I bought the base game during the sale, and I have now played a few hours.
In certain ways I find the game much harder than Dark Souls.
Back when I first played Dark Souls, the difficulty mainly came from getting used to the stamina-based gameplay, learning the esoteric rules of how to level up and how humanity worked.
But you got a fairly decent idea of where to go (and I was tipped off that the graveyard was the wrong direction), and the "linear" route always gave you ample opportunity to level up before reaching the next boss.
In Elden Ring, I got a good idea of how all of that works, since it is still a FROM software game.
Instead, you get a vague idea of where to head (the castle) and of course I set off in the wrong directions, since I beelined to the cliff and ended up in some catacombs deep under the cliff below the castle.
This was not the right way to go.
So I played a few hours, wondering how to level up, since Melina wouldn't show up.
Finally, I googled it and found out I was in the wrong location.
So, I made my way over to where she shows up and was finally able to level up.
But man, runes are hard to come by in the beginning.
A lot of the regular enemies hit really hard and leave only meager amounts of runes, making it much harder to level up. And I really get the feeling that you are pretty much meant to meander about and exploring, since going more straightforward towards the castle was pretty much a dead end right now thanks to the troll guarding the gate entrance.
And you also have a horse that I need to get to terms with, both how to combat well on it (enemies on horseback are really hard to get close, even when I'm on Torrent) and when to actually use it vs walking.
Decisions, decisions.
So, TLDR:
Harder in a different way. Tougher levelling, harder to know if you're making any good progress, hard to know where it is safe to go, but easier to run away from tough enemies and even bosses.
All in all. It's a good game!
www.nexusmods.com
