Elden Ring is one of the biggest games I’ve ever played. The sheer size of it made me delete the first draft of this blog, pick one aspect of the game, and write about that instead.

It feels like the culmination of FromSoftwares efforts. A natural progression after the conclusion of the Dark Souls trilogy.

In this blog, I’ll be talking about one of my favorite features in Elden Ring, running away. 

Running Away in Elden Ring

Elden Ring teaches you very quickly the importance of running away. After completing the tutorial the world opens up to a beautiful golden-lit land. You’re elevated above a small valley and in that valley is a giant golden knight on a giant golden horse. 

Upon approaching this knight, you’ll quickly learn you do not have the tools necessary to defeat this foe. Unless you want the challenge then be my guest, but for everyone who wants to keep their sanity, run away.

Why I love running away in Elden Ring

In my experience with FromSoft games, when I hit an obstacle  I have to overcome it. Either because the boss is blocking the way forward, or my roommate offered me 100 dollars if I could beat all the bosses in Dark Souls 3 solo (I never beat Slave Knight Gael or Midir).

Elden Ring gives players options with the addition of an open world.

Boredom & Time Spent

I get bored fairly easily and I value my time a lot. I’ve got things to do so I don’t always have the time to ram my head against a boss fight until I beat it. I still enjoy learning a fight and getting progressively better at it – it’s incredibly rewarding, but it takes time. Something I find myself lacking daily. 

Having the ability to leave a boss fight and go do one of a hundred things is one of my favorite additions in this game for that reason. 

I found it hard to get bored of Elden Ring due to the cornucopia of things I could do. Tired of a boss fight? Go exploring! Tired of exploring? Go fight that boss you decided not to fight 20 hours ago!

Running Away Pushes You To Keep Exploring the World

I mentioned the first Erdtree Sentinel fight earlier in this article, it’s the first instance of “You Don’t Have the Right”, but it’s certainly not the last. 

Margott the Fell Omen is the first big bad of Elden Ring. He has a plethora of moves that range from slow, heavy hitting, and hard to telegraph to fast ranged attacks that require quick reflexes. He’s not easy, especially if you find him early.

Margott teaches players to take their time, explore the world for a little bit, level up, and get their footing. The Lands Between is a huge world with so much to see and experience. So explore it!

Running Away Gives You A Chance To Level Up Without Having To Grind

Grinding is most people’s least favorite thing about video games, and it mostly isn’t necessary.

It is within the realm of possibility to play Elden Ring from start to finish without leveling up ever, but that’s not normal behavior. Typically, you’ll want to level up your character and upgrade your weapons so you’ll be better matched against the enemies you face.

Elden Ring makes it easy to level up your character without the game getting boring. Yes, I did find my favorite farming spot in Deep Root depths, and yes I did use it on occasion, but for the most part, running away and exploring new areas always gave me enough Runes for a couple of levels. 

I never felt like I had to grind or farm out a couple of levels to face the next challenge.

Why I Hate Running Away In Elden Ring

I’m going to be making some contradictory statements here. Take them as proof of my internal conflict about this game.

I played this game for 122 hours over a year and a half. During that time I went from 

• Oh this fun and cool (To)
• This game actually sucks and is bad (To)
• I love this.

If that sounds like trauma bonding to you, you’re right!

So here’s why Elden’s Ring running away mechanic sucks.

Over Powering

My last point in the “why I love. . .” section was being able to level up without grinding. I still stand by that, but in some instances, it’s very easy to come back to an area or boss as an overpowered god.

For example, I ran into Astel at around 85 hours. He was really difficult and I wasn’t in the mood so I “ran away”. I wouldn’t revisit this fight until after beating Godfrey. This made the fight a joke. It wasn’t a challenge, but it was fun to push his teeth in like a character from a terminal montage video.

This issue can certainly lead to some feel-bad moments. Players of these games like the challenge. So accidentally overpowering your character by exploring sometimes felt like I accidentally turned on easy baby mode for babies and kind of defeated the purpose.

Here’s a great example of a boss fight that felt too easy:

Negates The Get Gud Mindset

Accidentally becoming overpowered can destroy the experience of “getting gud”. You no longer have to overcome a seemingly impossible task. Instead, you just do a couple of charge attacks and try not to get hit.

This happened to me when I got to the second Margott fight. I beat him in one try. I’m not that good at these kinds of games so I was super surprised I was able to do that. Turns out I was overpowered by a couple of levels. This example isn’t the worst offender ever though, I had a fun time with the fight and got bragging rights for sure.

I’m not going to claim that Elden Ring has “artificial difficulty”, but the ease of overpowering a character (to the point it could happen accidentally), feels like accidentally walking behind the scenes at Disneyland; It destroys the illusion of difficulty.

Beating a Giant: Piece by Piece

As you might be able to tell, I like more than I dislike about running away in Elden Ring. Overall, I think the ability to pick and choose what you want to do is a great way to keep players engaged.

I want to write more about this game, but after playing it on and off for over a year and a half my memory of it is lacking. If you want an in-depth look at this game, what it offers, and what it fails at, check out Joseph Anderson’s critique. Much of what I mentioned is talked about with more clarity and depth in that video.