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

Enlarge / Piece of cake. (credit: FromSoftware)

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.”