If Elden Ring Keeps Patching Bosses, What Does That Say About FromSoftware's Vision

thegamer.com:

It’s tempting to think of the days before patch notes as a golden age for gaming. It used to be that you bought a game from the store, you’d put it in your console, and away you go. No downloads, No microtransactions, no patches, just the full game. Plus, since development time was much shorter back then, you’d have a sequel in your hands just 12 months later. While patches do a lot of good - and gaming has undeniably improved as an industry - seeing games like Elden Ring be constantly tweaked does take away the charm a little bit.

There are some obvious rose-tinted glasses going on here. Those of us who remember the days of buying Tomb Raider on PS1, plopping it in the disk tray, and then raiding tombs immediately were probably children then. Gaming is a young medium, and only recently has it become more of an adult-oriented hobby. With that has come more inclusivity and diversity, plus more progressive and refined storytelling. Gaming still has a ways to go, but it has inarguably improved as an art form. Still, things are never better than when we were children, so we all remember those pre-patch days fondly.

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In a way, we’re right to. Yes, gaming and the gaming press is less crammed with sexism, and representation is better than ever, even if it still has a ways to go. But in the most basic sense, it was a better user experience when you could just put a disk in your console and immediately begin playing it. And would we rather have one Tomb Raider game a year at the standard of Tomb Raider 2, or a Tomb Raider game every four years at the standard of Shadow of the Tomb Raider?

It’s a question with an obvious answer, until you realise that likely means