I was wrong about Elden Ring. Here’s why…

Let’s be honest. I hated Elden Ring.

When it came out, the hype drove me insane. Was everyone playing the same game as me? The controls drove me mad. The lock on switched between enemies at the drop of a hat. And don’t get me started on a story so obscure you had to go to the internet to figure out the plot.

Despite all these criticisms, I just finished the game… But why, you ask?

Well, this is pretty personal. The past six months have been some of the hardest in my life. My beloved grandmother passed away, and I’ve been trying to get a diagnosis for my own health issues alongside managing multiple family emergencies. Calling it a rough year is an understatement. I got to a point where I was so stressed, all I wanted to do was play a video game where I could bonk something on the head.

Some people take yoga classes. Others throw axes.

I channelled my rage into becoming an Elden Lord.

Despite my mental objections – why was I playing a game I hated? – I opened the menu up once more. One class stood out above all others. It wasn’t the most glamourous outfit, or the best build. It was the embodiment of exactly how I felt.

A wretch.

There’s something special about starting Elden Ring as a Level 1 Wretch armed with nothing but your underwear and a club.

But this class choice had a transformative effect on me. The game finally clicked. I was the Tarnished. A rotten creature from the bottom of the barrel, something that had rolled out of a sewer from a big night out and couldn’t remember how they’d got there. I had no right to aspire to be an Elden Lord. I didn’t even have clothes.

It wasn’t long before I realised the fatal flaw in my first playthrough. I had chosen the wrong class. While the Astrologer made sense later in the game with its arsenal of powerful spell casting, it didn’t work when you were a squishy nobody trying to crawl your way out of a hole. This time round, I based my build on whatever I could find: a sword and shield, a spear, armour scavenged from Limgrave guards.

Let me tell you, there’s nothing more satisfying than finally finding a pair of pants when you’ve been flashing half the Lands Between.

A friend had given me a tip; don’t rush through Elden Ring. Take your time to explore the world. So I wandered the map, opening dungeons, beating enemies, and of course, ran away, runes intact. In my original playthrough, I’d got so annoyed with the messages left around the place. After all, I’m someone who takes things literally. If you left a note to say jump off the cliff here, I did it. And died.

But in this run, I came to see these notes left in solidarity. Don’t give up. Well done! Little bites of encouragement as my life fell apart. I read these anonymous messages and wondered who these people were, to kindly leave notes just when things were hard. I came to rely on these messages as I grinded through some of the nastiest trick dungeons ever made. What is with those jumping cat statues? I hate them.

Where once my eyes had glazed over on the inventory stats, I constantly weighed up weapons and armour against my weight. Every time I died only further increased my determination. At times it was an absolute grind; there are those moments where you’re under levelled for the next section, but over levelled from the previous, and it feels like you’re dying every other minute.

But then there are those battles when you’re just at the right level, and your skills are on point, and your hands are fresh and you beat a boss with an elegant dance of magic and swordplay. And you know you’re good, because you don’t beat a FromSoft boss by accident. Unless you see the message, ‘Weak Foe Ahead’.

I was determined to prove myself as a gamer, seeking out every major boss. Rennala went down in less than two minutes, as I relentlessly pushed forward with the Bloodhound Fang. I delighted in Rykard’s Blasphemous Blade and nicknamed it ‘Squirmy Wormy’, not knowing about the obsessive discussions of this weapon online. Mogh kept destroying me with his bloodied attacks. Still I returned.

Until the very last boss itself: the Elden Beast. Straight out of the gate, Radagon kept destroying me. Yet again, I faced him, Mimic Tear summoned beside me. For those unfamiliar with the game, the Mimic Tear is an OP summons that replicates your character down to the last spell.

There’s something to be said about summoning yourself to fight the ultimate battle. I’d battled through months of personal and family health issues. But here I was, yet again, showing up to fight. I was going to do it. I was going to finish Elden Ring. Because even if my life was falling apart, I could do this one thing.

And then it happened. Health down. One hit would finish me. Mimic Tear banished. It was me and the Elden Beast. And all I had to do was get in a single hit from the Blasphemous Blade, and it would be over. I ran for my life. I dodged attacks. I’d gotten good.

Finally, the beast showed an opening. I unleashed my weapon.

As I slayed that Elden Beast, a single tear fell down my cheek. I felt like I’d surmounted something on screen, but I’d also surmounted something in real life. I’d proved to myself that I’m stronger than I think. That sheer grit and determination can sometimes get you through.

I never took ‘you died’ as a stop sign.

It was a challenge.

Are you going to turn it off?

Are you going to quit?

Or are you going to step once more onto the fields of the Lands Between?

Sometimes, games are meant for you at a specific time in life. It might not be when they’re released. It might be years down the track.

I went into Elden Ring feeling like a Finger Reader Crone. Eyes hollow, back hunched, haggard. I came out, horns on my head, sitting on a throne. I was no longer a wretch. I was an Elden Lord.

In the days after finishing Elden Ring, I realised it had transformed my own personal resilience. If I could finish Elden Ring, I could do almost anything.

Makes sense. Because Elden Ring is a game about cycles of light and darkness, and madness if you let it. Kind of like life. We have times of gladness, and times where the night crawls in. Where death isn’t far away. And if those cycles grind us down too far, madness enters.

For me, Elden Ring kept the flame of frenzy at bay, when life tried to consume me.