Hi, I’m a Western game dev, and apparently that means I hate Elden Ring for some reason! Let’s dissect this nonsense narrative built upon gross exaggerations, sweeping generalizations, outright lies and just plain ol’ bad faith.
00:00 Introduction
04:23 Breaking Down the Narrative
05:34 Different Games Are Different
10:34 Did Forbidden West Fail?
15:40 Yes, Elden Ring Kicks Ass
30:19 False Dichotomy: Japan vs. The West
36:07 Elden Ring’s UI/UX Does Suck, Tho
47:24 Closing Thoughts
►SPECIAL THANKS
• @Oddnon https://twitch.tv/oddnon
► PATREON
• https://www.patreon.com/infernalramblings
►ADDITIONAL MUSIC CREDITS
• “Into the Deep” by bLiNd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J9Od0p6ER0
○ Check out https://gamechops.com/Chozo-Legacy/ for the full album!
• OCRemix (ocremix.org):
○ “Dream of Green” by Wiesty & The OC Jazz Collective https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03483
○ “Gobble, Snarf, Snap” by XPRTNovice https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02691
►SOURCES
1. Elden Ring sales figures/news
1a. May: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/elden-ring-has-now-shipped-13-4-million-units/
1b. August: https://www.eurogamer.net/elden-ring-sales-surpass-166m-worldwide
2. Horizon Forbidden West sales figures/news
2a. Launch: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/horizon-forbidden-west-is-the-second-biggest-ps5-launch-so-far-uk-boxed-charts
2b. Elden’s launch: https://www.thegamer.com/horizon-forbidden-west-elden-ring-sales-charts/
2c. PS5 bundle: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/new-ps5-bundle-sends-horizon-forbidden-west-back-to-no-1-uk-boxed-charts
3. Forbidden West Production Cost? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12496904/
4. Spider-Man Miles Morales sales https://www.gamespot.com/articles/marvels-spider-man-playstation-sales-reach-33-million-as-of-may/1100-6504108/
5. Bridget is a trans woman https://www.gamebyte.com/guilty-gear-re-confirms-bridget-is-a-trans-woman/
6. Mick Gordon’s statement on DOOM Eternal https://medium.com/@mickgordon/my-full-statement-regarding-doom-eternal-5f98266b27ce
7. Babylon’s Fall’s Fall https://www.polygon.com/23367080/bablyon-fall-square-enix-offline-gamestop-free
#eldenring #videoessay #gamedev
40 Comments
screw woke crap, stop destroying all entertainment, thank you
Guerilla studios shouldve waited 2 months to release horizon fw.It sucks because I think that both elden ring and horizon fw are a great game . It sucks that both was pooled into this childish thing of bring down one to boast the other .
Here’s the deal… Elden Ring gives me something that I need while struggling through it. Horizon also gives me something I need while I’m breezing through it and enjoying Aloys journey. They aren’t the same and cannot be compared to each other as if they are.
nice video i agree with loads what you said pretty god structure, while i would disagree with the summery that capitalism is whats wrong with everything …instead of focusing on those with the money a class of folks with power that is corrupting the very structure of things including capitalism ….capitalism is just a tool that have been used by humanity to drive progress/development in many things but its not a perfect tool I would agree but all the other alternatives have been proven by past and modern examples that it doesn't work …now checks and balances are need to keep everything in check and to keep those in power that would inject other ideologies and practices to corrupt the very system of our very existence. …i would add corruption happens but at to what speed and how can it be remedied without a complete collapse of everything
The difference between Japanese and western games is that westerners go realism over function, whereas Japanese like to keep their games more on fantasy and function. I think that Red Dead Redemption 2 is a good example of a game the Japanese devs wouldn't make . Or if they did, It would feel a lot more "cartoony" like Read Dead Revolver is. Some argue that RDR2 pushes the realism aspect way too much (everything has a slow animation and there's an input lag when aiming due to it). One of my personal complaints about western games is not so much about the gameplay or the ui or not even the stories necessarily, but how ugly characters have become – one thing also that comes from wanting to keep with realism. I actively dislike mo-capped faces, it's the most boring and lazy thing you can make, when video games allow every kind of designs to be created and applied. And now realistic body types is one thing that is brought to games, they made Aloy chunkier due to it for instance. It's a fantasy so why make your characters uglier? I don't understand.
This reads like a basic college essay. Lame.
Can we start adding a tag to games with light rpg elements like Forbidden West or God of War FRPGs or Faux rpgs.
You can sort the inventory
>works at 343i
ok dood
make halo not suck, ok
Just getting into the video, i apologize for the stint at 343. 😂😂
Elden ring is super flawed and overrated. Check the user scores. It's at a 7 ffs
I would suggest that you start a new game of Elden Ring and look through the bonfire menus. They added a glowy circle next to the flask upgrades.
I'm not sure how your video got recommended to me, but I'm really glad! Your perspective helps you see these events in a different light.
I also can't believe how I've been more and more critical about corporations, culture dogmas, our current system, etc and failed to look/look back at this in a more critical way, so I'm definitely checking more of your content, as I hope others will, too!
This kind of view/analysis on gaming stuff should be very interesting!
(and probably a bit introspective/reflective to someone like me, who perceived things very differently, and very narrowly, before)
Haven’t finished the video, but I’m guessing Red Dead Redemption 2.
nothing is wrong w response videos lol. it’s annoying when u start ur vid off with “i don’t normally do this” and do that exact thing. own it bro this is a good video
2:47 it has to be Skyrim, come on. Dew it!
Great video, watch out though the venn diagram between "east VS west game dev" culture warrior and capitalism boot licker is damn near a circle and somehow I doubt they'll love some of these conclusions lol.
…has patreon.
About "opaque quests", sadly many quests in ER are a little too opaque and tell too little imo, even compared to DS3.
You earned my sub the second u said u bounced off BOTW ,the game sucks bland openworld and the same rewards over and over again no surprises, BOTW was one of my most regretted purchases
For the reward being random and you may find things that you don't or ever use. I nevermind that in the game. For me when the game is good to explore it is fun to get the reward at the end even though it is not useful. It is the road to get to the reward that is the most important. And with that knowledge, my subsequence playthrough will be improved as I remember this place has the item that I want to pickup for this character, that place is not needed. Using my own experience for future playthrough in exploration is a very good feeling beside just experience from fighting. It makes me feel that I am getting better at the game and become more efficient. It is like they put every reward in each box at an event, you don't know what you will get but you can always get as many you want to know what is in each of the boxes. They also don't forbid you to comeback in the next event and they don't change the box content either. So the next time you come by you know exactly what box you need to get instead of them telling you.
41:39 I think they can fix it just by making the item you recently pick at the top of the tab with some sort of highlight to indicate. Then after you look through them the highlight is gone and the next time you open the inventory again it will be in where it is sorted. There is actually a sort function in the inventory to sorting them by weight, category and stuff but not very useful however. Most people ignore them ever since DS1 and just dump every item into the stash.
53:58 I believe the first thing everyone do right after touching the grace is either jumping straight down and die or die trying to go down
It is funny how the anti-woke game has LITERAL GOD being a nonbinary bisexual shapeshifter with confirmed sexual relationships with both male and females, one of the most powerful demigods is canonically gay, and both male and female players gain the title of Lord, and you can customize your character to be any gender and that that the clothes are non-gendered, so you can also be non-binary. But for some reason the conservative people believe that the game where you have to play as a woman is the woke one.
wow I didnt expect such a good video from that title.
most importantly, it goes beyond what most people would want to hear about that topic and you did a great job adressing the toxic ideologies people are trying to push, using pop culture as a powerful weapon.
I shared your video on facebook and hope more people will enjoy it as I have and learn from it
The worst gaff of Elden Ring is the " Confirm you want to summon the horse, it will cost you a flask" overlay which is preselected to "no." This literally kills me every time I'm fighting a Dragon.
I think the main difference between the success of Elden Ring and Horizon Zero Dawn is that Fromsoft keept evolving it's formula, while EA merely keeps adding to it since Assasins Creed pretty much.
For me I grew up playing old and new nintendo I played hard games that were technically limited but offered amazing gameplay and story and that's the same kind of philosophy Miyazaki creates his games with I don't want to feel like the devs are calling me an idiot when they put in easy stuff I like that Miyazaki respects our intelligence and says "there either smart and good at the game or they suck and they will play something else" he is mega GOAT
Id love to watch the drone journalists etc who consider this too hard,play nioh or nioh 2,makes souls games look like a "my first abc"
I've beaten both games and really like them both. Would give the nod to Elden Ring for how interesting it is to explore and build your character but Forbidden West feels like a fully functioning world in its own and fun without the panic attack . I've also beaten Ragnarok and think both these games are better
The whole vid makes perfect sense except for the part where you assume western devs aren't jealous of Elden Ring's success. This discourse actually started because a bunch of western devs made cringe public statements about it. There's a YongYea video about it close to Elden Ring's release window. Can't fault a guy for not keeping up with a couple of whiney devs on Twitter though lol. Still gonna sub.
Woah, don't talk trash about my boy Nessie
It's a great video bud and agree with a lot, however you do miss a key point – this 'narrative' wasn't started by Elden Ring fans, no one was comparing the titles until a Horizon Forbidden West Dev indirectly made the comparison.
You also paint the tweets as vastly different than they were; they weren't helpful positive tweets, they were absolutely petty and rude. Saying FS devs were smoking at their desks? How the quests design 'doesn't exist' tweeted by a HFW developer – this was straight up pettiness.
But yeh I have never felt comfortable with the East vs West argument either – in reality it came down to this; a couple of Horizon Devs got salty and made some petty remarks. But that's it – no wider picture and I agree that it is a full dogma invented from a few tweets. But don't get it twisted – it was started by a Horizon Dev and it wasn't done 'because they cared' about Elden Ring being as successful as it could be.
Edit: Yo those Godskin Noble Roll dodges 🤝
Not how "resources" work. 300 years ago land was the big "resource." But technological development made it so now we can farm an order of magnitude more food then is nessaraly to survive on a fraction of the land. At the same time sometimes your land could be croupted by this kind of black sludge that was a real albatross on its value. Or as it's now known oil. Wealth doesn't come form resources. Wealth comes form the ability to combine the products in your environment in new and interesting ways. It's true that nothing can last forever, but it can last a lot longer then you think.
Great vid I really really appreciate your criticisms of Capitalism.
Hello, sorry if I said something wrong on Twitter. I was simply wanting to discuss gaming topics with you. I thought this video was an amazing view on Elden Ring and I figured we could toss an interesting dialog exchange sometime.
I don't know if you thought I was a scammer or something but if you ever want to reach out I'll be here.
Thank you.
dude the music at 12 mins makes it very difficult for me to focus on your voice at all. way too busy imo
Honestly, it's unfortunate you even had to make this video, but, you did, and you did a better job than the "controversy" warrants, in my opinion. I do think you're justified in going to the lengths you went, however, because I agree that the fundamental animating concern behind the complaints you address is indeed a pernicious, reactionary sentiment that the gaming community has allowed to masquerade as legitimate critique for far, far too long. Thank you. This displayed academic-quality analysis and I was especially impressed that you managed to both show your hand politically AND put forth arguments that stand up independently of that ideology. Sure, some cretins will dismiss the argument because of your political orientation but anyone who is on the fence, able to think critically, will be able to access the argument in ways that a politically charged but less articulated argument would prevent.
The golden seed/ sacred tear UI thing was annoying . . . but they fixed it. There's an indicator that shows when you can upgrade your flasks now. They put merchants and other NPCs on the map too among other UI improvements. Open world was new waters for them and this is why discourse about flaws is important. FS devs clearly looked at feedback and listened, and they rebalanced a lot of weapons and abilities that players find annoyed too. They also improved the multiplayer massively and made it more accessible based on what players (and presumably devs like you) had to say. They made a good game and they kept honing it and its dope.
Every point you made is fair. Criticism is a good thing, and no, all "Western game developers" shouldn't be lumped together and seen as people who are "jealous" and are just s***ing on Elden Ring every time they have criticism. Devs make games for a living most likely . . . well because they love games? Elden Ring (while not perfect) is a super awesome game so I'm sure there are countless devs who enjoyed the game as much as you. I had my criticisms too and still do. Despite updates, the game still isn't perfect. No game I've ever played is perfect and there is always room for criticism.
There were absolutely A HANDFUL of devs on Twitter who were going about their criticism of Elden Ring in a way that came across as bitter and nasty, but yeah, I think the "WESTERN GAME DEVEOPERS HATE ELDEN RING" thing is generally click baity trash. "Western" and "Eastern" aren't two genres of games. Elden Rings and Souls drew a lot of inspiration from Western games (Demons' Souls and DS1 in particular specifically targeted Western audiences) just as countless, countless Western developers have drawn inspiration from Eastern games. "East vs West" is generally an overly generalizing conversation rooted in misconceptions.
Epic vid, dude. Sorry for the essay.
Perhaps the general idea behind not having a quick item select system in Elden Ring is to make the player commit to a loadout before entering a boss room or firefight. So if they want to change loadout mid-battle, it's intentionally troublesome and tough to cheese the game.
the game puts a little sign next to the flasks when an upgrade is available, pay attention 🙃😊