Elden Ring is the best RPG of 2022 so far – But the achievements tell a different story

Elden Ring has consumed most of my gaming time since it was released at the end of February this year. The passion for the game took me completely by surprise, especially after I spent a few hours with closed-net testing in November and left with a feeling of hope, but mostly unimpression. Now that I’ve completed the game multiple times, one thing still intrigues me. If Elden Ring So popular, why are there so few players earning the most basic achievements?

I won’t refuse – before Elden Rings, I’m a FromSoftware virgin. In addition to the network test, I went in Elden Ring largely blind, loitering through the tutorial again, as I tried to hone my fledgling combat skills in preparation for the glorious hell I was about to encounter. I have faced many times, even with Farum Azula’s boss Beastman in the first cave you arrive, just outside the gate. The challenge, at first, feels almost overwhelming. I’ve gotten to the point where I can handle several different types of enemies, and even a giant or two, and I’ll be leveraging that knowledge to get Runes, upgrade my character, and progress. to new heights. I’ll wince in frustration at the boney special deaths, and physically I’m almost involuntarily throwing out peace signs when I finish a particularly hard boss, like I’m Play Mario pass a level.

Praise the fingers

After some characters and two runs of New Game+, I finally came down from Elden Ring intoxicated, with a lot of satisfaction and a series of questions. It’s not a secret Elden Ring became a resounding success. With over 900k concurrent active players on Steam and some equally stellar numbers on Xbox and PlayStation, it seems Elden Ring is becoming more and more popular simply…well, is growing in popularity. A real video game snowball effect. As a personal game lover, I get that. However, as a first-time FromSoftware gamer, I’m beginning to see a huge disparity between those who are making significant progress towards becoming Lord of Elden and others who may be forever missing. female.

My question arose perhaps around the time I made my way to Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon, for the first time. After a few tries, I learned the battle well enough to beat it without hitting my face with my controller in frustration. I play Elden Ring on Xbox, so I was greeted with an achievement, which tells you the value of your achievement and the percentage Elden Ring players have also completed the same achievement. At the time, I was a bit surprised to see that less than 20% of the players had completed that boss battle. I didn’t really understand what that number meant, until much later.

You see, in Elden Ring, there are a variety of bosses. Over 100 bosses, easy, but the vast majority of them are completely optional. Actually there should be less than 20 bosses if you just want to go through the story. It’s sure to be a lot of fun going off the beaten path in Elden Ring, with more bosses with additional achievements, special rewards and unique world exploration fun. No matter what you choose to do, at some point, if you want to progress, you’ll really need to start killing some bosses that aren’t optional, that’s why, when I get past the General Radahn, and seeing that less than 15% of players had progressed to that point, I started to think something might be up.

For a long time, I was warned of the difficulty of soul Game. The advice of caution is not what keeps me from trying Dark souls games, they never find themselves in my game library. Elden Ring, has somehow overcome, not only for me, but for thousands of others, and the shock of hardship can be clearly seen, even in the first few times. For example, the first boss most people will test their mettle against, is Margit, The Fell Omen. This boss isn’t that difficult, in a grand scheme of things, but for a newbie, it seems like an insurmountable task. The numbers are actually quite positive when it comes to players taking on the challenge. Currently, over 52% of Xbox players and almost 70% of Steam players have killed Margit.

Crying sacred tears

From there, however, the numbers began to plummet. If Margit is the starter, then Godrick, the next boss you go to, sees a drop of more than 10% on Steam, with around 59% of players getting past the paired monstrosity and the numbers looking good. equally terrible on Xbox, with about 40% done. achievements. The numbers started dwindling from there on both Xbox and Steam. Main story bosses begin to see achievement rates plummet, eventually dropping to single digits for some achievements. From what I’ve seen so far, the numbers on Steam are a bit higher than Xbox’s achievement percentage, but there’s still a huge gap in completing even the required bosses.

Where have all the blurred people gone? To be fair, it’s rare for players to be able to watch a game all the way to the end these days, but if the numbers are to be believed, it’s quite possible that the difficulty of some of these bosses could scare some people away. . new players, or at least push them to excessive levels to make the challenges easier. Another possibility is that the players are becoming overwhelmed by the breadth of the world. With so much to do, you can imagine getting lost for hours trying to figure out side quests, or trying to find the materials you need to upgrade your weapons.

Perhaps games of such high difficulty upset some players? Probably Elden Ring not what some players expect? Whatever the reason may be, the achievement percentages still intrigue me and I plan to keep an eye on them as I continue my journey towards achieving 100% achievement – a feat I rarely do. to try on. Obviously Elden Ring very popular, and in my opinion the best RPG of the year, by far. However, if the number is to be believed, it is certainly not for everyone, so if you are not inclined towards high difficulty action RPGs, you may want to pass this one up. If you are playing Elden Ring right now, have you checked your achievement progress? What are you spending most of your time doing? Elden Ring? Drop in the comments and let us know.