'All you do is kill stuff.' An observation regarding difficulty in games.

Lately my girlfriend and I have started a bit of a cultural exchange regarding the games we love. Naturally this meant I would show her Dark souls, one of my absolute favorite games.

Ash Lake still sends shivers down my spine

She, just like many other people in the gaming world, was slightly curious about this game that every nerd in existence has been raving about for the last decade but she also knew that she probably wouldn’t have the patience to beat it. A fair assessment considering her dislike of repetition in games. No worries, I thought. If she watches me play while I comment on every detail of the game then surely she’ll recognize the greatness Dark Souls has to offer. However, a few hours into the playthrough she said:

“You know, I can tell this game is really well made and all, but all you seem to be doing is going around killing stuff”.

Like a pretentious turtleneck wearing hipster my initial reaction in my head was: “Just going around killing stuff? Can’t you see that this goes deeper than that? Can’t you see that this is AAAART?”

Visual representation of my inner thoughts

Like a butthurt anime fan I was prepared to go into defensive mode before I suddenly realized… That she was kind of right… I’ve played Dark Souls ever since 2014 and I vividly remember my first playthrough: the challenges, the exploration, not knowing what’s around the corner, the slow unveiling of the story, the world and it’s deep lore. Having beaten the game countless times I now know every enemy, every boss, every moveset and every secret. Playing it is more akin to going to the grocery store and slowly crossing out each entry on the shopping list as opposed to exploring a dangerous world with danger lurking around every corner. We weren’t exploring a perilous dungeon together, instead we were taking a tour through disneyland (yes I stole that analogy from sequelitis). “Oh no! A vicious fire-breathing dragon just appeared! Good thing I have this magic bean bag of immortal severance just for such an occasion! Bam! One hit and it’s dead. Trust me, it was super hard the first time I faced it. Anyway look at that castle. Notice how it has like a serpent shape? Neat huh? Hang on let me just dispose of these bad guys real quick. Whack whack! Anyway what was I saying? Oh right, neat serpent castle.” Yeah I think you get the point. I could go on all day gushing about my favorite game but you won’t truly feel its greatness unless you play it and beat it yourself. Watching a let’s play by a player who knows what they’re doing will unfortunately be little more than a glorified speedrun. A rushed, hollow shadow of what the game really has to offer.

It’s understandable that the high difficulty deters many potential players from playing it but it is an integral part to the game’s story and the journey the player goes through to beat it. Remove it and you pretty much just get a game where you walk around killing stuff, a killing/walking simulator. A well designed killing/walking simulator with rich lore and visual storytelling but a killing/walking simulator nonetheless. How will you feel the overwhelming joy of finally beating a boss you’ve been stuck on if it wasn’t difficult to begin with? How will you feel the immense relief of finally seeing the sun after struggling hours and hours to get out of the depths of Blighttown if it wasn’t because it was a difficult area? How would the bleak, hopeless, apocalyptic atmosphere of the game be convincing if the game wasn’t difficult? If the game was easy why haven’t all these other characters succeeded in fulfilling the prophecy and linked the fire? Because they’ve all given up hope. If the game was easy you would roll your eyes at these characters for not trying hard enough. But it’s not easy, which is what makes them more relatable as you’ve probably been in their position as well. Indeed, I gave up on the game 4 times believing the game wasn’t meant for me before I finally beat it.

Once I reached Anor Londo for the first time I knew I wouldn’t put down the game until I had beat it

Creating an easy mode for the game would be like having a horror game where you can turn off all the horror elements. Theoretically it’s possible but why would you want to play the game at that point? Not everyone will be able to beat Dark Souls and experience its greatness and that’s ok. As long as you know what you love and why you love it then it doesn’t matter that not everyone can get into it. However this isn’t an excuse to feel superior about your interests either. Being able to appreciate this game doesn’t give you the right to act all high and mighty just cause you were willing to shoot yourself into a brick wall over and over until it eventually broke. I will praise this game to the day the world turns to ash but I will never belittle others for not enjoying it. That’s just pretentious (and this is coming from a guy who likes to wear turtlenecks and discuss video games as high art all while sipping dr pepper from a wine glass). However telling someone to “git gud” whenever they complain about the difficulty will never stop being funny. Ok I’ll see myself out.