Expected by the participation of the original author of the hit game of the century ‘Game of Thrones’
Critics praised it as “the best of all time”
Difficult to play normally due to optimization issues
Action fantasy RPG game ‘Elden Ring’. From software provided
‘Elden Ring’, an action role-playing game (RPG) genre released at the end of last month, has inflated gamers’ expectations even before its release. While focusing on the action RPG field for 30 years, it was an ambitious work from FromSoftware, famous for its ‘craftsmanship’ in Japan, and George RR Martin, the author of the hit US drama ‘Game of Thrones’, also participated in the game industry. It was mentioned as the 1st place in ‘Game of the Year’. In addition to the ‘Open World’ element that guarantees the freedom of users, ‘Elden Ring’ was praised for saying, “It will be a game that can never fail.” FromSoftware is a soul-like (RPG sub-genre with features such as high difficulty, various boss characters, and inconvenient systems) that stayed in the genre of few enthusiasts with high-quality games such as the ‘Dark Souls’ series, ‘Bloodborne’ and ‘Sekiro’. It is a developer that has brought the industry mainstream.
However, the evaluation of the ‘Elden Ring’ that has risen to the surface is sharply mixed. While game critics praised the game for exceeding expectations, gamers are also voicing sharp criticism, citing problems with the optimization of the PC version, which makes normal game play difficult.
An anticipated masterpiece… Rising expectations by critics’ rave reviews
According to the professional review site Metacritic on the 3rd, the action RPG game Elden Ring (PS5 version) recorded an average of 97 points as of the day. metacritic capture
According to the game industry on the 6th, the diagnosis of ‘Elden Ring’, which was introduced as a multi-platform such as PC and home game console on the 25th of last month, is running at the extreme.
‘Elden Ring’ is the main plot of the story of the protagonist who ventures into the ‘land of niches’ with a dark fantasy worldview as the background. Right before it was released to general gamers, most critics who had experienced ‘Elden Ring’ in advance gave generous reviews. This work received an average of 97 points (PlayStation 5 version) on Metacritic, a review site, but only 23 games scored 97 points or higher before the release of ‘Elden Ring’. Another review company, Opencritic, scored 96 points, the highest score ever for a game. Regarding ‘Elden Ring’, the British daily The Guardian gave an evaluation of “Unmatched design and originality”, and the American video game magazine Game Informer said, “‘Elden Ring’ is not the game of the year, but the best game in history.” he exalted.
Serious optimization problem… “stuck to the point of not being able to play”
According to Steam DB, the action RPG game Elden Ring ranked first in the number of concurrent users on Steam as of the afternoon of the 3rd. Steam DB website
Contrary to this favorable reception from critics, gamers who have encountered the officially released ‘Elden Ring’ to the general public are only expressing their disappointment. Instantly, the sky-high expectations of a serious flaw that were discovered quickly turned into disappointment and anger. ‘Elden Ring’ immediately surpassed ‘Lost Ark’ on the game platform Steam right after its release and climbed to the top of the list of concurrent users. However, optimization problems that make it difficult to run the game at all and frame drops (screen stuttering) are holding back the ‘Elden Ring’. The error continues to be found even on PCs with specifications higher than the recommended specifications, leading to criticism that an unfinished game may have been released.
Since then, the production company has acknowledged the problem and promised continuous improvement, but the complaints of gamers are not easing. Since normal play is still not possible in some sections of the PC version, some users are pouring out harsh reviews saying that they were “deceived by critics again”.
Also, there is an analysis that bad news overlapped, such as users who were not familiar with the soul-like genre, who encountered ‘The Elden Ring’ and were disappointed with the difficult difficulty and left bad reviews. As time passes after its release, ‘Elden Ring’ is a well-made game developed by inheriting the strengths of the previous works from FromSoftware, but there are also criticisms that it is still lacking in popularity.
Masterpieces that did not meet expectations… ‘Cruel Death’ in the game industry
CD Project Red’s apology left after a flood of complaints about ‘Cyberpunk 2077’. Twitter capture
Given this situation, some are skeptical of whether the atrocities in the game industry that “the higher the expectations are, the greater the disappointment” are repeating itself. This is because it has become difficult to satisfy the eye level of gamers who have risen as they continue to release masterpiece games with astronomical budgets.
Even before ‘Elden Ring’, there were many games where expectations turned into disappointments. ‘Cyberpunk 2077’, released in December 2020, was pointed out as the best open world game ever since its release. It is a new game released by CDPR, a Polish game developer who rose to the ranks of the best game companies with the ‘The Witcher’ series. However, after the official release, due to bugs and optimization issues that were not improved, the game sales were suspended due to repeated errors that made gameplay impossible. The stock price plummeted by more than 40% within a week of its release, and the existence of a game company was shaken by a large-scale refund, and even investors filed a class action lawsuit over hype.
On the other hand, although the game had a high level of perfection, there were also works that were disappointing with a clumsy plot. The action-adventure game ‘The Last of Us Part 2’ by American game company Naughty Dog was also one of the most anticipated works of 2020. It was thanks to the popularity of the previous work, which swept the ‘Game of the Year’ award for its immersive story. However, it was turned away from users because of its unconventional storytelling that was different from the previous work. The Last of Us Part 2 had a high critic score of 93 on Metacritic, but a user score of only 5.7 (out of 10).
Lee Seung-yeop reporter sylee@hankookilbo.com
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