ELden Ring: The Best, Most Unforgiving Game I've Played

by Dan Nguyen, Reporter

Gaming, Entertainment, Op-Ed

My journey with Elden Ring all started in March of 2022, a month after it came out. I was hesitant about spending sixty dollars to purchase it, as video games are much cheaper nowadays. But I got Covid-19 that week and decided to pull the trigger because I had loads of time on my hands. Video games usually take about 20-30 hours to beat, but not this one.

Fifty hours of gameplay later, I beat the game. It was incredible. So incredible, in fact, that I decided to play it and beat it six more times, completing all achievements and clocking in at around 100 total in-game hours.

Elden Ring was developed by Japanese game developer, FromSoftware. The same company behind the Dark Souls trilogy, Sekiro, and Bloodborne. FromSoftware is known for its combat-based, action role-play adventure games with a significant priority on environmental story-telling. They’re also known for their games’ extreme difficulty. FromSoftware has been perfecting the Souls-like formula for decades and finally pays off after Elden Ring won the Game of the Year Award—and personally is my favorite game of all time. The beautifully rendered environment, challenging combat, and story depth are just a few of the reasons why Elden Ring rightfully deserves the high praise and hefty price tag.

Let's start with the map. The massive map of the world of Elden Ring is even larger than Los Santos from Grand Theft Auto V, which is renowned for being one of the largest maps in gaming history. The world-building in this game is genuinely immaculate: the landscape, animals, plants, and monsters are made with such great and gentle detail one can only describe them as masterpieces within a masterpiece. The five-year development time — in contrast to an average of three years or less for their other releases — certainly shines through. The experienced FromSoftware designers also had the help of fantasy writer George R. R. Martin, a combination that has made Elden Ring the epitome of fantasy gameplay. FromSoftware developers poured their hearts and souls into this game, and I cannot express to you how much of beautiful game Elden Ring turned out to be.

There are a couple of minor drawbacks, however: due to its high-end graphics, Elden Ring can be difficult for older machines and consoles to run, making it not the most hardware-friendly video game. Some PlayStation 4’s would start heating up like a toaster. Realistically though, most hardware nowadays can run a game like Elden Ring comfortably. A middle-range PC would do the job well, which could cost from about 500-800 dollars depending on how great you want the graphics to be.

As I mentioned earlier, Elden Ring was written by George R. R. Martin, the writer of multiple award-winning fantasy novels like Game of Thrones and A Dance With Dragons. With about 50 years of experience telling fantasy stories and world-building, Martin’s influence on Elden Ring is nothing to joke about. YouTube videos that explore Elden Ring’s complex story can be hours long as they examine the game’s rich story and complicated narratives. Elden Ring’s plot is fulfilling for players, readers, and fantasy enthusiasts who hunger for a deeper storyline than most games offer. I guarantee you that FromSoftware provides more than enough stories to captivate you for a long time.

A difficult video game might sound repulsing to some people. But for others, challenging games are especially enticing. Elden Ring is not a game for everyone. It is for those who desire a challenge, a journey. If you decide to play Elden Ring, you'll go through some lows: you’ll be stabbed, crushed, and slaughtered by a monster with an axe for an arm, a big ol’ moldy creature with a stick, or an atrocious amount of dragons—whether you play for a few minutes or a few hours. But as you get better, the feeling of finally beating a warrior with a sword twice your size is something you could never forget.

In fact, games like Elden Ring have actually helped some people with depression and anxiety. In the depths of the internet abyss, you can find posts by people claiming: “Dark Souls saved my life.” A YouTuber with the username “NakeyJakey” released a video in 2018 of himself laying in bed, saying, “In a time where I was super depressed and I didn’t have any direction and all my friends that I had were in college and I was barely making any money… as stupid as it sounds, it [Dark Souls] made me feel like I had some sense of purpose…” (Jakey, 2018). But why aren’t people saying that Mario, Zelda, or Fortnite saved their lives? The reason for this is found in the difference between Souls-like games and normal games.

Souls-like games do not change their difficulty during the game. In normal games, if you struggle too much, the game will recognize that you are having a hard time, compensate, and make it a bit easier to keep you playing. Souls-like games will not do that. Instead, they will keep you in the mud forever unless you change how you play, collect more items, or level up. This style of game very much reflects the real world, because sometimes no one will come to help you. No matter how much you scream, hit your desk, or break your controller. The game. Simply. Does. Not. Care.

With this in mind, people who have claimed that Dark Souls saved their lives say this because when they are faced with mental health issues, they use the skills they have developed from beating tough Souls games — especially the skill of never giving up. The tenacity that Dark Souls builds is unbelievable for what pixels on a screen can do. Therapy a few years ago was not as common as it is now, but some people have started turning to video games to cope and help them through their rough patches.

Every Souls-like game made by FromSoftware has received at least one game award from numerous critics. There is no denying that FromSoftware can’t make a great game. Whether you are a gamer, an artist, a musician, or just want to enjoy a great story, Elden Ring has something to offer.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the various authors in this paper do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of Kamiak High School or The Gauntlet.