How does Elden Ring rank in terms of difficulty next to the other FromSoft games?

[Flying Lemming Soup]

I've played DS1, DS3, Sekiro, and Elden Ring. Of these games, I found Elden Ring to be the most difficult. I've heard it said that FromSoft is in an arms race against their community, where FromSoft makes harder games and bosses, and the community Gits Gud to compensate.

I personally found Elden Ring to be more frustrating than the other FromSoft games I've played, so I assumed that FromSoft had simply advanced their game past the challenge rating that I was comfortable playing at... but then I heard someone refer to DS3 as being particularly challenging, which I found odd because DS3 is the game I like the most and find the most comfortable to play. So maybe the difficulty wasn't the problem, but some other factor was making the game less enjoyable for me.

This doesn't even acknowledge the fact that 'difficulty' is a very general term that encompasses a number of categories, and that even in the same category, a game's difficulty can go up and down.

So... where do you guys rank Elden Ring on your personal difficulty meter next to the other FromSoft games?

[Senki]

Basically, if you use summons and stronger than average builds it is significantly easier than previous games. If you play with a more balanced build and no summons, the bosses will be much harder but the levels/dungeons are still easier than previous games.

[LuckyCheshire]

Elden Ring has a whole lot more options than previous games. While in the DS series you were basically locked into one set path for the whole game with a few side rooms, in Elden Ring you can go almost anywhere right from the start. If any one enemy is too tough, the player has the option to go wander off somewhere else for a while, and come back later. There are also a greater breadth of weaponry, as well as extra tools like spirit ashes and more varied consumables that previous games lacked. If you just plonked one of the Elden Ring endbosses into DS3, they would be one of the toughest fights. That's taking them out of context though; In context, Elden Ring is far more accessible simply because of how much variety the player is handed.

[Flyin' High]

for me personally it'd probably be from easiest to hardest
DS1, DS2, Sekiro, Elden Ring, DS3 overall, but Elden Ring has the hardest bosses imo

I think I'm in the minority since there wasn't a single boss in Sekiro that took me more than 3 tries, but I got stomped by a few of the DS3 bosses for a long time, Elden Ring has harder bosses mechanically but definitely feel weaker in terms of stats, whereas in DS3 every fight lasted ages and you got killed in one or two hits Elden Ring fights in comparion feel a lot more complex, but less punishing
DS1, DS2 and Sekiro were pretty easy overall for me, Elden Ring gave me some trouble at Malenia and Maliketh, moreso Maliketh, but I was struggling throughout most of my DS3 playthroughs

[Artek [General]]

I think on average its probably slightly easier, at least until you hit endgame.
DS1 is just always kinda hard just because of how slow it is, DS2 relied on spambush a lot and there were some sillly enemies even in early game. DS3 throws you Lothric Knights (particularly the greatshield variety) who take some time to get used to, the chonky angels and then just generally fairly aggressive opponents who can overwhelm you with sheer ferocity like the Irithyll knight and the winged mutants from road of sacrificies. Hell, even fat evangelists were a problem until you learn the dodge pattern or learn to parry them.

Elden Ring is a lot more forgiving in the early game, and it kinda comes from overuse of the same enemy types: common soldiers and generic knights. The knights can be a decent opponent every so often, but the soldiers are push-overs and die in a couple straight sword swings and are only a danger in numbers.
The first like 60-70 hours of the game is almost smooth sailing minus occasional freak accidents or getting ambushed by a nasty trap. Real sh*t only starts once you reach and defeat Morgott. He himself is a neatly designed boss with unique agressive fighting style which is a taste of things to come. And once you start going deep into the Forbidden Lands - suddenly the games takes off the gloves. Everything suddenly starts dealing crazy damage and kills you in 2 hits at 40 Vigor, 3 with Morgott's rune (best rune) and it only gets worse from there.

[Brma]

It's really hard to rate them. DeS was my first so I look back and assume it's the hardest. Haven't played it since I beat it on ps3 though so idk. ER was my most recent and by then I'd already played Sekiro, DS3, DS1, DS2, and Des. So for me ER was the easiest because I already knew what to do basically.

I also don't look up guides and do a basic dex build with no magic

[SadPlatty©]

Personally - it can be hard to properly rate them, as to me one of the things encompassed by "difficulty" is "How long am I stuck without making progress". My list would probably (from hardest to easiest) look like :
- Sekiro (I refuse to get gud at parrying, even if this game made it easy; general enemies are easy but bosses drag on for me)
- Demon's Souls
- Elden Ring
- Dark Souls 3
- Bloodborne
- Dark Souls 2
- Dark Souls

Sekiro I consider more difficult, as the world seems more linear - where as you have I think it was like 2 paths that end up forming a circle, and then the bosses being parry focused thus made me feel "stuck" longer.

Demon's Souls (at least OG) let you pick 5 worlds, but each had their own difficulties. Boliteria was few checkpoints. Latria has mind-flayers and traps/pitfalls galore. Stone-fang Tunnel still feels like a slog 10 playthroughs later. Land of the Shadow Men had the reapers and projectile enemies all over. Then there is toxic bog - but I never felt too "stuck" as you can hop around.

To then "TL:DR" the rest (I think you get the picture I am painting) - the varying worlds and their level of being connected at numerous points scales the difficulty. Elden Ring may be considered difficult, because it is so open ended that you can accidentally end up in Caelid before you even fought your first major boss. If it's via that chest, this is easily one of the hardest moments I can think of, as those centipede guys can easily shred new players making them think they are soft-locked. DS1-3 then where all non-open worlds, but did still have the "no real order of operations" for a majority of the content, so it seems easy as your generally making constant progress vs doing your 20th cave for a flower.

Bloodborne is the exception - as it also added difficulty scaling in the form of "Insight" which was able to turn some enemies into damn near auto-kills (those damn jellyfish women) and the DLC content is honestly very unforgiving and linear enough to feel stuck easily (but damn is it fun to be a broccoli). EDIT : Though it's so low, because the content itself has cheese galore if you have time, and even just doing all the Chalice Dungeons can power-level you without much effort.