A reader explains how Godrick the Grafted and Elden Ring’s high difficulty almost caused a rift in an otherwise happy relationship.
On HowLongToBeat it says that Elden Ring’s main story can be beaten in 49 hours. How they came to this figure is a mystery to me but if there’s any normal player – not one of these speedrunning types – that has done it in less than 100 hours I’d be very surprised, because I’ve never met one. And it certainly isn’t my boyfriend.
I won’t be naming names, for obvious reasons, but he’s a keen gamer. Or rather I guess he’s a hardcore gamer and I’m the one that’s keen. I play them quite a bit, mostly survival horror and games like Uncharted and God Of War. Neither comes around that much, and I don’t have that much spare time, so open world games and Soulsborne games I don’t usually bother with, as I know I probably won’t have time to beat them or see them in their entirety.
My boyfriend, let’s call him Dan, is a big fan of FromSoftware though, and I can understand why. I love the look of their games and I appreciate the lack of compromise that goes into the way they make them, with the high difficulty and lack of hand-handling. It doesn’t really fit with how much leisure time I have spare, but I wouldn’t want them to change – and I doubt they will now Elden Ring has been such a big hit.
Although Dan is a big games fan I wouldn’t say he was particularly skilled at them. He’s really good at fighting games, but beyond that I’d say he’s fairly average skill level. He’s generally a bit better than me at most things and a lot better at Street Fighter 5. Unfortunately, maining Cammy doesn’t really help with Elden Ring and I have watched him die again and again, which is frustrating as I know I wouldn’t do any better and yet it’s pretty boring to watch – even as it is exciting to play.
It took him a long time to beat Margit, The Fell Omen and he came to an absolute brick wall with Godrick the Grafted and just couldn’t do it. It obviously wasn’t just him, as he was calling in co-op help but they usually turned out to be worse them him. He wouldn’t give up though and keep trying again and again, going away and levelling up, then coming back and trying some more.
I told him he wasn’t learning the patterns like he should, just trying to tank his way through, but he wouldn’t listen and got angrier and angrier. He gave up for a few days and so I took over learning the game in the open world (I’d already played Dark Souls 3 a bit, so I knew the basics) and then taking a shot at Godrick. I got nowhere with that and that seemed to please Dan, in the sense that it was proof that it wasn’t just him.
Then, on the second night of trying I did win, just, and he wasn’t happy. He didn’t get angry or shout or anything, but he did immediately start making up excuses and, basically, sulking. He also hasn’t put the game back on again since.
I’m sure he’ll come round, he’s not usually bad like this, or sexist or whatever you might be imagining the reasons are. He’s just angry that he spent all that time playing it and didn’t do it himself. I think the worst thing is that he realises I was right about learning the patterns and he’s kicking himself for not doing it when I said.
Is there a moral to this story? I’m not sure. I like to think always listen to your girlfriend is a good rule of thumb for life in general, but at the very least it proves that it’s not just perseverance Elden Ring needs, but a good game plan. If you don’t have a plan, if you’re just relying on your level and a randomly powerful cooperator to help you out… that’s probably not going to go well for you.
By reader Persephone
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