Sir, this is a foot fetish article.

You’re doing your part by clicking and commenting, assuring the Kotaku overlords to keep pumping out that Elden Ring content.

lol throw your phone into the ocean if you’re big mad about China, bucko

I’d say the actual in-game UI (i.e. not inventory etc.) is above-average, in that it’s attractive, doesn’t get in the way, fits perfectly with the game, gives you the information you need, and goes away when its not important (which makes taking screenshots easier!).

It really is not, and if you’re going to claim that, you should back up with some explanation. But you don’t have any, do you?

These comments are confusing me. There are in-menu buttons that literally are meant to explain menu functions on every menu in game. There arw tutorial popups. These are saved to your inventory. There’s even markable map pendants that show up on your everpresent compass! You can also place 5 beams of light at any…

i think its dishonest to assume everyone is doing what you think they are doing. i maybe did these things the first time through dark souls, but i haven’t this time and i really don’t think i’m some magical unicorn freak.

Everything you’ve listed here is completely optional to the player.  Get stuck on a boss? Summon help.  Melee too tough? Used ranged bows or spells.  Care about the Lore? Read item descriptions or look it up online.  I don’t see how any of this is bad.

It’s not fucking hidden in any way.

Relying on ‘Ho, haha, guard, turn, parry, dodge, spin, ha, thrust’ as a combat strategy usually doesn’t work very well.

Lost Ark has been in the top 3 most played games (currently #1) on Steam since launch. It holds the record of having the second highest concurrent player count ever (after PUBG). I’d say Amazon’s marketing efforts worked well enough.

OP wants to stay spoiler-free

keeping calm when a naked, bleeding stranger gets into your bed in the middle of the night is some hardcore shit, man.

This is neither shameless nor shoehorned. The game was quoted as the direct reason the family realized something was wrong. Settle down.

They/Them/Their have been used as singular gender-neutral pronouns for decades. Don’t know the person’s gender or talking about “the player”, use they/them/their.

The Escapist’s written content was (is?) *HEAVILY* editorialized, while I don’t think they even cared about the videos at the time. Things always go poorly in media when you let marketing dictate the creatives, and considering that led to the site going all-in on Gamergate as a business move...

It’s ok, you don’t gotta like it, but I don’t know why you gotta be weirdly bitter about it...

FromSoftware’s titles are popular, so people who don’t enjoy them for what they are dislike the idea of not “keeping up” with those who do. Playing CRPGs isn’t considered “cool”, so this kind of discourse doesn’t tend to focus on them.

Why is it lagging behind to not include a difficulty modifier? Isn’t it a design choice for the developer?

As a HUGE fan of the series (although I bounced off Sekiro hard, and never had a PS so haven’t played bloodbourne), punishing is definitely the right word for souls games rather than hard. No part of any of the games is particularly difficult or unfair, it’s just that the game really punishes you for making mistakes…