Elden Ring’s DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree has been in the wild for less than a week and has already sparked discourse about game difficulty. After being review-bombed for what many perceived as an overly difficult DLC compared to the base game, FromSoftware’s newest patch seeks to make things a touch easier for players through additional stat increases.
This is probably welcome news to the many frustrated Elden Ring players right now, and I’ll certainly welcome it in my playthrough. However, I propose to those finding the newest expansion to be hard to the point of being unenjoyable: being shit at games is kind of fun.
The difficulty of a game being so beyond the pale that players can’t progress at all is an accessibility issue, and something many have discussed not just in relation to Elden Ring. However, it’s worth noting that FromSoftware’s hit title is perhaps one of the most accessible to newcomers to the genre backed by other mega-hard games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne given the open world map – find a challenge you can’t quite overcome, and move on elsewhere before returning once you have the tools in hand to take it on.
Sucking at something is the first step towards being sort of good at something
However, the struggle of a difficult boss fight (even one where you might die many times over in the process) is part of the joy of games like Elden Ring. As Jake says in Adventure Time, sucking at something is the first step towards being sort of good at something. Find what seems like an insurmountable challenge and try again (and maybe again, and again, and again) until you learn from your past failures and succeed, even if only by the skin of your teeth. The satisfaction of overcoming what previously seemed impossible is all the sweeter than breezing through on the first try.
I say this as someone who self-professes to be pretty bad at video games, despite my whole life being centred around them. I’ve rarely picked up a title of any genre and immediately gotten the hang of it, even if the difficulty level wasn’t really that high to begin with. Call it slow reflexes, poor eyesight, or a sick satisfaction from horrifying others with a complete lack of natural skill – I’m just kind of shit at video games. And I find all the more joy in that fact, because of the challenge.
I liken my revelling in the struggle to the joy I find in losing more generally, and perhaps it’s this perspective shift that makes being kind of bad at games more enjoyable for me. Losing opens up opportunities that winning could never offer. You have to think of different solutions to what many might find to be an easy to solve problem. You might have to take a side quest or two in order to progress forward or correct your mistakes. It might make for a more interesting story than cutting down the boss immediately, too. In terms of Elden Ring more specifically, we know that half the hype of the game on its initial launch came from those very stories of players finding or doing something interesting that hadn’t been done or considered before.
Going into Shadow of the Erdtree, I think getting absolutely bottled by the first boss you come across, even if you became the god-slaying professional of the Lands Between, is a humbling experience. If anything, it adds to the overall gameplay – even someone who has taken on what seemed like the most challenging enemies is not infallible in this new land and story, and must start from the bottom all the same.
Struggletown in the Lands Between
As I mentioned, the difficulty of games does become an accessibility concern when there’s minimal in the way of settings to alter how tough of a slog a game is. When it comes to FromSoftware’s games which have a reputation of being punishingly hard at the best of times, it’s a valid criticism, and maybe one day we’ll see a title from the developer which does include the option to ratchet down the difficulty as desired so that more players can access the frankly wonderful worldbuilding, gameplay, and visuals that it has to offer. Accessibility settings in all their forms should be baked into the very fibres of games from the moment development begins, and while it’s something we’re seeing more of, there’s plenty of work to be done still.
For those who have made it through the base game of Elden Ring and find themselves overwhelmed by the difficulty (and hopefully can make it through now with the newest patch), or frustrated by having to repeat the same boss fight over and over, I recommend taking a step back and looking at things a little differently. Sure, you might not cut down the boss on the first try or three, but once you finally do, isn’t the satisfaction great? Isn’t there an untold joy in forcing your way through struggle town as the unexpected champion?
I’ll probably continue to be kind of shit at games for the rest of my life – my reflexes aren’t getting any faster and my eyesight sure as hell isn’t getting any better. However, the stories of how I managed to take down the challenges I find in video games, even if the majority might not consider them challenges, will be all the more enjoyable. I’ll never be the type to speedrun a game because I simply can’t, but that means I have plenty of time to pause, take the longer scenic route, and discover what a game has to offer in its entirety before returning to the most-trodden path.
Image: FromSoftware
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