Elden Ring:Shadow of the Erdtreereleased last week to, as many expected, critical acclaim, and as much fewer expected,a ton of negative reviews from players. Some of those reviews bring up legitimate problems, citing performance issues and crashes as detracting from the experience, but a lot of them also complain that the expansion istoodifficult. Seasoned players are getting two-shotted, and some bosses seem almost impossibly hard to beat.
My colleague Jade Kinghas already writtenabout how some players have shown an astounding amount of hypocrisy in how they dunked on reviewers for saying the game was difficult and then later dropped the expansion for exactly the same reason, but I’m more interested in the confounding nature of the criticism. I don’t get it – isn’t this exactly what you wanted?
FromSoftware Games Are Supposed To Be Hard
People play FromSoftware’s games becausethey enjoy the struggle. When Elden Ring was first released, playersreveledin the challenge it offered. Sure, lots of people bounced off of the game for that exact reason –I myself never bothered playing it, because I knew it would make me want to tear my hair out – but for people who love the genre, this is the entire point. Not every game is for everyone, and soulslikes are definitely not for everyone. They are for people who love to suffer, because success feels so much sweeter when you’ve gone through hell to get it.
Shadow of the Erdtree was never going to be easy. The expansion is clearly meant to function beyond the endgame. You can’t even play it unless you’ve beaten some of the most difficult bosses, requiring you to have developed the skill and accumulate the levels to not get your butt kicked in the Land of Shadow. But also, why would you want it to be? Do you come to Elden Ring for a power fantasy, to feel like the strongest being in all the land, or do you come to it because you want that feeling of overcoming adversity? There’s a right answer.
Elden Ring Is A Marathon, Not A Sprint
The vast majority of people who play Elden Ring take alongtime to get through it. Since the whole point is getting killed over and over (and over, and over, and over) in order to git gud, it can take a casual player months to finish the game. It stands to reason that Shadow of the Erdtree would be the same, so why are players complaining about not being able to steamroll the game and finish it in days? Why would theywantto be able to rush through it?
I can’t say this emphatically enough:that’s not the point. What players should be doing is viewing this as a sort of start from scratch. They will have to grind all over again, and that’s where the enjoyment should come from.As Twitch streamer Kai Cenat wisely said, “Put your big boy pants on, go out there, and go fight.” If the man whocried on streambecause of the game’s difficulty is defending its difficulty, I find it difficult to understand why everybody else can’t think of it the same way.
Maybe It’s Just Not For You
And it’s fine to admit that. Elden Ring definitely isn’t for me, so instead of playing it and complaining that it’s too difficult, I’m simply admitting I have a skill issue (or maybe a patience issue, I’ll never know) and playing other games instead. You aren’t entitled to games being tailor made to your preferences and skill, but there’s so much out there that you can do the same and go find a game that suits you to play instead. Or maybe just install theeasy mode mod. It’s just not that big a deal.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
WHERE TO PLAY
Shadow of the Erdtree is the first and only DLC expansion for FromSoftware’s groundbreaking Elden Ring. It takes players to a whole new region, the Land of Shadow, where a new story awaits the Tarnished.
