Written by Aleks

Video games, like all media and culture, are not immune to trends. It always seems like there are those one or two games that take the internet by storm and hold a death grip on players, popular discourse, and culture alike until they’re inevitably replaced by the next big hit as far as the public eye is concerned. Fromsoft’s Elden Ring dominated streaming when it came out in 2022, becoming the centre of popular discussion and seeping its way into other discourse simply due to how well made the game is. With the DLC Shadow of the Erdtree releasing soon, it’s likely to seize popular attention once again. When discussing Fromsoft titles however, there is always one topic that rears its head into the conversation: the debate about difficulty. While there is argument as to where Elden Ring’s difficulty lies compared to previous Fromsoft games, there is no denying that the game can be incredibly challenging, often by design. Fromsoft has become known for its brutal difficulty in their games, and with Elden Ring’s popularity came a new wave of gamers interested in trying out the hot new game only to find out that it’s unforgiving, especially compared to some of the games that they’re used to. There’s no direct way to tune the difficulty, and so they argue for sliders to allow them to participate. Now, the point of this article isn’t really to take a side on the Great Fromsoft Difficulty Debate^TM (though I will link a great YouTube video by Professor Bopper on the topic here), but rather to approach it from a different angle; Why is it so important that as many people as possible are able to play the game to begin with?

“Games need to be accessible!”, I hear the strawman I made up for this argument ask. I agree with this statement. Games should be accessible. At risk of joining the debate that I just said I wouldn’t, I would also argue that Elden Ring is accessible (for the most part). Elden Ring, and virtually all of Fromsoft’s Soulsborne games, implements its difficulty diegetically, with certain playstyles providing unique opportunities of power and ease of use compared to others. You don’t have to play the game in the most challenging way, or the way that people tell you is “the best and only way to get the most optimal experience” which involves forgoing several mechanics due to them being “cheating” or whatever. You can use magic builds, or use summons, or any other combination of attributes and mechanics – you are able to tailor the experience to be as difficult as you want via the mechanics and builds you choose to engage with, and the game actively encourages their use. Why else would they be in the game if not to be a tool at your disposal? To follow up, Fromsoft games are supposed to challenge you. As mentioned, there are diegetic ways in order to lower the difficulty, but outside of that, if someone isn’t willing to engage with the systems of the games, that’s on them. Accessibility does not equal ease of access.

What exactly does this mean? Just because something is accessible to those with disabilities or difficulties playing games does not necessarily mean that it is also something that anyone can just pick up and enjoy with little effort. For example, Paradox games, and most other 4X/grand strategy games for that matter, have difficulty sliders that allow you to make the game easier, but still require the player to engage with the mechanics of the game. They are accessible to players that want to play them, but they are not games that someone can just pick up and instantly know what to do and do it well. Elden Ring is similar in this regard. It allows many, many options for overcoming the obstacles that the game presents, but still requires the player to be in tune with the game’s mechanics and engage with them if they want to succeed.

People like to feel like they’re a part of the cultural zeitgeist, and when that zeitgeist is something that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to just being picked up and played with little effort, it can be frustrating. I get it. There have been many games that I’ve tried and wanted to get into that I just couldn’t. Despite numerous attempts and many hours, I can’t get into Stardew Valley. I’ve played with my friends before, and while I’ve generally enjoyed my time playing with them, I find Stardew to be, well, boring, and while I’ve never attempted single player, I don’t think I’d ever get very far anyways. I deeply respect the game and can certainly see why so many people love the game; it’s simply not for me. Even series that I love have aspects of them that I dislike while others love. Fire Emblem: Three Houses exploded in popularity on its release bringing in new fans, many of whom were drawn into and loved the vast customizability that the game allowed you to partake with your students, able to mold them to or against their strengths, customize their class, the options were practically limitless. While the novelty was surely fun the first time around, I’m not a fan of that level of customizability, and I don’t enjoy the way that modern Fire Emblem does unit building — I find it time consuming and I tend to over-think options, often going “fuck it” and foregoing optimization because I find the grind to get there tedious, boring, and not worth the payout. This is all to say that it’s okay to not enjoy a game that everyone likes. You don’t need to play the popular game, especially if its genre is one that you aren’t a fan of.

Something I’ve come to realize is that not only am I not going to be able to always play the “popular” game for one reason or another, but that the amount of games that I will never be able to play far exceeds the amount of games that I will. I’ve recently started a list to keep track of games that I have that I need to get to playing, and it currently stands at 99 entries that I have yet to complete. On top of that, my Steam wishlist currently sits at 235 games. While many of these games are on the shorter side (5-10 hours, some in the 2-5 range), that’s still hundreds of hours of gameplay and thousands of dollars even when discounted. Even with these incredibly large numbers, there are many, many more games that I will never have the chance to play for one reason or another. While I’ll obviously experiment and try new games out, there will be many that I skip or stop playing due to not aligning myself with what the game is trying to do. Not every game is for me, and that’s OK.