Tales of a Tarnished Casual

Getting Over Myself to Finally Understand Why Hard Games Are Fun.

Today I opened a treasure chest that enveloped me in smoke and transported me across a map to fight a golem, against my will. Just another regular weekday for a gamer girlie, amirite?

My personal gaming tastes lean towards the casual, the narrative-driven, the easy. Give me a charming indie game with a heartwarming story or a puzzle game I can leisurely chip away at, any day. The notoriously challenging world of Souls-like games? A hard pass for me.

So there I was, fighting this thing live on my Twitch stream and proceeding to die, repeatedly, for two and a half hours. Up until now I had jokingly referred to my first gambol into Elden Ring as a “100% No Bosses Run.” This basically meant that in my gameplay thus far, I was perfectly happy to explore and survive (run away) in this environment at my own pace. A treasure chest was all it took to change that.

What in the Lands Between possessed me to pick up Elden Ring? Honestly, curiosity got the better of me. I got really invested in watching others bang their heads against the proverbial wall, for sometimes up to six hours! So, I made a goal and my chat community dedicated channel points to see me play this game.

As someone who often explores the intersection of gaming and mental well-being, I was intrigued by the discourse around overcoming challenges in this specific game. Could there be something genuinely rewarding in facing such relentless adversity when reality feels hard enough?

I am sure we all believed that I would give up on day one. Because of this, my initial hours were very unserious. I promptly got stomped by the Tree Sentinel (multiple times), ambushed by packs of wolves and bad dragons, and generally felt like I was fumbling around.

However, each small victory felt good. Like, really good. Like I had won a secret, or I made it into an elite club. The feeling of overcoming a puzzle that initially seemed insurmountable is addictive. Science has long explained why this is – including to the extremes of those “just one more round” games. Through the frustrating difficulty, this beautifully bleak world fostered a sense of focus and determination I had not yet experienced in other games.

There were moments when the gameplay gave me the feel of genuine joy in exploration, too. Discovering areas and dialogue that felt apocalyptic and medieval – it felt like Fallout and Skyrim had a baby. In those moments it was easy to ride my horse around, clearing out the map, forgetting the enemies nearby me that will kill me expeditiously.

I am still very much a beginner and still very unserious, but I can finally say “I get it.” Do I know anything about the story? Do I know what build I am working towards? Am I or am I not maiden-less? Only gameplay time with my character – Rick Astly – will tell.

While there are discussions that should be had on accessibility to these souls’ games, we will not get into them. To the community that believes their games become worse when more people can play – I will not entertain this argument, you are just wrong.

The Leyndell Capital golem did eventually get fucked though. When I found the pattern, I took him down first try. I’ll probably just keep dying repeatedly but having a surprisingly good time doing it. I won’t bother mentioning that at the time of concluding this article, I realized I could’ve fast traveled myself to other lands. Well played, Elden Ring.