Elden Ring has topped the leaderboards of HowLongToBeat.com as the most completed game of 2022 and the most retired game of 2022. Elden Ring also scored with the most user reviews of the year, tops the charts for playtime and happens to be on the most backlogs. And if you read my previous column then you know that I did not include Elden Ring in my top games list. I thoroughly believe it is a fantastic game and that it absolutely deserves GOTY status. It became a cultural phenomenon, but it simply wasn’t for me.
First, let’s take a look at the completion rate for most popular games … It’s pretty low, even for much shorter playthroughs than Elden Ring.
Deathloop, 17.1% have the trophy for completing it.
God of War (the one from, what, 5 years ago), 47.5%, meaning more than half never finished it.
Uncharted 4, 38.1% finished it. The game was heralded, is 7 years old, yet more than 60% never finished it.
Back in the day, I cut my teeth on NES Battletoads. I played Contra without the Konami Code. It took me an entire year to beat Castlevania III. There’s no doubt I cracked a hundred plus attempts on certain sections. I’m just letting you know that I am okay with “hard” a.k.a. git gud endeavors. Everyone loves FromSoft games for not holding your hand, and I dig that challenge being the adult casual gamer I am. I respect and appreciate it. But c’mon, these games? I could’ve used at least a pinky to grab onto for a few minutes here or there. I write all this because I have a friend who told me that he wound up 100%-ing Elden Ring and it quickly became his all-time favorite, and this is a friend with very similar tastes as mine. He is the only person I’ve ever met that has actually beat Mike Tyson (Mike Tyson’s Punch Out) and he is a lifelong Zelda fan. Yeah, he LOVED the Elden Ring. I am not him. He is not me. You are me.
I’ve written about it all before. Tons of elements of the Soulsbourne games appeal to me, from the visual design, the atmosphere, the secrets, the scattered crumbs of lore cookies you have to piece together, etc. But if I’m going to spend several hours on a game at a time I need to actually progress, not just practice a single section or boss fight until I’m skilled enough to pass it. It sucks, but it’s what responsibilities do to you. You either have to pass on things with a steep learning curve, or you just devote all your time with a hobby to that specific experience until you pass it. I’m not willing to do the latter. FromSoft games in particular take delight in punishing mistakes. Optimization is key. I don’t want to optimize, I just want to have fun. I’m tired of letting myself get sucked into games that aren’t fun. You understand, right? You are me. However, even after my aborted playthroughs of Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro I occasionally think about trying Elden Ring. You should read up on Stockholm Syndrome.