How One Elden Ring Area Encapsules Dark Souls 2’s Biggest Problems

By featuring an open-world iteration of FromSoftware’s signature blend of fantastically grim environmental storytelling and brutally punishing gameplay, Elden Ring has risen to new peaks of popularity among the studio’s releases. Players are looking forward to Elden Ring‘s upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree DLC more than ever following its official trailer reveal, and the expansion’s focus on the character Miquella has made one of the base game’s most challenging optional areas even more relevant within the community in a way that highlights its familiar flaws.

It’s not a required visit in terms of the main story of ascending to the Elden Throne, but Miquella’s Haligtree is one of the most important zones from a lore and gameplay perspective via containing the iconic Elden Ring boss fight Malenia. Accessed from the distant area of the Consecrated Snowfield, one of the game’s most obscure places, the Haligtree is essentially positioned as a late-game test of the player’s might through the difficulty it presents. Despite the overall strength of this atmosphere, however, it can evoke many of the problems that some players have been outspoken about regarding what is perhaps FromSoftware’s most controversial Soulsborne title, Dark Souls 2.

The Design Choices of Dark Souls 2 That Are Often Criticized

Enemy Placement and Ganking Problems

Although it’s by no means a release that has an overall negative reception, Dark Souls 2 has been regarded by some players as more frustrating than the likes of the first Dark Souls and Bloodborne due to its enemy distribution. The impressive bosses of Dark Souls 2 make it an experience worth trying for many, but the lead-up to these encounters is frequently populated with dense pockets of the same, repeated enemies within small, hazardous spaces that limit combat options.

Cruel Levels Even by Soulsborne Standards

Departing from the concept of the original Dark Souls‘ interconnected world of Lordran, Drangleic consists of multiple separate zones that can vary from feeling well-executed to somewhat cheap in terms of challenge. There’s a memorable ambiance to places like Black Gulch and Shrine of Amana, but the way areas like these utilize their structure to constantly bombard the player has ranked them among the most frustrating Soulsborne locations for some players. Subsequent FromSoft releases would mostly diverge from this style to great success, but one of Elden Ring‘s penultimate levels recaptures much of what made Drangleic feel unfair to some.

Miquella’s Haligtree Resembles Some of Darks Souls 2’s Most Poorly Remembered Elements

Evoking the “Artificial Difficulty” Dark Souls 2 Has Become Known For

As soon as players arrive at the Haligtree, they are likely to be greeted by the precarious situation of attempting to survive multiple powerful variations of reused mobs while not falling from its branches and broken structures or seeing the Tarnished fall victim to ambushes from afar. This type of design continues into Elden Ring‘s Elphael, a broken city of hazardous partial walkways surrounding overgrowth filled with a multitude of the same sorts of repeated foes, that has become more well-known for its potential shortcuts than the quality of its enemy placement and levels.

In a similar vein to what arose within Dark Souls 2‘s community in response to the frustration it can cause players, there has been a notable amount of discussion and content dedicated to the best approach to cheesing Miquella’s Haligtree through strategic drop-downs capable of skipping large chunks of it. When a Soulsborne area is built in a way that emphasizes the danger of an overwhelming group of enemies and environmental hazards over the unique approach of the player in combat, it ultimately seems natural that they would then gravitate towards exploiting elements of the game in their favor. Elden Ring may feel like a celebration of the Soulsborne legacy that preceded it, but this can also at times extend to points of the genre’s legacy that have been far from unanimously well-received, and the Haligtree is a prime example of this.

Elden Ring

Elden Ring is a fantasy action-RPG adventure set in a world co-created by Hidetaka Miyazaki, the creator of the influential Dark Souls video game series, and George R.R. Martin, the author of the best-selling fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. This collaboration between two renowned creators has resulted in FromSoftware’s largest game to date, filled with danger and discovery at every turn. Hidetaka Miyazaki, president and game director of FromSoftware, has a history of directing highly acclaimed games in franchises such as Armored Core and Dark Souls.

Released

February 25, 2022

Multiplayer

Online Co-Op , Online Multiplayer

Engine

Proprietary

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence

How Long To Beat

58 Hours

Metascore

96

Platforms That Support Crossplay

PS4 & PS5 and Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S

PS Plus Availability

N/A