Elden Ring has struck a chord with many players and has become a huge success. Developers even know the principle behind it from Warzone, Counter-Strike, Minecraft, DOTA and many other games, but unfortunately it is ignored far too much.
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Platforms:Windows PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
A comment by Daniel Hartmann
Elden Ring: Virginless, but not cheerless
The games from FromSoftware are no longer an insider tip, a real secret is actually only the correct spelling of the studio from Japan. In the previous games, the number of players also climbed over time from the “niche product” category, but FromSoftware has never experienced such sales success as with Elden Ring.
Of course, that’s not because millions of players have suddenly discovered the desire to be slapped hundreds of times by the same boss. This salient feature is not the reason for success for hardcore fans, although they may not like to hear it. A meaningful discussion about it often fails because of the understanding of the difference between the degree of difficulty and accessibility. The fact is, such options, whether related to one or the other, are, as the word suggests, optional and don’t take anything away from anyone.
But I didn’t want to open the barrel and write myself in a rage here. So I come to what makes Elden Ring so good. I’ll keep it short too. Hardly anyone can stand how positively people talk about this game. After all, as a world gamer you want to get excited, EA and Blizzard simply spoil us. Luckily, Elden Ring’s graphics are only “fair” and FromSoftware makes a few bugs with the patches – otherwise it would be almost unbearable.
As for the strengths: On the one hand, there would be that harmonious design of the world and its characters and monsters. These things reinforce the theme everyone is raving about: The open world. The Zwischenlands feels like an organically created world and hits the already mentioned nerve called thirst for adventure. Instead of working through markers on a map, I explore the game world and enjoy discovering things. Not because the game tells me so, but because I saw that castle in the distance and just wanted to know what’s there. That brings us to the actual topic of this article.
The greatest strength of video games is ignored far too much
What does all this have to do with Warzone, Counter-Strike, Minecraft or DOTA? Don’t worry, the games aren’t just sitting there for Google in the second set, we’ll get to that in a moment. What I just outlined is the biggest difference between video games and all other media. It is the Interacting with the medium of video games myself. I, the player, am part of the game and have an influence on what happens, how it happens and when it happens. Elden Ring doesn’t take us by the hand, it throws us into its world, lets us just do it and doesn’t limit us. Our frame of action is (almost) the entire game.
The above games are just examples of games, genres, and companies that thrive on gaming communities doing things like modding tools or map editors were given and they were allowed to do. The Battle Royale genre goes back to the Hunger Games Minecraft plugin (inspired by the films of the same name) and then went the well-known path via the DayZ mod for ARMA 2 through many stations to the mainstream genre that is so popular today. Where would Activision be today without Warzone and would the company still be worth almost 70 billion US dollars to Microsoft without this mainstay? A similar question could be asked about Steam. The Half-Life mod Counter-Strike is still the ultimate first-person shooter. The entire MOBA genre gained popularity as a map for Blizzard’s Starcraft and then via the Warcraft 3 map became what is now the biggest esports genre through DOTA 2 and League of Legends. What would the story of the largest digital platform for PC games, Steam, have looked like without Counter-Strike and DOTA?
Elden Ring as a trend reversal?
So video game developers have had extremely good experiences with it, to give players freedom, not to dictate everything to them and to make something out of a game on their own. it likes appear somewhat abstract at first glance, to lump Elden Ring’s game concept with modding and the like, but behind both is the same idea and the same recipe for success. There are currently simply too many games that are designed as a straight-forward product and set the path for the player.
Of course, this doesn’t work with every game or every genre, but it just needs more games like Elden Ring. The potential of the video game medium is simply too great to be wasted on too many soulless products when they could be the most immersive and limitless works of art. Yes, with all the beautiful idealism, it still has to pay off. Maybe like Elden Ring? FromSoftware didn’t reinvent the video game, and there are several games that do exactly what Elden Ring does right. Perhaps Elden Ring will initiate a trend reversal. I would wish.