“When we can finally dispel the idea that difficulty and accessibility are not at all related, the more healthy gamer discourse will become”
TheEditor D
You will have to forgive my lack of enthusiasm over the recent release of Elden Ring. If you’re a fan of FromSoftware’s singular brand of bleak masochism, great. It’s just not my cup of tea, I’m afraid.
on’t worry, I’m not going to go off on a rant about a game just because I don’t have the patience for it, but the release has brought to the fore a couple of issues, one of which the more blinkered elements of FromSoftware’s fanbase always seem to get in a lather about – difficulty. According to most reviewers, Elden Ring isn’t as challenging as FromSoftware’s previous games, not because the combat is any less exacting, but because the game is more approachable, a word synonymous of course with accessibility. Thus, readers conflate difficulty with accessibility, convinced that when a game is less of what they think it should be, it must be because the developer has had to pander to a wider audience. From this comes the assumption that the developer compromised its vision, which of course leads to blame being unfairly levelled at those unwilling, or, more pointedly, unable, to “git gud.” 20 years ago it was standard practice for entitled PC game reviewers to lay the boot into “dumbed down console ports”, as if attempting to make a game more compelling by doing away with needless barriers was a bad thing by default. I think critics are more conscious of such ignorance now, but many gamers still pander to the principle of exclusivity to the detriment of accessibility. When we can finally dispel the idea that difficulty and accessibility are not at all related, the more healthy discourse will become. Tangentially linked to this is the other issue that has surrounded the release of Elden
Ring, the timing of reviews, and the charge that the vast majority of reviewers were not afforded enough time to complete the game before having to publish their opinions. This is another one that crops up, and is the result of a combination of factors, namely the late availability of reviewable code coming within just a few days of release, and the need for sites to publish their reviews as near as possible to when the embargo ends. Given that there is an expectation from audiences that reviews should be of completed games, that fact that Elden Ring is by most approximations a 60-80 hour game, critics are being expected to turn in the kind of hours that, were it routinely expected at a game studio, would be rightly exposed as excessive. To add insult to eventual injury, freelance rates are such that most reviewers would be lucky to receive more than £100 for cramming two weeks-worth of hours into one (so it’s understandable when they don’t). Counter to this runs the argument that games are fun and reviewing them can hardly be called work if the vast majority playing them not only do so without remuneration, but will pay for the privilege to do so. That’s fine, but they are also free to play the game at their leisure (or not at all) and have the luxury of not having to provide a detailed report within a time period that would be considered unreasonable in most other careers. I would also argue whether in this instance the game is fun, but let’s not go there again.
Richie Shoemaker
richie.shoemaker@
biz-media.co.uk March 2022 MCV/DEVELOP | 05
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
