For as long as I can remember there’s always been a debate about difficulty in video games. From Contra way back in the day, to Ninja Gaiden in the 2000’s, there’s always been games that pushed the boundary of too difficult. FromSoftware and its Soul’s style games has kept that debate at the forefront every time a new game is released in the genre and with Elden Ring’s latest expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree releasing just a few days ago it has become the talk of the gaming community once again.

FromSoftware has developed some of the most popular and critically acclaimed games of the entire modern era of gaming. From the Dark Souls Trilogy, to one off’s (for now) like Sekiro, Bloodborne and Elden Ring. Pretty much every game they have produced is a game of the year contender. However because of the difficulty they are also somewhat limited in how much reach they have. With the difficulty being ramped up and no way to lower it, it does turn off a lot of gamers.

Having said that, a lot of the appeal of these games is the difficulty. While they are incredible games, there is something about winning a battle that you didn’t think you could get past. It truly feels like an accomplishment when you do, and that is a great hook for a game. But it does take a lot of patience and determination, something that isn’t for everyone.

Shadow Of The Erdtree seems to have re-ignited this talk even more so than the past. The difference this time is you need to have more or less finished the base game of Elden Ring in order to get to the expansion, which means those playing the expansion had enough skill and resolve to get this far to begin with which makes the debate all the more intriguing. If a legit fan of the game who beat the game is now struggling how would a non souls fan feel?

Now this isn’t really a new thing by the sounds of things. Most FromSoftware game’s that get expansions seem to ramp up the difficulty. But it’s an interesting topic nonetheless. When it comes to Shadow of the Erdtree it seems to be the difficulty comes from two things.

Either the early part of the DLC doesn’t equip itself well to specific builds and that’s giving people issues. If you’ve played through the game for 100 hours and suddenly your build is no good, that can be a deflating feeling. As a Diablo 2 veteran I can relate to that.

The other is that Shadow of the Erdtree introduces the Scadutree Fragment’s that are needed to increase your damage dealt as well as your damage negation for the DLC content itself, this is a seperate levelling system from the base game, so regardless of how well you built your character in preparation for the DLC the combat will still be challenging if you haven’t taken the time to look around and find them.

I’m sure as time progresses and more people get through Shadow of the Erdtree this debate will subside, at least until the next souls like game releases and those Elden Ring veterans will see it all click and they will go back to saying it’s not difficult. But for now, it is interesting watching some of the soul’s fans say this might be what is too hard.

My Personal Feelings

Speaking on my own personal experience I’ve tried multiple “souls games”. The only one I ever did finish was the original Lords Of The Fallen. From what I’m told its probably the easiest game within the souls genre. It was difficult but not enough to turn me away and like I said above, when I did defeat a boss it felt great. Since then I’ve tried other souls games, but I’ve never finished one. I’ve accepted that they just aren’t for me. While I’m sure I could get through them if I kept at it, I’m at a stage in my life where I have too much to do and too much to play to spend hours and hours trying to get through a small section of a game.

It sucks that I’m missing out on some fantastic experiences, and every so often I attempt it once again. Developers Spiders is one of my favourite developers after they made Greedfall. Their most recent game, Steelrising, looked so good and I couldn’t wait to jump in. Until i found out it was a souls game and I was crushed. I still gave it a go because I wanted so badly to like it. I spent about 2 hours in the game and made 10 minutes of progress and gave up.

The one good thing (to me) is that Spiders chose to have an accessibility menu for gamers to change the difficulties, hit points, damage done etc etc in an attempt to make the game more for everyone. If you wanted the full experience you could leave those alone. If you wanted to just enjoy the game, or are like me and didn’t want to sit through hours of figuring things out, you could change the sliders. I personally think more of these games should do that, but I understand soul’s fans thinking that takes away from the game. But you know what else takes away from the game? Not being able to play it.

Then came Elden Ring. I told myself over and over again I won’t buy it I know the game isn’t for me. But it released and I bought into the hype and caved. It likely helped that it came with a great looking steelbook for the collection. Same thing,played a bit and made little to no progress and gave up. I’m sure many will read this and just say “git gud” and I hear you. My days of being an incredible gamer are behind me. Years of competitive achievement hunting has left me with carpal tunnel and I’m 35 now, my twitch skills aren’t what they used to be. It’s a big reason why I’m not into the competitive shooter space like I was in my teenage years and early 20s.

But my tastes have changed as well. I get 2-3 hours a night to game if I’m lucky. I have a thousand games I want to play so I prioritize what I can get through and enjoy the most. Those aren’t souls games. And that’s okay to me. For those of you that do enjoy them though I’m glad you do. They really do look incredible and I sometimes get jealous I’m missing out. But that’s fine to me.

At the end of the day no matter what side of the debate you are on there is no right or wrong answer in my opinion. But it is one of the most fascinating debates we have in gaming right now.