![]() ![]() Lost grace discoveredĮlden Ring is a lot of things to a lot of people-the culmination of FromSoftware's doggedly unique successes, the latest must-play game everyone's talking about, a great challenge to overcome in the most difficult ways possible, another world's worth of fragmented lore to carefully piece together-but it's also the perfect reminder that we don't need to master or even finish a game to consider our time with it to have been worthwhile. If there's something more interesting to do here than be strong or right or efficient. Which is why it's always worth asking if there's another way we can approach something as big, as special, as Elden Ring. The instant the wider gaming community lays every possibility bare and uploads best-practise videos, all that's left to do is check the final outcome and decide if the reward's worth the effort I have to go through to get it. It's too vast and too ancient to deign to explain itself to a lowly Tarnished. When playing without any outside knowledge these are ongoing changes in a world that does not revolve around me. ![]() Characters may turn on me for real, forcing me to kill them before they do the same to me, or they may pass away and leave only a few items of unknown use behind, their death the result of something I did or didn't do, but now have to deal with. I can stumble into conversations and agree to things I don't fully understand, and find myself made to live with the consequences. The list of places I never have to visit and things I don't have to do is long, and yet the rewards for doing them can shape the future. ![]() In contrast Elden Ring is a world of untold possibility, shaped by my own hands. These days Final Fantasy 14 instigates time travel and dimension-hopping at the press of a button, even though the convenience of the act can reduce your daring adventures across reality into hunts for the closest Aetheryte and the correct "!" on the minimap. It's just as hard for a moment of discovery to spark genuine delight, even if you're ready and waiting to be delighted. It's not shocking behaviour from the hero, it's just a plot point awaiting an inevitable explanation. Resident Evil: Village tried very hard to make long-time good guy Chris Redfield look like the villain in his wife-murdering, baby-snatching intro, but as with most attempts to surprise in games, it's clear there's more going on than you've currently been told. Pointing the fingersĪlthough it's not as easy as that, is it? You can't just will the feeling of being surprised into existence. I need to give these virtual worlds, these incredible amalgams of art and technology brought into being by armies of talented people, the space to be more than the next game to be conquered. I instead chose to cherish quiet rides through waterlogged forests and often fatal explorations of the darkest depths for their own sake. It's time I stop viewing incomplete achievements as a public list of Things I Haven't Done But Should Have. When I started Elden Ring, I vowed to focus on spending time in its world simply for pleasure's sake, even if I don't "do" anything. So when a game offers this much freedom, why not choose to be free? Elden Ring itself doesn't care what I do or when I do it The Lands Between will still be there, trapped in post-apocalyptic amber. The overworld allows you to be anywhere you can reach, regardless of whether you've earned the right to be there or not. There's another way of looking at Elden Ring, though, a less efficient and optimized one, which the game actively encourages. My time in the Academy of Raya Lucaria, much of it spent dashing around corners and muttering "Pleaseplease please don't hit me" under my breath, felt like something best hidden from the internet unless I wanted to see my social media feeds filled with tips on how I "should" have played, regardless of the outcome. If I'm not interested in breaking the game on a mechanical level, then anything I do achieve often feels like a shoddy approximation of how to do it "properly," judging by the conversations across Reddit and Discord and social media. It's often not enough to play, and for some it's not enough to win: the dominant way of analyzing and discussing games like Elden Ring is all about optimizing. ![]() The game may change-a popular MMO, a chart-topping F2P adventure, a competitive strategy game, whatever disease-riddled world FromSoftware have cooked up this time around-but the pressure remains the same. ![]()
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