Elden Ring and FromSoftware are horribly overrated – Reader’s Feature

A reader reacts to recent speculation about Bloodborne and FromSoftware’s next game and wishes he could enjoy the games as others do. I like to think of myself as a live and let live kind of guy. There’s lots of games and movies I don’t like, that everyone else seems to, and vice versa, but I am perfectly capable of accepting that as personal preference. But for some reason I cannot seem to get over my deep-seated hatred of everything FromSoftware does.

Well… hatred is a strong word. Frustration is probably more accurate. I haven’t had to think about them much recently but in the last few weeks there’s been a lot of talk about Bloodborne getting a remaster and what else From might be making next. I can tell you what they’ll be making next with a high degree of accuracy: needlessly frustrating games with no story, sky high difficulty, a terrible interface, bad animation, and janky combat. What’s most annoying though is that I want to love them and I just can’t.

I first tried Dark Souls when it become famous and I’d heard a lot about it being a super challenging game that was a fight back against bland ‘press X to win’ style games that were all the rage at the time, from companies like EA and Activision. It looked like exactly my sort of thing in terms of a dark fantasy, with cool medieval designs and monsters. Then I played it and it seemed kind of… amateurish? I distinctly remember trying to get a feel for the controls and being very unimpressed by the animation and movement, and particularly the weedy little jump. It seemed more like an animation glitch than a proper move and yet it’s actually very important in some areas.

What annoys me about this is that it hasn’t really changed at all in later games. Not only these problems but the bad camera, the fiddly menu interface (which is even worse because it doesn’t pause the game), and the combat which is mostly based on hitting someone once or twice, retreating and waiting to do it again and again. I thought it was just me, but I watched YouTube videos to see more skilled players and their defeat of most bosses still seemed to be based on cheesing their way past and basically breaking the game to beat them, rather than having a stand-up fight.

I’ve never seen any good argument for why it needs to be this difficult. Trial and error and rote learning is not you being more skilled. You don’t ‘git gud’ you just try and memorise everything and follow the pattern like clockwork. What really gets me though is the story, which you have literally no chance of understanding if you don’t consult the wikis and YouTube documentaries. I actually had more fun watching them than playing the games, as listening to them piece together the clues was very impressive and then… they admit it’s still mostly guesswork. There’s no real answer for who you are what you’re doing in any of their games and that’s just no something I can go along with.

Like I said, I have tried to enjoy these games. I’ve played Dark Souls 1 and 2, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring, and I can’t see that they’ve improved on the formula in any significant way. What also irritates me is that despite everyone trying to copy them nobody ever tries to better them. There’s no purposefully easier Dark Souls or one with really fluid combat or platforming, there’s just literally clones that only try to copy and never improve anything.

I find it very frustrating and I know it’s going to be even worse when they announce their next game and I’m tempted, and disappointed, by that as well. By reader MiniMax. The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro. You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email.

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