Salty Rings

 You could hardly imagine the jelly

It ain't often that I feel the compunction to speak so much about a game I haven't even gotten the chance to play for myself, but Elden Ring is such a triumph it would feel like a waste not to natter a bit about it. I mean it's a Souls-Like Fromsoft game that has finally broken into the mainstream, shattered the landscape of open world games and reintroduced fantasy as a serious contender in the entertainment field. This game has become something special, achieved more than I ever thought this genre was capable of, and I could not be more happy for the FromSoftware team. They've always put in the work, taken their time, embraced their creativity and brushed fine strokes of art across this gaming canvass. And they've also managed to hit a goldmine of bad port companies, it truly is astounding how nearly every port they've ever done, save Demon Souls (which was probably arranged by Sony, if we're being honest) has been a bit of a mess. I guess every title, no matter how ostensibly flawless, needs it's great equaliser. For FromSoftware games it's the port, for Undertale it's the community.

But if there's one thing which is absolutely certain to occur whenever one singular game strikes gold with the vast majority of the industry, it's that all of this extreme positivity is due to attract extreme negative reactions in kind. It's that rubberband equaliser again, rearing it's head. And it's good to have dissenting opinions, to change up the pool of reactions and keep this world of creativity ever on-its-toes and never complacent. I mean, could you imagine what the industry would be like if no one ever challenged the norms and we resorted to hitting the same standards time and time again? Do you know what that would be like? It would be like having an entire industry that developed only Ubisoft games, and I don't know about you but I can't think of a single scenario which would kill all of my enthusiasm for games as an entertainment medium more. (>A foreshadow passes overhead.<)

Yet there is a difference between criticism and substanceless complaints and grumblings, in fact I'd say that pivot point would be the difference between a hot take and a bad one. Needless to say the internet is full of bad takes, with nothing constructive to them, it is the lifeblood of modern society, we all have the bad-take virus pumping through our fleshy veins; but every now and then you'll catch a glimpse of such a take from a source that still manages to shock you. Either because it's someone you thought was on the up-and-up, or the take was truly abysmal, or because they've failed to follow that most simple of rules in life: people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Which is one of many ways to say: try not to heavily admonish someone else for a something you yourself have problems with, because it just ends up badly for you. On that point, did you catch that twitter thread which was bouncing around?

Of course you did, I'm covering this more than a week late, but the reason is because, again, I haven't played the game so I didn't really feel like I had much of a horse in this race. So I've done a little bit of second hand research, absorbed a little infomation on both sides of the topic, and now feel a tad more qualified to cover this. Yet still I'll introduce it to you. Because, over the week a trio of established, and even senior, game developers attempted to insert their entire foots in their mouths in order to trash on the success of Elden Ring in some very specific ways. Let's inspect, and of course we're going to Twitter because that's where common sense goes to die. First, the protagonist of our story, states: "The fact that (Elden Ring) scored a 97 metacritic is proof that reviewers don't give a flaming poop about Game UX. My life is a lie." To which mambo-number-two replied "Nor PC Graphics, stability and performance, apparently", and the thread was topped off with a healthy "Nor quest design, really" by a third sacrificial lamb.

Now there are actual criticisms in these posts, they're general but they do raise topics of discussion; unfortunately they're presented in such a blatantly antagonistic way, that it's hard not to read these reactions as anything more than salty responses to the fact that Elden Ring scored higher than their respective games did. That first fellow seems to equate Elden Ring's success purely to an utter disregard of general acknowledgement for his job, implying that Elden Ring does so terribly at it's Game UX (Game User experience) that if it's merits were taken into account, Elden Ring would be recognised as far inferior than it's current perception and 'Mr Insecure' over here, could feel better about his job security. There's a genuine take in there, hidden away, but it's overpowered by the utter bitter scorn stuffed in the middle, which the other two commenters unwittingly (probably) assumed when they decided to reply. And whilst those later comments might have some plausible deniability in relation to their intended tonality, the first guy went on to drive in his bitterness with another tweet characterising Elden Ring's UX as so bad that he can only assume the team were 'smoking at their desks and working on CRT monitors'. Which is... strong. Basically saying that Elden Ring's systems are so shoddy that the entire team must be backwards Neanderthal/dinosaurs belonging to a bygone age of game design. Thems be straight fighting words.

And with a tone like that you just know that this has to be coming from a guy with some solid walls around him, so that he can safety toss those stones. I mean, you'd have to be crazy to make such a targeted and vindictive swipe against this one part of Elden Ring unless you've got the receipts to show that you do, indeed, know better. Either receipts or a more coherent criticism; either would be fine. Hmm? What's that? This guy is a UX Director at Ubisoft Stockholm? (Them walls looking mighty transparent right about now, buddy boy...) Ubisoft? Are you serious! Guys who make games so uninspired and formulaic that the entire team could be replaced by AI tomorrow and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Except the games would be completed faster and probably with less bugs so... yeah, why don't we just do that? The average Ubisoft employee has never coloured out of a dotted line in their entire lives, of course they're going to short-circuit and start spilling brain matter out their ears when they come across a title that takes any direction not explicitly laid out in design school. I haven't played Elden Ring, but I've played almost every Ubisoft game and they are vapid to the point of sleep-walking. The UX is streamlined to the same point that every aspect of those games are, so that you can breeze through everything quickly and absorb none of it. Do they display bad UX practices? No. (At least not nowadays.) But are they boring and uninventive? Absolutely.

Our second lady, well she quite rightly pokes at the bad PC performance for Elden Ring. However, because she attaches herself to this thread she has, whether or not she realises it, implied that reviewers have whole heartedly ignored PC performance in their impressions, which is an absolute lie. I don't think a single review I've read has failed to mention the issues on PC, they just haven't allowed that caveat to effect the score of their review of the game itself, for how it plays on consoles. If we're talking about a review on the PC version specifically, there have actually been a couple that have noticed and knocked off marks. But expecting everyone to just turn around and go "Well, the game is as near to perfection as anything, but the PC port is bad: 6/10" is kind of a reductive expectation. Different reviewers have different priorities; that's the reason we have multiple reviewers and not just one big amorphous conglomerate blob review monster that we christen 'The Meta Critic'. Also, one of her 'inspired' points is about something as vapid as 'graphics', which really lets you know where our lady is approaching game design from, huh? "Screw the stellar art direction, my character's skin doesn't have naturally refracting follicles!" Yep, she is a Graphics Programmer who has worked on PC versions of big, sometimes vacuous, titles; most recently 'Avengers'. Lesser jelly perhaps, but there's some lingering gelatin morsels on the plate. 

And the third of our terrible triplets; he has a problem with Quest Design and indirectly claims that it is no longer a factor of consideration in game reviewing. This time I am aware what he's digging at, and to be honest it's more of a UX consideration than raw Quest Design, but he was eager to get his little point there in the end so he could be part of the club. Elden Ring has no quest log or quest markers, it gives players a quest objective and trusts them to remember what they've agreed to, where they should deliver their quest to, and when it's appropriate to do so. Every Souls game operates like this, however with the size and open world nature of Elden Ring this free-form approach to giving players tasks stands out more. But does that make it bad, or different? Reviewers, again, do tend to mention this little design choice, and so likely factor it into their score decision process, but I think we're coming to grips with the fact that the people clearly didn't actually read any reviews before deciding to run their mouths on Twitter because again; that is where reason goes to die. This guy is, surprise surprise, Senior Quest Designer for 'Horizon: Forbidden West', and there's certainly a lot more genuine, and justifiable, salt here.

The original 'Horizon: Zero Dawn' was considered a very solid, if largely conventional, open world game with great graphics and a world we hadn't seen before, but it was robbed of the chance to make a significant impact on the gaming world when a month after it came out: 'Breath of the Wild' dropped. Suddenly all of those ardently polished conventional design choices got eclipsed by a game that seemed to lionise a much freer approach. No one is saying that BoTW pioneered these design choices, as some people like to claim, but they bought them into the spotlight with artistic flourish and dangerous intent, effectively stealing HZD's place in gaming history by taking all the air out of the room. Now 'Forbidden West' has landed, it gathers a lot of Steam, it's doing the rounds: Then a week later Elden Ring comes out and is an unexpected smash hit. It's the same story, all of those carefully manicured leap-frogs on conventional modern open world design traditions have been subverted entirely, and now people are moving their attentions exclusively to the new hotness. Horizon will make it's money, it's already sold strong, but once again that all-important place in history has been stolen and that sucks. The Team worked really hard and it shows. But is throwing shade on Twitter the best way to release that frustration? Maybe go watch a movie instead, might cause less of a PR disaster.

Since all of this has done the rounds, all three have privated their Twitter accounts, wisely noting that it was thoughtless blabbering on Social Media that got them into this mess and the same isn't likely to get them out of it, but their absence has left an interesting taste in the mouth. It feels as though that old affliction of 'old men waving their fist at new technology they don't understand' is taking hold on a lot more younger folks then you'd think. These people who study to make their games a certain way, and in all three cases probably do their job to the best standard they think they can, are being outperformed by someone who rethinks the practice altogether, and they're stuck in the mentality that: 'It's not the approach I would have taken, therefore it is wrong.' The reviewing public, along with the gaming public, seem to resonate with the full package as it is, 'but that just means they're insular and aren't respecting my sector of game development with their little monkey brains'. It's this failure to adapt one's viewpoint which all of humanity suffers from to some degree, I have mentioned the subjects I struggle with from time to time, but if you have the self introspection to be able to recognise that; you can directly and objectively address yourself and come away with greater insight, either to yourself or the subject in hand.

I don't really think that these three are suffering from terminal jealousy, even if it really does feel like that factor has played a part in these responses at least somewhat; but they definitely aren't evolved critics. Even I, a decidedly tepid and out-in-the-styx critic, see the overwhelming bias and lack of objectivity here. A lot of that stems from standing on the shoulders of that Ubisoft guy, he has the most issues with himself to work out here it would seem. Still, at the end of the day there were three genuine critical points here, all butchered in execution and thus rightly mocked, unfortunately burying the points they had under the fervour. Maybe in the future these people need to look into channelling their frustrations in a much more back-handed way; such as the way I dislike Toby Fox for being so multi-faceted and talented at different creative mediums that it makes me feel bad about being mediocre in my one chosen medium. God gave that man too many attribute points in character creation and it's upsetting the balance of my D&D game.