From Software’s latest entry has proven to be a home run in more ways than one, while Elden Ring was the darling of both the gaming community as well as critics, it has also proven to be a massive commercial hit and the highest selling From Software game of…well…of all time!
While most of you might have already played Elden Ring (but in case you haven’t, seriously? What are you doing? Go play it!) players who are still shy jumping into the fray or players who like brutally difficult games but are not quite into the Souls series might be wondering after seeing players complain about certain bosses or enemies, if Elden Ring is the hardest entry in the series or not.
To answer the question brought up in the very beginning, Elden Ring IS the hardest souls game but it’s also the easiest Souls game. Elden Ring is as hard or as easy as the player wants it to be, play it like a Souls purist and you will probably have the most difficult experience in the series. Experiment with your options and everything you have and you’ll have a significantly easier time. In this case, Elden Ring offers the best of both worlds.
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Elden Ring vs Souls Games
The answer to that is a little bit more complicated than one would expect. Lots of factors come into play in how determining the difficulty in most Souls games. But a common statement in the Souls community which is frankly true for most people who jump into this series is that the first one you play will usually be the most challenging.
To make things easier we’re gonna be taking a look at the difficulty of every Souls game from Demon’s Souls to Elden Ring on both what it is like to play it as a newcomer as well as what it is like to play it as a Souls player and we’ll eventually see where Elden Ring lands up. So without further ado, let us get started!
Difficulty
It is important to understand the pattern of these games before we can rank them by difficulty. Elden Ring and Souls games are difficult due to their pacing, enemies, locale, and inconsistent patterns.
However, the basic gameplay pattern remains the same and players find the game easier the more they become accustomed to it. Therefore, a difficult Souls game (or FromSoftware games in general) utilizes the environment and the player’s own skill level to make a part of the game easier or harder.
Demon’s Souls
- The difficulty for First Timers: 7/10
- The difficulty for Experienced Players: 6/10
While this may seem a little exaggerated at first, Demon’s Souls ranks up as one of the harder entries in the series due to its commitment to a slower more cautious play style. It punishes not only new players but old players as well who are too confident in their abilities.
Most of Demon’s Souls relies on planning ahead and approaching each encounter with a lot more thought and caution due to its restrictive movement and combat. This makes Demon’s Souls stand out among the games as an outlier that will pleasantly surprise both Souls fans and newcomers and why I personally consider it to be one of the most fun games in the franchise.
While the boss fights, which is one of the things the series is now most known for, are mostly simple and easy minus a few exceptions (cough Flamelurker cough) the levels themselves as well as getting to the bosses is a usually a more difficult challenge in Demon’s Souls.
All this coupled with an interesting and unique dark fantasy setting makes Demon’s Souls one of the more moody yet engrossing entries in the series.
In the case of actually playing it though, while I prefer the grim, dark fantasy vibe of the original, the PS5 remake is a significantly better alternative for those who can afford it or you know…just emulate it on PC. It is okay we won’t tell anyone we swear.
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Dark Souls
- The difficulty for First Timers: 8/10
- The difficulty for Experienced Players: 4/10
The original Dark Souls is often heralded as one of the greatest games of all time, and for good reason. If you’ve played any of the later games and want to go back and visit (or revisit) the melancholic world of Dark Souls, now is just as good of a time as any.
While Dark Souls feels somewhat antiquated today, somehow more so than Demon’s Souls, it cemented the souls series as something truly special and unique. Boasting a roster of iconic moments and characters that are now almost rooted in pop culture like Solaire or the Praise the Sun gesture, and while it’s a great way to relive that era where the word difficulty was synonymous far and wide the word “Dark Souls”.
It offers so much more than that, an unforgettable experience that, in spite of all its flaws, is as beloved as it is today.
Going back on topic with the difficulty, while Dark Souls is a brutal, seriously punishing experience, it’s also a lot more manageable if you’ve played other Souls games since enemies in Dark Souls are usually a lot slower compared to past games and the game doesn’t challenge your environmental awareness nearly as much as Demon’s Souls.
Enemies are generally easier to deal with and even the dangerous Black Knights spread out around the game’s world can be defeated if you learn and parry their slow, highly telegraphed attacks.
New players are going to have a fairly tough time adjusting to this one considering that Dark Souls has a lot more hidden features and mechanics that you’re just not going to understand on your first go around.
That coupled with the intimidating bosses will make for a tough time on your trek through Lordran while most experienced will breeze through a majority of the bosses barring a few exceptions such as a certain troublesome duo or a fallen hero of a knight.
Dark Souls 2 Scholar of the First Sin
- The difficulty for First Timers: 8/10
- The difficulty for Experienced Players: 6/10
The gap takes a wide margin for Dark Souls 2 Scholar of The First Sin (or SotFS for short) because while Dark Souls 2 is a brutal game on its own it also relies a lot on cheap surprise tactics to outright bully its players.
As for the choice of the version here, while a fair amount of people argue that the original Dark Souls 2 is more balanced, the Scholar of the First Sin edition is the one that most players will usually be getting as it’s the only version of the game available on modern consoles with the exception of PC and it is also the most heavily advertised version of the Dark Souls 2.
This difference matters more than it would for other games because while the original Dark Souls 2 did not have series director Hidetaka Miyazaki at the helm, the SotFS edition did, which meant the game underwent a lot more changes with this edition which in this case was for both better or worse.
The Scholar of the First Sin is generally considered to be the harder of the two games due to complaints levied against Dark Souls 2 for its heavy difficulty and while SotFS alleviates that issue…it also introduces a couple of new ones.
But if we keep comparing and contrasting which edition is better or what changes are made where we are gonna be here all day long and surely no one reading this wants their time to be wasted.
Continuing regarding Dark Souls 2 SotFS (which I’m going to be referring to as just Dark Souls 2 now for the sake of clarity) and its difficulty. It’s a brutal game that loves to throw surprises at you when you least expect it. The entire game is filled to the brim with surprise gotcha moments that will most likely kill you on your first playthrough.
In that sense being prepared with experience from other Souls games will help you a ton here. I mean the game will still genuinely make you question why you’re even putting yourself through this, but trust me the game is great just power through it.
The game also has a bad habit of throwing multiples of everything at once, duo bosses, ganks of multiple powerful enemies, duo minibosses, the works! While all of these are usually easy if you master the tried and true formula of baiting one enemy at a time, the duo bosses will almost certainly catch most new players off guard even if in most cases they are pretty easy.
All that is more alleviated due to Dark Souls 2’s faster combat and rapid pace compared to the past entries, but rest assured both fans and newcomers can expect a good challenge from this one.
Dark Souls 2 SotFS is a great game with a lot of rough edges, while there are moments where you’ll feel genuine control throwing frustration, its best moments are among the series’ most enchanting moments.
There’s a lot to love here, especially if you’re coming to this with knowledge from prior entries and have developed that sense of indifference when you see that You Died screen. Due to this, I would personally recommend against making Dark Souls 2 your first foray into the franchise.
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Dark Souls 3
- The difficulty for First Timers: 7/10
- The difficulty for Experienced Players: 4/10
This might be a tad unpopular because Dark Souls 3 is generally considered one of the harder entries in the series but based on my experience and watching other people using this as an entry point. I can say pretty safely that Dark Souls III is a lot more balanced in its difficulty.
While there ARE difficulty spikes (*cough* f*cking Pontiff *cough*) the game feels generally easier than other entries, more so due to its significantly faster pace which can be attributed to Bloodborne which came out a year before Dark Souls 3.
Dark Souls 3 trims out a lot of fat from the past games that helps it to be much more accessible to a modern audience, with bonfires that are frequently close to difficult bosses, much faster combat, and more linear-level design.
Despite this, however, Dark Souls 3 easily boasts the most difficult bosses in the entire series. From Pontiff Sulyvahn to the Dancer of the Boreal Valley, Dark Souls 3 has an impressive variety of tough, but ultimately fair bosses that nudge the series towards a more active side instead of the cautious exploration that was found in Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls and to an extent, Dark Souls 2.
The game also features a much broader (and ferocious) roster of enemies that boast damage and tenacity to match the game’s pace.
Dark Souls 3 is an excellent entry in the Souls series and while in terms of atmosphere and world-building it doesn’t live up to the other games in the series it does feature some very memorable levels and has one of the most exciting lineups of bosses you’ll find in a game.
Plus it’s the best conclusion you could ask for, as it’s also the most emotionally resonant ending a franchise such as Dark Souls could ever receive. Embracing its end…and welcoming the frightening hold of an unknown.
Elden Ring
- The difficulty for First Timers: 7/10
- The difficulty for Experienced Players: 7.5/10
And now with the Souls franchise given its long overdue ending, we have Elden Ring. The game emerged from the ashes of what remained of the franchise and merged with the best and most attractive aspects of each game in the series as a last hurrah and a callback to everything that came before.
As readers can see above, we believe Elden Ring achieves what is probably the perfect balance of difficulty between both experienced players. Because coming from a player who has spent hundreds of hours not just on the Souls game but also other From Software games, Elden Ring gave me a TON of trouble.
Though even as I write this, it is hard to put a number on Elden Ring’s difficulty because there are so many things that influence this outcome. Playing it like most veteran Souls players would, forsaking spirit ashes, summoning spells, etc, Elden Ring is by far the hardest game in the entire franchise.
Using everything you have at your disposal and experimenting with anything you find and discover could also turn Elden Ring into the easiest game in the entire series.
What’s great about Elden Ring is that it strikes a rigid balance, even if you find something powerful or overpowered.
Just getting to that point means you must have died dozens upon dozens of times. Couple that with zones like Caelid where you’re probably going to end up dying even with a late-game character and you have a game that’s both broken and perfectly balanced.
Even though I’m still not sure where I’d put Elden Ring on my list of favorite From Soft games I find its reliance on spirit summons and whatnot to be a tad frustrating, mostly due to my own stubbornness and years of conditioning from playing these games but what must be respected is that it strikes a careful balance of difficulty and has finally successfully addressed one of the biggest complaints players have had since the original Demon’s Souls.
It has finally narrowed the gap between new players and old in a way that most people…just couldn’t see before. And the proof is right there, this is the most financially successful game From Software has made to date. And these are people that have been long overdue for the success of this caliber.
Also Read: How To Invade Your Friends in Elden Ring?
Conclusion
That concludes our difficult comparison of Elden Ring and the Souls games. The difficulty is widely subjective, even with bosses within the same game. This has been a general assessment based on player feedback and personal experience.
Leave a comment below if you found this helpful. We hope this made your decision to jump not only into Elden Ring but also the Souls franchise a lot easier. Good luck on yer journey, ye Tarnished.
