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It’s been a month since Elden Ring released, which is about enough time for the honeymoon phase to be over. Theoretically, at least. Crawling through the Elden Ring sub-reddit, it’s easy to find a number of still-obsessed players turning their experiences into memes to share, discussing the New Game+ experience, and even new players to the “genre” expressing their love for the game. There has been no shortage of controversy, what with the poor PC performance at launch leading to review bombs on the Steam platform, only to turn around and be critized by developers of Ubisoft and Guerilla Games in a rather unprofessional manner. The ensuing discussion could have led to the possibility of Horizon fans review bombing Elden Ring with dishonest intentions.

Of course, nothing has stopped the game from selling over twelve-million copies worldwide. Elden Ring was lauded by many websites, publications, and communities as the most highly anticipated game coming in 2022, but rarely do the niche opinions of an enthusiast audience cross over into the mainstream in this manner. While we cannot calculate the number of players trading the game back to GameStop after just a few hours of struggle, we can occasionally see a first-timer post in the aforementioned sub-reddit a joyful celebration of taking down their first few bosses or, at times, the entire game.

It may seem odd to say, but the aggregate praise, the sales numbers, or the nit-picking complaints of a handful of disgruntled developers and journalists don’t mean anything to the actual quality of the game. Is it a “masterpiece” as many have lauded it as? Well, obviously not, but… yes, actually. It’s a complicated issue, as Elden Ring is the culmination of over a decade of refining a flawed game-type, or style, in a flawed engine, by a flawed development team. Comments regarding the inability to adjust text-size in the UI as regards to accessibility are legitimate, and is an issue the studio should have sorted out years ago. That this game cannot hit a stable 60fps on the most up-to-date console hardware and has myriad performance issues on PC is inexcusable. It still baffles me that I cannot compare my current gear’s stats to that which is available in the shops. None of these issues have anything to do with the silly “difficulty argument” and therefore would not change the core of the experience, save for improving it. It is, without a doubt, an imperfect game.

At the same time, I am nearly one-hundred hours into Elden Ring, have crawled through every cavern and crevice I’ve been able to find thus far, and not only still have several more hours of content ahead of me, but have continued to miss little paths, quests, or details throughout my adventure. I’ve continued to be surprised and gasp at various revelations and discoveries. Unlike Breath of the Wild, where I stopped around some seventy-to-ninety hours due to feeling as if I’d seen enough and was ready to be done, I am continuing to plumb the depths of Elden Ring because there is so much to see.

It’s kind of difficult not to perceive such a game as being a masterpiece when that is your experience with it. Nonetheless, I certainly am inching ever closer to that feeling of being absolutely done with Elden Ring... for now, at least.

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From a layman’s perspective, it makes little business sense to release your game anywhere close to February 25th, 2022. While some titles such as Horizon: Forbidden West are big enough themselves to sell regardless, most other titles are doomed to loom in the shadow of Elden Ring. It has been over two weeks and only now are players starting to lose some degree of steam from what has become one of the largest launches of the industry. The game was not only incredibly well hyped, it actually managed to deliver in comparison to recent disappointments such as Cyberpunk 2077.

So why did Square Enix release a demo for Babylon’s Fall, a game already struggling to find an audience, on the same day that Elden Ring released? Why did Babylon’s Fall release a week after while their “Souls-like” reimagining of the original Final Fantasy, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, is launching three weeks after and bound for comparison? In fact, why is Square Enix releasing four different games clustered together throughout March, all competing for audience attention and retention?

The answer most likely resides in Square Enix’s fiscal year concluding in March. As I am no investor nor business man, I can only speculate that Square Enix is releasing these titles all within the March window in order to meet some form of sales expectations or promise to investors. Would it have been better to delay some of these games out further? It once more seems that way from a layman’s perspective. Now that Forspoken has been delayed to the Autumn, its original release slot in May could be better filled by Stranger of Paradise. Games such as Triangle Strategy and Chocobo GP seem to be targeting different demographics than Elden Ring, but if From Software’s latest adventure is truly hitting Red Dead Redemption 2 numbers, then it is clearly appealing to quite the broad audience of players. Even fans of tactical RPG’s may find it difficult to slot time in for Triangle Strategy as they scour the lands between. As for Babylon’s Fall, it is doubtful that a better release window would have saved it, though it may have at least done a tad better than its current peak numbers.

I’m not writing this to speculate on Square Enix’s reasoning for such a condensed set of game launches, however. I am instead writing this because I’ve played demos of three of their four releases, and can only shake my head and groan at the news coming out of the fourth. In some ways, I think the media is being unfair. In other cases, the looming presence of Elden Ring has deterred me from what might otherwise be a somewhat risk-taking purchase. Instead, I want to take a moment to look at these titles, recent reveals, and additional business decisions that the company has been making lately.

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When Shamus and I had decided to play Resident Evil 5 on stream, we both had a goal to be as positive about the experience as possible. I, in particular, didn’t want it to just be a “hate play” where we did nothing but criticize the experience. On my part, this is partially due to having played the game enough that I know I enjoy it. It’s not “bad” in the sense that it has little redeeming value beyond a lesson of what not to do.

However, standing in the shadow of Resident Evil 4, it’s easy to find little mistakes or frustrations that drive one’s perception towards a great sense of inferiority. In comparison to its predecessor, Resident Evil 5 is bad. Compared to other games, however, is it really as bad as the game’s reputation suggests?

Well… yes, but, no. The Gears of War trilogy managed to provide a consistently good experience across all three games around the same time period. Imperfect, as all things are, and with their own number of frustrations, but ultimately Gears of War “feels better” to play simply due to a more consistent experience (and we don’t talk about Gears of War 4... erm, beyond that time I spoke about Gears of War 4). The same is true for the Halo franchise in this time period. Halo 3, ODST, and Reach were all consistently good experiences for connecting online with a friend to combat alien hordes. Resident Evil 5, meanwhile, chose to step into the co-op arena in a franchise not only known for its isolation and focus on single-player experiences, but using the mechanics and design of its solo-play predecessor instead of crafting a co-op experience from the ground up. It’s no wonder it was immediately condemned by a good chunk of the series fanbase.

Most of that audience bought it anyway, of course, because that’s just how fandoms are these days. Resident Evil 5 is still one of Capcom’s best selling games, and combined with the sales of its ports and remasters, is the top selling Resident Evil title altogether. I don’t think these numbers can be chalked up simply to brand loyalty. I think that, while Resident Evil 5 stumbles, it is a good game. It just… invites insult and criticism so easily.

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