Is Elden Ring really that hard? Well, it depends what you mean by “hard”

Every time FromSoftware releases a new title, the entire gaming community seems to get wrapped up in the same tired debates about game difficulty. One side complains that games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne are just too hard for their own good and that only masochists enjoy games that punish players for every little mistake. On the other side, die-hard FromSoftware fans will argue vehemently that the games aren't really that difficult if you just play them correctly.

The release and massive success of Elden Ring has predictably revived those debates, leading to familiar and circular arguments. To help end the bickering, we've tried to break down the vast and loaded concept of "difficulty" in video games into an Ars Difficulty Matrix (™) consisting of five noncomprehensive subcategories.

We've laid out the elements of that matrix below, and for each element, we've tried to explain how Elden Ring fits into the history of game design. In doing so, we hope to show that Elden Ring can be both brutally difficult and incredibly easy. It all depends on what, exactly, you mean by "difficulty."

Mechanical difficulty

Mechanical difficulty simply refers to the way games require players to hit a certain set of buttons in a certain timing window to complete the next objective. This form of difficulty is also sometimes referred to as a "reflex test."

Mechanical difficulty has a very long history in gaming. Classic arcade games overwhelmingly relied on increasingly difficult reflex tests to weed out players and force them to put in another quarter. Early console games often did something similar, using demanding mechanical challenges to increase the playtime on cartridges with limited storage space. When people talk about games being "Nintendo Hard," they're usually talking about mechanical difficulty.

While pure mechanical difficulty isn't as popular in games as it once was, it still features prominently in platformers like Super Meat Boy, Celeste, or the so-called "Kaizo Mario" ROM hacks, to name just a few.

Compared to games like that, Elden Ring just isn't very mechanically difficult. Most enemies telegraph their attacks with massive, seconds-long animations that give players plenty of time to react with a well-timed dodge, block, or parry. Some of the game's platforming sections require precision double-jumps on a horse, but most of them are optional. While you can't just button-mash your way to victory in Elden Ring, you don't need preternatural hand-eye coordination to make progress either.

But while each individual block and attack may not be mechanically difficult, Elden Ring can require a lot of focus and endurance to chain moves together into a successful battle (or series of battles). That's especially true when multiple enemies gang up to attack you from all sides. So moves in Elden Ring are kind of like pushups; performing one is child's play, but performing 100 in a single chain can be torture.

Which brings us to...

Punishing difficulty

This side of the Ars Difficulty Matrix measures how much of a penalty you pay for failure to complete an objective. How many mistakes can you make before facing the words "game over"? And when you do get a "game over," how much progress do you lose?

In a title like Spelunky, a single mistake can mean restarting your entire run from the beginning. On the other end, Quantic Dream games like Heavy Rain or Detroit: Become Human don't have a "failure" state in the first place. They simply adapt the ongoing story to whatever you decide to do.

When people say Elden Ring and other FromSoftware games are difficult, the word those gamers are usually looking for is "unforgiving." FromSoftware makes games where one false move against even minor enemies can cost you a significant chunk of your health bar or even lead to instant death.

While Elden Ring is a bit more generous than its predecessors with the flasks that can refill your health bar away from a checkpoint, using those flasks requires pausing for a lengthy animation that can open you up to a merciless counterattack if you're not careful. And that doesn't even get into the situations where you simply roll off a ledge and tumble hilariously to your death.

Where Elden Ring is slightly less punishing than previous FromSoftware games is in the consequences for death. Checkpoints are relatively frequent, including just outside most boss fights. That means you don't lose much progress when you restart. And while you do drop all your valuable runes every time you die, it's usually not too hard to run back to the point where you fell and recover them. The main penalty for death is the few minutes you need to reload the last checkpoint and repeat your advance.

Arcane difficulty

How well does the game explain its inner workings? Are there detailed tutorials explaining the basic controls and deeper strategies? Or do you have to figure it all out on your own? Are there signposts showing you where to go next?

In other words, does the game hold your hand?

This is another area where Elden Ring tends to be more "difficult" than plenty of other modern games. Elden Ring is so unwilling to hold your hand that many gamers are unintentionally missing the introductory combat tutorial. And while many modern games make it nearly impossible to avoid the key items you need to progress, Elden Ring has spawned countless articles like "Elden Ring's Easiest Essential Items To Miss."

Any game that's happy to let you miss "essential" items is more than willing to let you fail in a way that many people will consider "difficult." Elden Ring also lets players make the game harder for themselves without much warning—melee-based characters seem to have a much more difficult experience than classes that can make use of magic, for instance, though the game itself won't warn you about this.

Meanwhile, there's a whole genre of YouTube videos explaining Elden Ring's "tricks and hidden mechanics." Many of these, like being able to swing a sword on either side of your horse, would have been explained in a less arcane game.

On the one hand, this kind of difficulty can be "solved" with a quick Google search or Wiki consultation. Sharing Elden Ring secrets like a kid on the schoolyard can even become part of the game's appeal—for the right kind of player. On the other hand, if you consider a video game a self-contained text, figuring out even basic gameplay elements in Elden Ring is perhaps more difficult than it should be.

But Elden Ring does have an in-game messaging system through which players can share tips and tricks with strangers across the Lands Between. Even still, that system is already so full of spam that it can be hard to rely on for useful information.