Why can’t anyone in this cursed part of Earth get enough Elden Ring? The cause of this is a mystery. It defies all reasoning.

The open-world role-playing game Elden Ring is more than just a success due to its high level of challenge. Counts have been off the charts.

FromSoftware has a history of producing successful games. Thus, their games’ widespread acclaim wasn’t unexpected. The success of Dark Souls and Bloodborne is well merited. With Elden Ring, however, the famous builder has reached new heights of success.

It took FromSoftware a full year to sell 5 million copies of their previous game, the critically acclaimed and massively popular Sekiro. Bloodborne, only available for the PlayStation 4, eventually sold three million copies. It took Dark Souls 3, FromSoftware’s most successful game, around four years to sell 10 million copies.

What Makes This Game So Popular?

Elden Ring is the highest-selling game of the year so far, according to the NPD Group, which tracks monthly game sales. The game has sold over 12 million copies in the month it has been available and is widely regarded as one of the year’s greatest games.

Aside from that, this game has been included in the iGaming sites’ array of online games today, like at WhereGamble. 

To this point, that’s the game’s biggest problem, albeit it’s hardly the game’s fault. This is why Elden Ring is so great: Good enough that you forget about your responsibilities for a few hours and then look at the clock and find that it’s 3 a.m. It’s a break from its immediate predecessors since it’s fantastic in a way that makes you want to convert virtually everyone. 

This primarily solo role-playing game was created by the firm FromSoftware (often referred to as FromSoft) under the supervision of auteur Hidetaka Miyazaki and is the sequel to the critically acclaimed Dark Souls trilogy, Bloodborne, and Sekiro. They have a devoted fanbase for a good reason (Bloodborne could be my partner’s all-time favorite game), but they aren’t for everyone. 

You play as a small man in a third-person open world, fighting enemies and solving puzzles like in those other games. Elden Ring incorporates the core principles of earlier games into every aspect of the game, from the delicate mechanics to the eerie yet intriguing visuals and, yes, even the challenge. 

You play as a “Tarnished,” a person who wanders an ever-expanding world in search of adversaries and questlines to, hopefully, become the Elden Lord. 

The sheer size and strangeness of the universe are breathtaking and give the player the game’s most crucial feature: When you don’t feel like banging your head against the wall trying to overcome an impossible foe, it provides you with apparently endless alternatives.

This game is so massive and intricate that there is still a sizable obstacle to admission. That should keep you from checking it out or knowing more about it, but if you’re still familiar with the brand, it would be helpful to have some background knowledge. 

Here are solutions to questions you might have, without giving away any spoilers, in a game where nearly anything you find could be a spoiler. Get up, and you tarnished people!

Why Do Gamers Love It Even If It’s Quite A Difficult Game?

The difficulty is undoubtedly the defining feature of FromSoft games, but it isn’t there to be frustrating; instead, it serves a narrative function and creates the rhythm upon which the entire game is built. You’re supposed to keep trying until you succeed; you’re supposed to study your opponent until you know their rhythms, timing, and strategies for fighting so well that you can gain a fraction of a point of advantage over them with each successive attempt.

How do I give death significance beyond being a final verdict of defeat? The question is, “How do I make dying fun?” After the game came out, Miyazaki gave an interview with the New Yorker. I want as many players as possible to feel the satisfaction of overcoming a challenge,” he said in the same interview.

Naturally, this won’t appeal to everyone, and that’s okay. It’s understandable if this sounds like something other than your idea of a fun way to spend your free time. 

How Elden Ring Embraced the Open-World Format

It would have been difficult to foresee Grand Theft Auto 3’s influence on the gaming business back in 2001 when the game came out. It significantly contributed to the rise of open-world design, which is currently the standard in video games and shows no signs of abating. In place of a truly open environment, FromSoftware games have typically included a sequence of stages that branch off and connect in a way reminiscent of a spider web.

One of the reasons Elden Ring has been so successful is that FromSoftware decided to use an open world for the first time. An open world not only appeals to a broader audience of players but also fits in well with the aesthetic of games developed by FromSoftware. Typically in FromSoftware games, a challenging boss will appear out of nowhere and completely halt player progress until they figure out how to beat the opponent. The open-world design allows players to walk away, see what else the Lands Between has to offer, and come back to exact their vengeance whenever they like.

Elden Ring’s open-world design invites exploration at every turn; however, unlike the vast majority of open-world maps, which are littered with quest marks and icons suggesting locations of interest, Elden Ring provides a comparatively clean landscape that enables players to forge their path. Choosing to let players get lost instead of gently leading them around is a bold design move, but it makes exploring the Lands Between feels like a genuine adventure.