I played Elden Ring wrong for two years

polygon.com:

How far have you made it in a video game before you realized you were playing it wrong?

I started Elden Ring on launch day in 2022. I made it all the way to the Fire Giant and Commander Niall before I found out my build was busted… in 2024. Two years and 200 hours of gameplay later.

Anyway, I fixed it, AND I’M NOW THE BEST PLAYER IN THE WORLD!!

No, I still kinda suck. Obviously.

But why was I having such a hard time, and why did I spend 200 hours playing a game I’m bad at? Learn from my story.

First, some context: I’m not good at games. Some people are surprised by this. And other people are like… Of course you’re bad at games… you’re a games journalist…

ANYWAY, this is important. Because I’ve always loved games, but I didn’t grow up with consoles. I played PC games like Age of Empires 2 and Fable… 2. And while my brother spent many hours getting proficient at Counter-Strike when we were teens, I spent a lot of time doing missions with my real-life friends in City of Heroes. Gender!

All this to say, in my ripe old age, dexterity is something I struggle with. Which doesn’t mean I don’t have fun; it just means that people get mad when they have to watch me play!

I had a lot of appreciation for what FromSoft was bringing to the table, though, especially after my coworker Pat made a whole big video about how much modern action games have been influenced by Dark Souls’ design.

But I had no hands-on experience with FromSoft games themselves.

So when I started playing Elden Ring, it did not surprise me that it was DIFFICULT! FromSoft games are hard; it’s one of the few things I knew going in. Also that this one had a horse. Kinda.

I countered the difficulty by adopting an aggressively resigned mindset. I was gonna die. So what. I will die… and I will die again… and I will persevere, because that’s what these games are about… probably?

But I ended up making things a lot more difficult than necessary, and it all stemmed from my assumptions about what it means to play a