Dear Elden Ring,
I really tried to love you. Really, I did. When you were first announced, I was so excited for more Dark-Souls-like stuff. Bloodborne was great; I probably enjoyed it more than Dark Souls III. But the medieval setting, the rich FromSoftware world of broken castles and deserted grand halls… I knew you were going to be good.
And then I heard more. And I became wary.
Open-world, they said. Crafting. So much exploration that you couldn’t possibly see it all in one playthrough. And really, I was still excited — it meant more Game to be enjoyed. More content. It’d last for ages, I thought. I’d take years to complete it… but was that a good thing? What I was worried about most was that there would be too much choice. Dark Souls was never linear, but it was linear enough that you knew that the experience was curated. Somebody had put one area after the next for a reason. Somebody had made that boss healthbar exactly right, just within the realms of doability. Somebody had hidden that one jerk skeleton behind a convenient potted plant or whatever because I, the player, was meant to be guided through an experience: an experience that could be easily shared and reminisced about. An experience of a world falling into ruin. I was worried for you, Elden Ring, that you would be too much of something else, something other.
I was cautious, but cautiously optimistic. I worried that FromSoftware was trying to play things too safe, to play into the triple-A market like so many other franchises before it, only to be mired in mediocrity. But I do like when games dare to do things differently, and FromSoftware was certainly venturing into unfamiliar territory with you. All the same, it seemed to have kept its strengths in mind. The setting! That was grand. Gameplay seemed to be exactly what I hoped it would be, and the music as well! Trailer after trailer was released, and I was in awe. I was eager to fight the incredible bosses, to traverse the various dying landscapes, discovering for myself a world on its last legs. That was exactly the Soulslike vibe, and I had high hopes. I believed that you would still be amazing, and that I would fall in love once again — I remember my scepticism about Soulslikes as a whole, once upon a time. How wrong I had been, and how wrong I hoped I would be about my doubts. About you.
And then you came out. Obviously I couldn’t afford you, but someone graciously and generously got you for me. I was dumbfounded, but so excited. I downloaded you and pressed start, and just… wow. Everything was so smooth. Each motion, each swing of the sword, so fluid. And while I’d loved Bloodborne, I missed having a shield. Now that wish had been granted again, and how good it was. I went into Limgrave eager, bewildered, and infused with a sense of wonder that only FromSoftware could elicit. I was insulted by Varre, crept past the Tree Sentinel, met some minor bosses, and I was having a great time. Margit the Fell Omen offered an incredible fight, and Stormveil Castle was just fantastic. That was the stuff I’d come for. The tightly-designed dungeons, the crazy enemies. The traversal I didn’t like as much, as I’d expected, but that would be fine as long as it didn’t get in the way of the gameplay. It would supplement the dungeon-crawling, I was sure, not get in its way.
And then I got lost. I was teleported to the Sellia Crystal Tunnel near the dragon Agheel fight, and that was positively harrowing. I genuinely had to look up the Weeping Peninsula because I’d missed something (and that was on me, really). But then… what was to come after that? There were so many areas I could visit, all connected to each other, some connected to NPC quests, others locked off by other things, and I was thoroughly confused. This wasn’t strange for a FromSoftware game, but just as I feared, it was the sheer scale of things that made it all worse. Obtuse things on a small scale I could bear with, but this?
I continued through Caelid, which was really grim (as one would hope from a Soulslike), but it just didn’t capture me like the Catacombs of Carthus or the Fishing Hamlet. Leyndell’s grandeur didn’t capture me like Irythyll or Cainhurst Castle. Siofra River was a pleasant surprise, until it went on and on, and even the incredible fights with mystical elk bosses lost their lustre. In fact, so many bosses were similar. Some bosses came back as regular enemies in the dungeons — the Watchdogs come to mind. Most of the field bosses, I found, got old really quick; not to mention that they were in similar locations. Dungeons differed, of course, but they looked very similar visually, and I hated that I got tired of them. I didn’t want to get tired of you; I wanted to experience the whole journey.
And then I met the Valiant Gargoyles. And I got stuck. And for a long time, I didn’t come back to you. I want to apologise, but I do think that I needed the break because again, I wanted to see everything. There were so many things that I still looked forward to, mostly bosses: Malenia, Hoarah Loux, Radagon, Mohg, Placidusax. I wanted to find NPCs and finish their quests: I really was invested in Fia’s questline. Malenia, especially, I was looking forward to fighting. But I’d found, at that point, that what drove me away most was the emphasis on finding a build. I didn’t want to curate myself to a particular build — I wanted my build to be my build. And this hadn’t been a problem in other FromSoftware games I’d played up to that point, but here was a wall that I couldn’t bash my head through, as much as I wanted to. I wanted to love you, but I wanted to love you as myself, not someone else.
But I did get on with things, in time. I beat the Gargoyles, and I kept going. Eventually I did get to Malenia, and horror of horrors, I found the fight absolutely joyless. I couldn’t understand why — I usually enjoyed the really difficult bosses. I had to leave her to her rotting flowers and travel elsewhere to find the Dung Eater, and to defeat Fortissax, and do whatever else. It felt like a checklist, not a journey. And at the same time, I felt guilty, because I wanted to commit to you, but I felt that I couldn’t. Was I falling out of love, or had I never been in love in the first place? These were the thoughts that ran through my head as I headed for Malenia’s boss arena once again. But then having finally beat her, I went on to Farum Azula, and there, I found my excitement coming back. It was another tightly designed area; no need for fast-travelling across the map, no need for crafting. One bit of it led to the next so smoothly, and intentionally, and I realised that I did, in fact, love you. At least a little.
I don’t know what I felt when the Elden Beast fell. I don’t know what I felt as I watched the Age of the Duskborn begin. In the end, it was almost as if I felt nothing. I thought that perhaps it was just me, that it was my fault. And in a large part, I still believe that.
Maybe I did love you. But I’m sorry that I can’t love you like a lot of people do. They say you’re a masterpiece, that you’re the best thing FromSoftware has ever released. I don’t know if I believe that, but I certainly don’t agree. For me, you will always be the one I could never understand and appreciate fully; the one who offered so much, who offered everything you had; the one whom I desperately wanted to love the way others feel you deserve to be loved. But I simply can’t. I can’t lie about that. And I’m very sorry.
Sincerely yours,
Flore
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