Why is Elden Ring more popular than Dark Souls?

[Red Dragon]

I didn't play ER yet (garbage PC) but finished DS1+3 so I don't have an opinion yet on which I personally find better, but I think it's fair to say that DS3 is a very very good game.

So what is surprising to me is how ER took off this year compared to DS3. I got a quote snippet here that claims:

"Just 18 days after release [ER] sold 12 million copies worldwide, 2 million more than DS3 sold in 4 years." ER today has sold 17.5million.

So basically everyone and their grandma bum-rushed buying this game within the first two weeks seemingly out of nowhere. What can possibly account for this popularity compared to the very established Dark Souls IP that was already hugely popular and well-known? Was the open world really that much of a selling point? Where did people get all this lust for ER from even before launch? Did people even realize this is essentially an open world Souls game and that they would be bent over and spanked by it? Did people just buy into the "herp derp Dark Souls isn't that the impossibly hard game?" myth and so never botherd with Dark Souls and then they walk blindly into ER not realizing it's essentially "the same"?

Curious to see your insights/theories as to why so many people were attracted to Elden Ring compared to Dark Souls...

[Chili Dogs]

Not sure honestly, I had Demon's Souls on PS3 and loved it when I was younger, I played DS1 and DS3 as well as probably half of Bloodborne before my PS4 died. I have only lightly dabbled in Sekiro and it was a nice change of pace compared to all the others.

At this point don't understand the hype anymore. It's the same game every time, FROMSOFT is just Japanese Activision at this point, vomitting out the same game every year or two because people keep buying it. SoulsBorne games are just Call of Duty with more bleakness. 😂

[tfa]

Reviews

[DragonSoundxSG]

With the exception of a more robust MP system, it's far and away better than all the Dark Souls games, sacrificing some charm for an absolutely massive gameworld and endless character possibilities. Ofc there are things that each Souls game does better, but as a whole, it's big, bad, and awesome.

I do wish we had DS2 Hex systems. None of the other Souls games have handled Hexs well. And it would be nice to have a more robust MP system, right now it's a bit loosey goosey.

[lazyoldman]

It's bigger and prettier than DS and it gives you by far the most options in character builds and game progression.

[Shazoo]

Publicado originalmente por Red Dragon:

Publicado originalmente por Clail:

Open world concept generally gets people excited, even though it does have it's flaws in every game that implements it.

Tangential question: I heard people really like the fact that you can disengage from a difficult boss/area and just farm or simply go somewhere entirely else, whereas in DS you basically had to beat that boss and that's just that.

Can you actually skip bosses entirely in ER? Like permanently and forever and never deal with them again? If so what's the rough estimate of the ratio between skippable/unskippable?

except for those damn trapped chest areas where you essentially have to fight to a grace to teleport out.

[königplatzen]

Publicado originalmente por Shazoo:

Publicado originalmente por Red Dragon:

Tangential question: I heard people really like the fact that you can disengage from a difficult boss/area and just farm or simply go somewhere entirely else, whereas in DS you basically had to beat that boss and that's just that.

Can you actually skip bosses entirely in ER? Like permanently and forever and never deal with them again? If so what's the rough estimate of the ratio between skippable/unskippable?

except for those damn trapped chest areas where you essentially have to fight to a grace to teleport out. :berserk:

You just have to run, fighting should not be necessary iirc.

[Olskid]

Every FromSoftware souls-like games, excluding Sekiro (which is fkin amazing, but is a different game entirely), have in my opinion each progressively become better and better.

Elden Ring is the natural evolution and finally has gotten the budget FromSoftware games deserve. The prior games are masterpieces and still great to play today but clearly they didn't have the same amount of budget and amount of quality content Elden Ring has.

I have beaten the main story of Demon Souls, Bloodborne, DS1, DS2 and DS3 in the same time frame as beating Elden Ring for the 1st time. And I loved every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ second of Elden Ring. I am on my 7th or 8th playthrough and with the updates it has only become better.

The world, the builds, the enemies, the story, the graphics and the combat is second to none.

Playing Elden Ring on Ps5 and XSX though, Elden Ring deserves to be on a 65 Samsung QN95A or any other high-end TV. It is almost criminal to play on a monitor.

It is the GOAT and I suspect we will see a lot of Elden Ring-likes soon from all the big publishers.

[Shazoo]

Publicado originalmente por königplatzen:

Publicado originalmente por Shazoo:

except for those damn trapped chest areas where you essentially have to fight to a grace to teleport out.

You just have to run, fighting should not be necessary iirc.

technically the truth, I just meant it's not as simple as "recalling" away to a safe point. You are forced to make your way to a save point, whether it be fighting or running. Not really difficult except for the first couple times it happens.

[Fineous🔥]

Publicado originalmente por Shazoo:

Publicado originalmente por Red Dragon:

Tangential question: I heard people really like the fact that you can disengage from a difficult boss/area and just farm or simply go somewhere entirely else, whereas in DS you basically had to beat that boss and that's just that.

Can you actually skip bosses entirely in ER? Like permanently and forever and never deal with them again? If so what's the rough estimate of the ratio between skippable/unskippable?

except for those damn trapped chest areas where you essentially have to fight to a grace to teleport out. :berserk:

They literally are some of the best thing in the game, specially for a new blind playthrough.
Getting "teletraped" to Sellia crystal tunnel was an amazing experience, killed again and again by the pests and miners.....at certain point i had enough.
Murdered everything inside the damn tunned (gravity beast after a lot of wipes included) before Margith. I consider it one of my biggest Elden Ring achievements.

[königplatzen]

Publicado originalmente por Shazoo:

Publicado originalmente por königplatzen:

You just have to run, fighting should not be necessary iirc.

technically the truth, I just meant it's not as simple as "recalling" away to a safe point. You are forced to make your way to a save point, whether it be fighting or running. Not really difficult except for the first couple times it happens.

Ah, I see. You cant just escape by dying, you have to actually flee

[Endymion Gainer]

There's a lot of reasons, actually. The Souls games have been litmus tests for gaming skill (deservedly or not) for over a decade now, so even if they're not being bought by everyone they're definitely already in the mainstream consciousness. Now add the ability to step away from something giving you trouble and go off to do something else, and add a mainstream brand to recognize (George R. R. Martin). Suddenly, you have a hook in terms of story and accessibility baked in by core concept.

That brought in all the people on the fence, and those numbers convinced others who otherwise wouldn't have cared to take the plunge because the Next Great Thing and FOMO are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Those numbers then brought in people even less inclined to try it, so on and so forth.

At the end of the day, it's more popular because more people can enjoy playing it compared to the Souls trilogy.

[Yal]

Publicado originalmente por Red Dragon:

Publicado originalmente por Clail:

Open world concept generally gets people excited, even though it does have it's flaws in every game that implements it.

Tangential question: I heard people really like the fact that you can disengage from a difficult boss/area and just farm or simply go somewhere entirely else, whereas in DS you basically had to beat that boss and that's just that.

Can you actually skip bosses entirely in ER? Like permanently and forever and never deal with them again? If so what's the rough estimate of the ratio between skippable/unskippable?

There's 10 mandatory fights (any two demigods + Draconic Tree Sentinel + Morgott + Fire Giant + Maliketh + the 4 final bosses) and somewhere around 100 bosses in total depending on how you count, so 90% of bosses are skippable.

[Bricky strong]

I say Timing. The game released at a time when people were SICK to death of liberal trash games that make them want to throw up. lol, not just that, though.
It was timing
word of mouth
a good idea, open world with good combat sounds good.
People were really ready for this type of game, so timing once again. I think it goes to show FROM SOFT has a inclination for understanding what people are hungry for. We were just coming out of the pandemic and there's been a long dry spell of games. There hadn't been a really good game for YEARS. Not since like Fallout 4 was released.
JESUS probably had a lot to do with it. HE loves me and spoils me, and I really enjoy this game.

[Yal]

Publicado originalmente por vamirez:

Publicado originalmente por Red Dragon:

I still wonder wtf he actually contributed, what I saw of ER story-wise so far has all the Fromsoft flair and no GRR as far as I could tell. Did he just glance over the story and go "yup I approve" or is there anything people can legit point to and say "yeah that's so GRR Martinesque"? (Hopefully it's not the ending).

He designed the mythos of the world, basically what happened before. There is an interview with Stephen Colbert where he talks about it.

To quote the interview, GRR said FROM wanted him to write up "events that happened a long time before the game started, like 5000 years before" - it's unclear if the '5000' is a direct quote or if he made that up on the spot just for illustrative purposes.

[CourtesyFlush09]

Pure marketing hype, especially with George RR Martin's involvement.