better accessibility options, nor is the community sneering and telling people they should simply “git gud” (derogatory). This time, we’re seeing hardcore fans bemoan the grueling nature of the fresh DLC, if not saying that game manager Hidetaka Miyazaki has gone besides far.

Shadow of the Erdtree employs an different mechanic that attempts to mitigate the likelihood of players jumping into the DLC with overleveled characters. While you inactive hold your base stats erstwhile entering the Land of Shadow, the DLC-specific location has fresh upgrades — Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes — that dictate how much harm you can deal and withstand while in this fresh realm. The more of these upgrades you have, in another words, the better you’ll do; the game has besides late been updated to make these upgrades even stronger. This strategy besides means that players who have likely spent hours building and optimizing their characters are, in any ways, being forced to start from scratch. Without these fresh embellishments, run-of-the-mill enemies can and will destruct your character if you’re not careful. The developers warned this would be the case before Shadow of the Erdtree came out, with Miyazaki outright stating he believed the squad had “pushed the envelope” of what could be “withstood” by players.

Reviews for the expansion were besides published ahead of its actual release, and while many critics wrote about the DLC’s difficulty, as a whole, Shadow of the Erdtree was well received. Right now, Elden Ring’s expansion is sitting on a 95 on Metacritic, which the grading strategy deems to be “universal acclaim.” Despite this, a Eurogamer review that gave the expansion 3 stars out of 5 caused a fan outcry. According to these fans, who again were reading this review before playing the DLC themselves, the critic had made the mistake of saying that the game seemed besides hard this time. Worse, the critic wasn’t certain if they had the motivation to effort and trudge through certain parts of it.

“This, however, feels like difficulty for difficulty’s sake, turned up to eleven, possibly due to the fact that with the added expectations of a DLC having something extra-absurd to conquer even though it technically doesn’t require finishing the core game,” the reviewer wrote of 1 peculiarly egregious optional boss fight. “I go through dozens of deaths over a period of respective days, and despite taking breaks to go off and do another things and research another areas, I realise that I just don’t want to do this anymore.”

This admission was not well received by any fans, especially given the larger, ongoing stereotype that game journalists are bad at games and so not fit to justice a series where part of the point is to endure (“Prepare to die” was an authoritative tagline for the first Dark Souls, after all). Replies to Eurogamer’s post on X (formerly Twitter) linking the review frequently chastised or tried to humiliate the reviewer for the perceived crime of believing the difficulty had not been well tuned. As of this writing, top responses say things like “It was to hawd fow you?”, “Perhaps stick to something like Mario it might be more your speed,” and of course, the obligatory “get good.”

The irony here is that the review spends a good chunk of its word number expressing frustration with how much the expansion tries to hand-hold the player. Specifically, the reviewer felt that the expansion doesn’t seem to trust the player to figure out what they should do, frequently signposting in an unusually overt way. This, the reviewer suggests, robs the player from earning a sense of discovery and worse, makes any of the unique obstacles trivial. As an example, the review mentions that the game outright tells the player to not let circumstantial enemies see them, so the reviewer equipped an item that made sneaking around easier.

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco

Ultimately, though, 3 out of 5 is not a bad score — and again, as a whole, Shadow of the Erdtree has been reviewed well. But for any fans, this didn’t matter. Social media posts questioning the credentials of the reviewer went viral despite the fact that many of these people clearly didn’t read the full review. Then, erstwhile players yet got their hands on the DLC, karma reared its judicious head.

On Steam, the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC dropped down to a “mixed” rating, which is simply a harsher verdict than the expansion’s Metacritic score. any of these reviewers simply aren’t happy with Shadow of the Erdtree’s mediocre performance on their PCs. But an different number of the negative reviews on the DLC’s store page admit that for them, the expansion was unfairly brutal. “Filled to the brim with uninspired, unfun boss fights that trust on incredibly annoying features to make them ‘difficult,’” 1 negative review reads. “I dont head learning how to fight hard bosses but if you’re simply murdered half the time for missing a rotation I think any of the numbers should be re-evaluated,” another states. “Well this game isn’t just hard, it’s artificially hard,” another claims.

The frustration with Shadow of the Erdtree’s bosses spans beyond Steam players. On Google, negative reviews besides mention the outrageous difficulty. “The scaling is ridiculous, all enemy does insane harm whilst you do comparatively small damage,” states a one-star review. The top review on that platform deems the DLC to be 8/10, which, while a affirmative score, besides begins with the judgement that the developers “overdid the difficulty.”

The most visible repudiation of Shadow of the Erdtree comes from an unexpected source, however: influencers who play games for a living. “I think the DLC is besides hard to be fun,” said popular Twitch streamer Asmongold. Notably, Asmongold is an influencer who has specified a fraught relation with gaming journalists, he’s built a community that often takes pleasure in pointing out erstwhile a critic has problem with a video game — including FromSoft titles.

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Johnny Yu

For some, all of this will come off as a case of people getting a taste of their own medicine; after years of looking down on players who felt defeated by FromSoftware games, these elitist players are yet uncovering themselves in the same boat. At the same time, much of this phenomenon is transpiring during a pivotal minute for FromSoftware games as a whole. Elden Ring is by far the nipponese studio’s best-selling game, by orders of magnitude compared to its another titles. Arguably, it’s the game that’s brought the genre to the mainstream; even celebrities like The Weeknd and Travis Scott were excited for Shadow of the Erdtree.

Those in the know are aware that FromSoftware games have been hugely influential to the video game manufacture as a whole, but for a long time, these have been comparatively niche games. This means that Elden Ring is likely now being played by a immense group of people who don’t have any of the experience, memories, or baggage that come with the genre and its notorious difficulty. These are fresh faces who haven’t grown tired of arguing over whether or not the games should be this harsh, and they’ve surely not been privy to judgments from fanatics who have strict ideas about how the games should be played.

As a series that’s built a name for its unforgiving nature, FromSoftware games have attracted a fandom that prides itself on overcoming challenges. Sadly, any of that attitude has gotten warped over time, leading any players to add even more stipulations for what is and isn’t considered admirable. In the case of Elden Ring, conservative players have considered circumstantial play styles little valid than others. Things like utilizing summons, which are NPCs who can aid the player during circumstantial moments, or spirit ashes, which are ghostly buddies that can besides aid the player with certain designated battles and boss fights, have often been deemed as “easy mode” by players who have spent years beating FromSoftware games without additional help. Many FromSoftware games — including Elden Ring — besides have a strategy for summoning another players to aid with various in-game challenges. Again, according to the most intense subsection of FromSoftware fans, utilizing these in-game tools is an admission of weakness.

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco

In a way, this restrictive attitude has been implicitly reinforced following the popularity of Twitch streams. In order to stand out, Twitch streamers frequently make up challenges to beat FromSoftware games. There are players who beat games like Elden Ring at low levels and with basic gear, or with unexpected tools like musical instruments, dance pads, and even brain waves. Twitch streamers who feel force to entertain their audiences so have a stake in having the games present a challenge, but not 1 that is so insurmountable that it leads to an unsatisfying viewing experience.

Players who review games on Steam or Google due to the fact that they’re dissatisfied, or streamers who play games for a living, are barely typical of a community composed of 25 million people and counting. erstwhile you look at discussions about Elden Ring outside of these highly circumstantial contexts, the evolution of the community and its attitude is palpable. It’s practically become a meme that players are relying on things like spirit ashes to aid them last the Land of Shadow, especially the Mimic Tear, which creates a copy of the player to take on foes. The Mimic teardrop has all of the abilities that the player does, but with less weaknesses: It can withstand multiple attacks that would usually kill the player.

Even if it’s provided by the game and so meant to be used, longtime FromSoftware fans inactive clearly feel justified in calling spirit ashes “broken.” Despite this, the much larger current community for Elden Ring doesn’t seem to think little of people who usage spirit ashes; if anything, the player base seems to be bonding over it. On Reddit, any of the most popular and common threads are jokes about the seemingly universal reliance on spirit ashes. alternatively than looking down on it or ridiculing it, utilizing tools like the Mimic teardrop is now outright encouraged by most players.

Even the much-reviled “get good” attitude seems to have shifted. In a video by the popular YouTuber penguinz0, he doles out any tough love for players who dislike Shadow of the Erdtree’s difficulty. He tells people to get good. At 1 point, this phrase would undoubtedly reflect a toxic, gatekeeping attitude about who gets to enjoy FromSoftware games. Here, it’s simply encouragement to put aside your pride and usage the tools at your disposal. “Get good” now means getting acquainted with those tools over trying to brute force your way through a game without any aids.

“Every Souls game has always been a series where it’s as hard as you make it,” he says. “There are broken builds that you can use… There are full-blown mechanics that are there to aid you through hard challenges. With summoning, you can just usage a Mimic teardrop to aid you go through a boss.”

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

Most of the time, erstwhile a niche series breaks through to the mainstream, it’s due to the fact that something about the latest game has become more accessible. Compared to older games, Elden Ring appears to fit that bill. The shift to open-world mechanics means that, unlike in any prior FromSoftware games, you don’t gotta repeatedly bash your head against a wall if you’re stuck. You can go and take on something simpler, get stronger, and then come back to that first challenging section and possibly overcome it. But alternatively than doubling down on what made Elden Ring so approachable in the name of catering to these fans, FromSoftware has tried to thread the needle. While Shadow of the Erdtree is, as mentioned by the Eurogamer review, more explicit about where to go or what to do, overall, the DLC is much more punishing on the player, especially erstwhile it comes to bosses. Sure, you can hop into a conflict with both an in-game summon and your Mimic teardrop at the same time, but the foe waiting on the another side of the fog mist inactive packs a chaotic multi-hit combo that can one-shot you.

The emphasis on challenge is so pronounced this time that it has encouraged the now larger player base to be softer with 1 another. alternatively than defining this larger community, the vocal assholes are now far more outnumbered and seen for precisely what they are. FromSoftware, meanwhile, gets to enjoy the successes of creating a blockbuster without having to compromise the imagination that built the genre in the first place.

“If we truly wanted the full planet to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down more and more. But that wasn’t the right approach,” Miyazaki told The Guardian in an interview. “Had we taken that approach, I don’t think the game would have done what it did, due to the fact that the sense of accomplishment that players gain from overcoming these hurdles is specified a fundamental part of the experience. Turning down difficulty would strip the game of that joy – which, in my eyes, would break the game itself.”