It's a weird problem that isn't even unique to Elden Ring. Is the enthusiast review useful to the non-fan? Is the non-fan review useful to the enthusiast? Does the enthusiast/fanboy need a review at all? It was enough for me to just see the game running to know that it was something that I'd probably enjoy, and nothing short of "this game is flat out busted" was going to get me to change my mind. But if you're someone who has never loved a From Software game in your life, were you already ignoring Elden Ring ever since its announcement, and doubly so after the gameplay reveal where you saw that it looked identical to their last 5 games?

I don't really know what the answers to these questions are, but it is an interesting thing to think about.

I think that the even more interesting aspect is the "does the enthusiast/fanboy need a review at all?" and I'm in the same camp of you. I've had this shit preloaded for a while now, even, so I can't even really say I would have bailed out if it came out broken as shit.

I think we have an answer. I think good points have been made all around. I tend to just lean on the fact that this game is From stretching into other genres (ish, from what I've read) and I think that that is enticing to people. So in that respect, I think something from someone like them would be more useful to them. Obviously that is a smaller group of people, but also...do you really need to convince From fans to buy the game? I feel like the larger portion of that proverbial fish tank already bought or will buy the game anyway.

Comment box is fucked, so i'll type above you.

I think the unfortunate thing is that review outlets need to get something out of a big gamerelease too. They want the most eyeballs on their site, and those most trigger-happy to scour around the internet for day1 Elden Ring content are the FromSoftware enthusiasts. So eventhough this group already has the game preordered months ago and skimmed 5 other reviews beforehand, that's the group that gets catered to. This is the hyped crowd that needs to be captured. Which means that the actual usefulness of the review as a tool to help fencesitters decide whether it's a good purchase is quite limited.

You give such a big release to an outsider that doesn't grasp the call-backs or similar mechanics from a previous Souls game and you end up being the laughing stock of the internet for a decade, with the reputation damage that comes with that. 'Too Much Water IGN LULZ'. 'Hah, Jaffe sux at Metroid and blames the game for it' , Lol this outlet can't even get past the Cuphead tutorial. Lol The Verge can't even build a PC. Etc etc. Better to decrease the chance of that happening by being risk-averse and assigning a review to someone that knows what makes a game like this good and what the enthusiasts want out of this new installment.

I get where youre coming from, but that would be like me reviewing a sports game, a genre i know fuck all about, or reviewing a CoD game, a series i actively dislike.

I am kinda of in the same boat, however I have no strong opinion on the previous Souls games, because I have not played them.

I agree that for people like us, reviews for Elden Ring do not seem particular useful. I may watch some gameplay videos and pick it up on sale down the road.

I may be an outlier inside a niche, but I actually have been waiting for reviews to make a buying decision. I have a specific way I like playing these games, and Fromsoft hasn't been shy about hanging me out to dry. I like co-op, I don't PvP and I don't parry. I played all of Bloodborne with the kirkhammer in 2h mode, and the world/level design got me through in spite of the combat. I never even bothered with Sekiro. When ER was announced, I wasn't automatically on board. In the first gameplay trailer; the mounted combat looked off-putting, GRRM's inclusion felt like a stunt, and I really wasn't hopeful about how they prioritized mechanics.

I haven't paid any attention to the game until some coverage of the network test floated my way a week or two ago. After reading some of the reviews, and learning about the mechanics, I have been won over. All I'm waiting for now is the digital foundry breakdown so I can decide between the PC version on a 3060 or the Series X version.

To some degree we're assuming reviews from critics are fully neutral and concious of the variety of people out there who might be tempted to buy the game, on the other hand i do agree that critics aren't robots but not all sites expose their staff in a way that viewers will become familiar with their likes and dislikes, which isn't a problem with an easy solution besides... becoming robots.
Souls games carry a fervor with them unlike most other franchises but first time players really won't understand that until they're exposed to its fan base.

Also allow me to adorn my tin foil hat for a second, taking a general glance at impressions of the review build i started to notice a few instances of the words "I'm ## hours into the game and i haven't even finished it yet!", which is... a weird thing to say, also some reviews admit that they too haven't seen as much of the game as they wanted to before the odd review time limit embargo was up, not saying there's any foul play going on, i'm just even more wary of pre-release reviews now and would suggest others don't get caught up a marketing scheme, luckily the game seems great so it doesn't really matter, this time.

There's also the issue of: what gameswriter truly has no opinion on the Soulsborne series at this point? If you've even had a tiny bit of curiosity about these games, you've probably tried at least one of these games and either liked it or didn't. And if you haven't it's probably because you decided it wasn't for you. Either way, a review from someone who doesn't like that type of game isn't really any more useful than a review from a fanboy.

However, as someone who has previously been on record saying, "I don't like Souls games," this has made finding out if Elden Ring is a game for me monumentally harder.

This really stuck out for me. How was it hard to know if Elden Ring is a game for you? From the moment we got some actual information about the game, it was clear that this was going to be maximum Dark Souls. If you didn't like Souls games, you were never going to like Elden Ring. The setting, combat, storytelling, and vibes are almost identical to the previous games. All the reviews from the big sites have also made that point pretty clear. It's an evolution of Dark Souls, not a new type of game completely.

I also don't really see the necessity of having a newcomer review the game. Why is it important for Elden Ring and not for any other series? Is it important for a newcomer to review the next Zelda, Mario, or Bethesda game? Maybe I could see the point if it was the first sequel or something like that, but there have been dozens of games in the genre now and everyone knows what they're in for. What perspective can a newcomer bring that hasn't been brought up for every game that's come out before it?

It's also not feasible to try and find a newcomer to a series for every big release. How many critics do you think there are working for the big sites that have no experience with the series?

How does a newcomer reviewing the game even benefit you? You already have an understanding of what the series is. There's a pretty good chance the newcomer is going to fall in love with all the things people love about Souls and praise the game in their review. That doesn't mean you'll like the game. Demon's Souls got glowing reviews by mostly newcomers.

As someone who's RPG strategy always has been to grind, overlevel, so I can just enjoy the world and the scenery, I know this game is so not for me.

I forced myself to complete Dark Souls 1 and 2, and mostly disliked it, even though the combat eventually clicked for me and I wasn't terrible at it. Started Sekiro because it was GOTY, but got bored after clearing the castle.

Some people just like hard challenges in games: that's their fun. But that's not me.

I think newcomer perspectives do benefit fellow newcomers on a psychological level. Totally valid and it can really help knowing someone's coming from the same perspective as yourself.

Good post OP. I guess all I want to add here is that if you aren't already a fan of a certain type of game you have the luxury of waiting it out a bit

Personally, I don't read/watch "reviews" at all - for exactly the reasons you laid out. I wait for a few people I trust on the subject matter (GB folks, my friends) to tell me what they think (even if I know they generally don't agree with me) and try to make a judgement then. I can't imagine buying a game just because a bunch of websites I never read gave it 10/10 scores or whatever

In the specific case of Elden Ring, I was waiting to find out if the game had summoning (a feature I like) and if it backed off the Sekiro "only one way to play the game" design before I made my decision. I don't need a score in this case. Review scores are for gadgets and takeout.

@zombiepie said:

You said a lot that I agree with, and these two points really stick out to me. I've often said that I only find reviews from people who are interested in something to be useful. There would be very little value in my review of a romantic comedy movie, or a Japanese RPG about high school kids. There would probably be slightly more value in my review of Pokemon Sword, the first Pokemon game I have ever played (and I really enjoyed it). I'm not looking to someone who doesn't like a genre for their take on the genre. There's a decade-old snarky comment of mine somewhere on this forum about Jeff G.'s opinion on a Star Wars MMO.

But man, these reviews for Elden Ring really feel like they're swinging in the other direction. I agree that no individual review is untrustworthy or "unethical" (a term that still makes me cringe when applied to video game reviews). And I get that an enthusiast press is always going to have these issues of pre-release coverage versus reviews. But damn.

Not including a quest log is just plain stupid. I don't care that it's a design decision--I think it's a bad one.

People excusing jank is seriously how we got Fallout 76, I am SICK TO DEATH of people excusing jank as "part of the experience" and pointing to the hours upon hours of video of people rolling 1000 cheese wheels down a hill. That's all well and good, but I want to plunk down $60-70 for a complete narrative experience, not to have a busted physics engine surrounded by mediocre combat and MAYBE half-decent writing.

Now that's out of the way, this is a very complicated problem and it hits one of the things I really hate about discourse on the internet: collective thought taken as read. When people say things like "Batman V Superman only has a 26% on Rotten Tomatoes, it's not THAT bad" or "This Adam Sandler movie has a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes, that's just ELITIST," but neither of those is correct because Rotten Tomatoes takes a bunch of individual reviews and combines them. The score is meaningless, the score is a binary reflection on whether a review was positive or not. A 26% VS a 97% doesn't mean "one is 1/5 and one is 4/5," it means "most reviewers didn't like this one, most reviewers did like that one." Put another way: a 59% review gets counted just as "negative" as a 5% just as a 61% is counted the same as a 95% review, it's not an "average."

What does all this have to do with this blog post? Collectivism VS individuality! Or, to quote the great Al Pacino in the criminally underrated Dick Tracy: "It doesn't work...unless we're ALL in." Because videogame review websites can't and shouldn't talk about review processes with one another while they're in the process of it, there's simply no way for publications to decide "WE'LL be the ones who put a newbie/neophyte player on the FromSoft beat to offer something else!" because what if 6 publications decided to do that? What if 10 did? What if you're the ONLY ones, and now you're the lone 6/10 among all the 9s and 10s, but it's because the person never liked FromSoft games and this is just another one for the pile? Games at this level are incredibly risk-averse, and coverage of them is even moreso, but this has been a problem with sports games going back a LONG way too. If you don't have a "football guy" on-staff, who's going to review Madden? Should anyone? Should someone with no idea how to play the game see how the game is played from that perspective? On the plus side, I think videos about Elden Ring's approachability are going to get a lot more common, if anything this kind of coverage dissuades presales, and that's something we could all use a little more of (and I'm not JUST saying that as someone who preordered King of Fighters XV and bounced off of it IMMEDIATELY, to the point where I've spent more time staring at the icon on my dash than actually playing the game). So while it's unfortunate that there's not a lot of pre-release coverage from non-enthusiasts, I don't think that's a failing of the individual sites and creators, but a failure of overall vision, or a failure of the system that it already exists within.

This is not to say "the system is perfect, change nothing," but as you're very open and clear about: the system is busted and there's no easy fix." Because the problem with this is the increasingly gatekeepery fanbase that sees any slight problem or criticism as Warhammer 40K level heresy, and therefore people even TRYING to make that inroad face an uphill battle. FromSoft isn't to blame here, but their fanbase is fast becoming the Star Wars of videogames, though I might say that games like "Dead by Daylight" or "For Honor" where toxicity is actively a part of everyday play are getting there faster. A lot of these reviews, especially the 10/10s that aren't moving the needle, seem more like they're trying to avoid harassment and doxxing of their staff, and that is a PROBLEM. And it is a MASSIVE ONE for the future of games coverage.

This is probably coming off as a little more critical of this post than I intended, but the original post hits a lot of issues I have with how we taken in online content, and as you say and I agree: there are no easy solutions here, apart from "people need to stop being such pretentious, gatekeeping pricks." But that's sadly not terribly "simple," it seems. And for what it's worth: Giant Bomb archenemy and sometimes romantic partner Nextlander is doing some great coverage of the game between Alex, who hasn't played hardly any FromSoft games, Brad, who loved Bloodborne and bounced off everything else, and Vinny, who loves Souls games, but not so much Bloodborne.

@onemanarmyy said:

I do think there's a common thread between "Let's assign the Elden Ring review to Joe Soulsborne" and the incredibly defensive writing style of someone who is on twitter too much. In both cases, someone is concerned about covering their ass from a bad faith cheap dunk. Undoubtedly editors are less concerned with their outlet seeming uninformed than they are with the review getting done at all, but I'm sure it's a concern to some extent.

Personally, I avoid outlets that do go for the cheap dunks (ex: Gamer's Nexus doing like 5 videos and a T-Shirt about the Verge PC thing), though I get the sense I'm in the minority on that.

I understand the frustration with not being able to find a professional opinion by someone of your exact mindset in cases like these.

Dark Souls 3 was amazing when I played it in 2016, and I loved the heck out of 1 and 2 as well. In the following years, I've periodically gotten the itch to go back to all the souls games (Sekiro not withstanding, didn't like that one at all) to make new characters. What I found is that I'd get a few hours in and get bored. Maybe I'd try again in a few months when the itch returned, but the magic seemed to have been lost. I'm not sure if I'm tired of this style of game altogether or whether I just need some new layer to get engaged again. Or maybe I simply no longer have the patience for the more annoying/tedious parts of the formula.

Now to actually reply to the sentiment: If the reviews of the latest iteration were merely very positive, rather than effusively glowing, then I'd just pass on it for now and maybe check in later when it's on sale. However, the insane level of praise for this thing makes me very curious to try it for myself ASAP to see if that spark is still there. I am a lapsed enthusiast of this series, and if I come across a professional review from a large publication I can read where the author feels exactly the same way as me, that would be very useful - but it's not very likely. Therefore I would also prefer to read the viewpoints of newcomers. If lots of people who previously bounced off were still captured by this one, that would certainly tip the scales for me.

While not entirely a "newcomer", Maddy Myers published a piece over at Polygon from the perspective of someone who until pretty recently had dabbled with the series out of curiosity but always lost interest due to not being interested in "getting good" or playing patiently. It's about as close to what you're looking for as I've seen. Here's a snippet:

I did give them a chance, of course. I tried outDark SoulsandDark Souls 2, although I didn’t get very far in either one. The games’ reputation put me off. I knew they’d get hard later, so I assumed I wouldn’t enjoy them, and I quit. But then, after learning how to meditate and experiencing significant depression during the pandemic, I returned to the firstDark Soulsand was surprised. It wasn’t about raw skill.

This has been such a weird rallying point in the discourse. Their "quests" have always been weird esoteric non-things that are really only there to reward people who are taking the time to really poke around and play the game over and over.

I'm not saying they're great or even good, but having a quest log isn't going to make them any better.

@ragtagbag: There's a big difference when you move that style into an open world. Better tools are appreciated. Tools that we have because of years of good ideas in game design.

Yeah, I was going to say that, given the subject in this thread, people might be interested in the latest Nextlander podcast, in which they discuss Elden Ring for about an hour and have some usefully mixed reactions.

@ragtagbag: Yeah, I put like 50 hours into Dark Souls 3 and I had to use the wiki for quests. I enjoyed the game, but it was annoying. Hearing people praise the game for not having one is really weird, IMO.

@topcyclist: I’m not entirely sure which of my points you’re responding to? If it’s about our conversation about the quest log, I don’t really see what review nitpicking has to do with that. I don’t think points should necessarily be docked on account of a missing quest log…I just think that might be important information to convey in a review considering this is a big change in format from past Souls games that’s making other concessions to open world design and is clearly attracting a lot more mainstream attention than past games. For all your assertions, I really disagree with you that this is a niche game, at least in its profile…even before the reviews hit it was making a lot of waves outside of the usual From Software fanbase; I’ve had multiple friends who don’t care about Souls asking me about it in the past few weeks. In the context of speaking to that bigger potential audience, information about that sort of basic game functionality seems like it would bear mentioning in reviews.

@banefirelord: sorry, read a ton of post and just gargled my write-up. XD. Yeah, I understand now. I think ign hinted at it. I'm guessing it's not mentioned cause the games just never really did it in the past but if they changed to open-world I see what you're talking about, it could be a bit much to just BOTW it and say go without an idea of what to do next if the world is too big. I think you won't gain the info you need even if it's spelled out i fear, since the game can not have a quest log but could have such hand-crafted locals that your not really getting lost when a person says hey head to this castle. But I can see you getting lost if say you put the game down and came back without something stating...info about a quest. Like going back to an old RPG you put down. Yes, that can be frustrating. Ign's review seems to explain some things and hinted that if you stay on the main path the game is straightforward. Enemies stay at level so wonder too far and you'll know your in the wrong place. Overall the biggest issue is difficulty for most. Overleveling fixes that, but thats annoying. Even maxed stats, these games can be harsh. All fandoms stink depending what side of the fence your on so i also wouldn't worry about toxicity and find a way to demo it (GameFly). I thought it was a niche in that its a super or sorta hard and barely hand holdy game in a generation of much more easy-going AAA games though that is changing. I dont know if AAA games with mass appeal need to be this hard but I'm glad to hear more will try get into games with this one. It teaches a lot of things you can use to enjoy easier games (pattern recognition/timing/patience) PS: Don't be surprised if you or anyone finds these games obtuse and kinda bad lol, I loved the What happen on this game series originally, on youtube and it shows the game (souls) was assumed a failure and people wouldnt "get it" and the heads thought it was too hard as well. I thought it was a lucky niche product that got popular like most niche things it hits a target and people love it.

I don't think it has anything perspectives about the game itself at all. It's anticipation.

For a lot of people, anticipation of enjoying a game and talking about it are just as part of the experience as anything in the actual game. Any criticism or nay-saying amounts to killing the emotional buzz some have been building, for however long the marketing has been going.

Contrary to common belief, I do actually think other people's enjoyment affects your enjoyment.

@zombiepie: When you say newcomer do you mean to the Dark Souls series? Or to games in general? I guess the obvious answer is both.

I'd also add that you can even see this kind of dichotomy in new IP, when there is ostensibly no "veteran" players. I guess this would be getting into the idea of video game literacy, and gatekeeping and elitism based on that.

Just want to point out that in any realm of market research (which, arguably, an individual trying to find out if a game is right for them is a form of market research), the views from those who have nothing to do with the media in question are considered as valuable as the views from those who are knee-deep in it. You might think it has no value, but you'd be surprisd.

My evidence for this is that I was approached for, and surveyed, for film trailer market research. I do not watch films, I made this extremely clear to the researcher, and they still wanted to know what I thought and paid me for this. Similarly, my wife completes surveys for TV market research, when we don't own a TV and haven't regularly watched broadcasts for years.

Seems like only in the sphere of consumer-facing media reviews do people decide that "only the educated view matters".

EDIT: I do realise there's a difference between "company wants to know how well the public will receive a product" and "consumer wants to know if a product is worth the time to someone in their situation" but there is overlap.

I have a whole bunch of friends who are super excited to play this.... but they all hated Dark Souls. I kept trying to tell them that this is basically that but I guess the hype on this is just really big.

Personally I love the Souls games. I have been a big fan since Demon's Souls and will play this eventually but I have no intention of buying it just yet. My Backlog of games is vast, and paying full price for a game that I won't be able to find the time to play is just a poor idea.

@zombiepie: Not that I want to further complicate matters for you - I was super on the fence with this game and feel similarly to you but after being in covid lockdown for a month I pulled the trigger anyway and so far have been loving it.

I've bounced off of every souls game I've tried (Demon Souls, Dark Souls 2, Bloodbourne) despite my best efforts; I really wanted to like them. And there is a lot to like, I enjoy the worlds and their style of story telling but I've always been turned off by the brutal pattern recognition loop, not the gameplay itself but how the world and spawn placements interrupted this loop. I know the previous games are often lauded for their design but I pretty strongly disagree for this reason alone. Sure some areas and bosses were worse then others.

TLDR; I hated all the back tracking and corpse running.

I'm about 10 hours into Elden Ring so far and I've encountered none of that.

When I fail I want to try again instantly.

In addition to bonfires they have these shrines you can choose to return to life at and so far every boss Ive encountered (I've killed 4 now) has had one literally right at their fight.

So now when you die on your quest to figure out the boss - you're only limited by how fast your machine can load you back into the next fight. On series S for me thats about 5-15 seconds.

To sweeten things even more you've got a pretty kick ass open world to try things out and hone your skills or cool off exploring. Its not hyperbole, this is the best open world Horse/Vehicle we've seen yet. The thing is OP and thats a nice feeling for a game that can be pretty punishing if you're not careful.

Over all I think this is definitely a different game from the previous From entries. The combat is a lot less janky and movement feels much smoother then the previous entries though that may be my own bias as its been years since I've last tried one. I think as long as you enjoy a game with tense combat and didn't despise the actual moment to moment gameplay in the previous games this one has a lot of offer.

I will say that I've been very disappointed with the performance on a next gen console. The framerate can really hitch at times which is a bummer. I've never noticed it during combat, probably because its too tense, but when I'm panning the camera over a sweeping vista there is just something off with how its rendering.

Full Disclosure: Soulslike Games that I did enjoy and complete (Jedi Fallen Order, Lords of the Fallen, Outward.) Consensus is that I have no opinion since I enjoyed Lords of the Fallen so take what I say with a grain of salt!

Not sure if this is a turn off for fans of the other games but I'm also finding this one to be considerably easier. The summons you get are pretty powerful to the point where I've tried to stop using them for cheapening a bit of the fun. Its nice they're an option though as I never understood what was going on with the multiplayer in the other games!

I like the idea of a new/younger generation of Souls fans telling other people to git gud, as opposed to mainly old and deep fuckers like myself repeating the phrase ad nauseam.

For whatever it's worth: this is definitely the most approachable new FromSoft game in this vein since...probably ever. And I say this as someone who's beaten Demon's Souls, Bloodborne, and Dark Souls 3, so take whatever that's worth. I like these games, but I wouldn't say I'm "hardcore" into them. I've played Bloodborne more than any of the other games combined because it hits the sweet spot between depth (not complexity) and cosmic horror.

You get tutorial pop-ups, you get maps, you get a "golden trail" that shows you where the next big narrative step is, you can look at in-depth indicators of stats and what each one does. Oh and the game has gone out of its way, at least in the early going, to respect the player's time a LOT more than previous entries.

@undeadpool: There’s a pretty big caveat that it’s only approachable for new players if they’re looking up what they should be doing first and be willing to aimlessly walk around for a long time. If you just follow the golden trail or listen to anybody that’ll talk to you, it leads straight into one of the hardest bosses in the entire series.

The most approachable game is still by far Dark Souls. Undead Burg is masterful in how well it teaches you how to play the game, and nothing they’ve done since has come close. It’s also pretty easy, especially if you look anything up.

@ragtagbag: Sure Undead Burg is a good tutorial zone but also you can walk two steps in another direction and fight high level skeletons or ghosts that you can't even hurt. The idea that it's more approachable than this is pretty out there. There are more Bonfires, a second layer of checkpoint before most bosses, much better systems tutorials. Elden Ring is still not holding your hand but at least it's a little more interested in welcoming people.

But yeah if you do nothing but bee line the critical path in Elden Ring you will quickly be outstatted by new areas. But it doesn't take a guide to figure this out. I trust that new players regardless of their experience in Souls could see a challenge then consider maybe exploring the gigantic open world in order to become stronger.

@efesell: We're getting pretty far out there at this point, but I want to add that I don't really think it's all that crazy for people to get stuck on the path laid out for them. You've only got a tiny bit of the map revealed to you at the start, golden lines pointing the way forward, story beats and character progression reinforcing your decision to push onward, and surroundings that can appear just as hostile as the big scary castle waiting for you.

And while there are other places to check out, you can very easily end up feeling like your choice comes down to 'which wall do I want to bang my head against?'. I don't think the open world is as approachable as people think, only that the advice and guidance you might get would be a bit more than just "git gud".

@ragtagbag:Which is why I used the qualifier: MAIN narrative. That's a bit like complaining that going straight to Castle Hyrule to face Calamity Gannon will get you stomped, despite being THE FIRST THING you can do after the tutorial, because that's what everyone says you must do, in Breath of the Wild isn't "new-player friendly."

Because while following that golden trail, you'll organically run across a bunch of other things and even if you ignore them, upon your third utter stomping by the boss, it seems to me that "try exploring and getting stronger" isn't really galaxy-brain thinking. And I'm not one of these "TUTORIALS AND DIRECTION ARE FOR WUSSES!!!!"-types, but when you get into this game, a little less direction is to be expected. And this has an INCREDIBLE amount compared to ALL the previous games. I've never played one of these that is so interested in getting you RIGHT back into the action, and upon fighting one of the other 3 bosses you can get to easily, and having a MUCH better time with them, it seems to me that it's not on the game to put up a giant "GO TO BUMPUSVILLE" sign in the stars to let you know what you might want to do next.

@efesell:TL:DR, this.

@mindbullet: I dunno.. new players to this are (probably) not toddlers. I give people credit to be able to recognize when something is too difficult and they need explore a ton of areas they just ran past if they were only following the beacon.

Like this isn't even just Souls, if you play any game that's open like this and put on blinders to everything outside the critical path you will run into trouble. It's just that in Souls its a punch instead of a slap.

@efesell: I would counter that getting stuck on a boss is very much part of the Souls experience for a lot of people. There's usually been other paths you can go down even in other Souls games, but it's not uncommon to get to a point where you just kind of have to grit your teeth and push through a particular encounter.

The question will always be "is it me or is it the game?", and my argument was only that I can understand if someone breaks themselves on the first big boss encounter in Elden Ring when the lead up feels like it's heavily implying you're supposed to be doing just that. I don't think it has to do with a player being a child, and I don't particularly appreciate that wording, but rather an issue of what the game is communicating in this one particular instance.

@mindbullet: I guess my stance on it is that the game is communicating it very well through action. The boss you reach is very difficult and you would have skipped numerous portions of game to get there as quickly as possible.

I just don't know how common this person we are theorizing actually is, where you ignore the game reach a very difficult first boss and then just adamantly insist that there's no other way forward.