I don’t think any other word than “phenomena” can accurately describe Elden Ring. It is a game that was heavily anticipated, coming from a developer renowned for high-quality, enjoyable titles, and it pushes their established formula in new and interesting ways. The critical consensus has been glowing, with many claiming that it is one of the best video games ever made.
That paragraph, minus the last sentence, could also have been applied to Cyberpunk 2077, a game that had a notoriously disappointing launch but over time became at least respectable, if not decent.
My typical anti-capitalist take would be that games should launch when they’re ready, not be rushed out the door to hit some arbitrary revenue target. However, we as consumers also have some responsibility in this - to not endlessly hype up the newest big thing, because in the vast majority of cases our high expectations will simply not be met.
A Matter of Time
As the endless reports of crunch can attest to, making video games is a messy business. While the practice of announcing titles well in advance has seemingly diminished over the past few years, there are still more than a few notable examples. Elden Ring was originally announced on June 9th, 2019, and released yesterday, February 25th, 2022. On June 10th, 2018, Bethesda shared a preview of The Elder Scrolls VI, which does not have a release date at this time.
Obviously, the pandemic has made the creation of video games more difficult, but announcing titles much earlier than necessary, especially when they’re part of a large franchise, has been a fairly common practice. Mass Effect: Andromeda was first announced on June 15th, 2015, with a release of March 21st, 2017, but according to Jason Schreier’s report on that game’s development, the vast majority of work on the game was done after it was announced.
Speaking of the pandemic, which has been - and I recognize I am incredibly privileged to be saying this - amongst the hardest times of our collective lives, it’s incredibly easy to be swayed by or get overly excited for that one product, that one game that serves as a beacon of hope or happiness, a reminder that the hard times can’t last forever and that a brighter future awaits us all.
But that’s not reality. I have sympathy for those who have felt like they’ve been let down or disappointed by something they were really excited for, but there isn’t a panacea. There’s nothing you can buy that will improve things. You can work hard and you can, to steal a phrase from Ben Brode, “make [your] own luck”. Unfortunately, the pandemic is still a very real, very present danger, and it’s not going away any time soon.
The further in advance a game is announced, the higher the expectations people set for it. To return to Cyberpunk 2077, it had initially been announced in 2012 - eight years before it released - and some were upset when things that had been shown off years before were not in the finished product. The reality of game development is that scope can change and features can be removed. Promotional videos are often created using specialized builds and assets, so any marketing for a title further out than probably six months until its launch should be met with cautious optimism.
A Matter of Taste
At the time of writing, Elden Ring has a score of 97 on MetaCritic, which aggregates reviews from different outlets. The only other games in the past ten years to have earned a score of 97 are Grand Theft Auto V, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Disco Elysium. It goes without saying that many, many people immensely enjoy the game, but it also highlights one of the bigger problems with game reviews in the modern age.
Generally, the people who read reviews of games are already interested in them, or are fans of a franchise or style of game. Understandably, they want the review to be written by someone who is familiar with the subject matter and its nuance. To use a recent example, some Shin Megami Tensei fans were upset when Leana Hafer’s review of Shin Megami Tensei V for IGN compared it to Persona 5, as the two games have numerous mechanical and structural differences.
The countless positive reviews of Elden Ring, with all of the praise potentially well-justified, will doubtless get a lot of people excited for the game - even if they’ve never played a Soulsborne game before. I think it’s probably reasonable to expect that the writers covering Elden Ring are already big fans of the developer - Gamespot’s Tamoor Hussain tweeted that he had been looking forward to the game for years.
The other day, Giovanni Colantonio of Digital Trends tweeted a sentiment I strongly agree with:
The issue with game reviews isn’t that writers don’t treat titles with enough reverence. The issue is that those reviews contribute to confirmation bias, where readers want to have their interest or attention in a game rewarded by it receiving a good review. It creates an echo chamber where the same opinion is parroted, regardless of the merit of other arguments.
Soulsborne games are often incredibly punishing and extremely idiosyncratic. What if that doesn’t resonate? What if someone buys Elden Ring and, despite all of the praise, they don’t like it?
Luckily, the hype cycle can work both ways. Just as games that are overhyped can be disappointing, titles that are dismissed or de-emphasized can be a lot of fun.
If you had shown Rainbow Six Extraction to a Rainbow Six Siege player, they may have wondered why it wasn’t just an event, or claimed it was greedy, or that it would be terrible. But I, who had no interest in the Rainbow Six series previously, am enjoying it immensely. In fact, I’ve played almost twice as much Rainbow Six Extraction in the past month as I have Back 4 Blood, a game I was incredibly excited about, since it released in October.
It’s not wrong to look forward to things, and to be eager to experience them, but be willing to think for yourself and make your own choices. Remember that until after you’ve experienced it, the product is not final.
Are there any games you were looking forward to that exceeded or didn’t meet your expectations? Let me know! You can always find me on Twitch.