Elden Ring voted the game most people completed, and quit, this year

midian182

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In brief: What do you think was the most completed game of 2022? Given its legendary difficulty, it might come as a surprise to learn that Elden Ring holds that honor. Paradoxically, however, FromSoftware's title was also the game that players were most likely to quit before reaching the end.

The reveal comes from howlongtobeat.com, a community-driven website specializing in game lengths and other stats.

When it comes to titles released in 2022, Elden Ring sits at number one in the most-completed game category, with almost 6,000 users reporting that they beat the soulslike. Elden Ring has won several game of the year awards (including one that saw a stage invader steal the limelight) and sold millions of copies, but it's still a bit surprising to see a difficult open-world RPG that can take over 100 hours to finish holding the top spot.

However, Elden Ring is also the most retired game of the year, which means users stopped playing it either temporarily or permanently before the end. And while just 267 site users admitted to finding the game too much, that's still more than double second place Tunic's number of retired players.

Elden Ring is the number one 2022 game in several other categories, too: most backlogged, most reviews, and longest game. It's also the second best rated, beaten only by The Last of Us Part 1, and the second most popular, sitting behind God of War: Ragnarök. Moreover, despite being released all the way back in February, Elden Ring is still the third most-played game right now.

One of the more predictable number ones is in the category of worst-reviewed game of 2022: Diablo Immortal. Blizzard's mobile and PC title has the lowest score in Metacritic history, mostly due to its aggressive microtransaction model. The developer is unlikely to care, though, given that it earned almost $50 million in its first month alone.

If you're wary of paying full price for a game you might not enjoy due to the high difficulty, Elden Ring is still discounted, for the first time, as part of Steam's Winter sale, where it's available for $42 until January 3 at 9 am PT / 12 pm ET.

Thanks, Kotaku

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I know I'm in the minority but my biggest issue with Elden Ring is that all the magic, items, weapons, art, and boss mechanics were all recycled from previous Souls game (even cheese tactics). From added an"open world" component and people act like it's the best thing ever. It's a good game that took a lot of the good from previous games but to me it feels derivative.
 
Doing the same thing for hours until you master a jump at a precise timing or different complicated combos seems pretty stupid, but as long as you're enjoying yourself, why not. The main problem of the game, so I've heard, never played it, never will, it's that it is so cryptic. Sure, you don't want tutorials, you want to immerse in the game and discover stuff yourself, but there's a decent balance to be preserved, because apparently, every player who gets to play this game has another monitor opened for wiki or YT guidance, unless they're willing to walk a couple of times every square of the map for clues and then some. So, sure, completing difficult tasks is rewarding, but the amount of grinding in this type of games is just too boring for me to stomach. I have played Dark Souls I and II and also Bloodborne and I could never go past defeating the first boss or playing more than 10-15 hours before getting obnoxiously boring. If just by being very hard with a steep learning curve automatically gets you a GOTY nowadays, then there's a big problem with the gaming community. It's not fair for me to say that, since I haven't played the game, but after years of dumbing down games, to make them more "accesibile", it could be just a blowback and not a real thing.
 
Doing the same thing for hours until you master a jump at a precise timing or different complicated combos seems pretty stupid, but as long as you're enjoying yourself, why not. The main problem of the game, so I've heard, never played it, never will, it's that it is so cryptic. Sure, you don't want tutorials, you want to immerse in the game and discover stuff yourself, but there's a decent balance to be preserved, because apparently, every player who gets to play this game has another monitor opened for wiki or YT guidance, unless they're willing to walk a couple of times every square of the map for clues and then some. So, sure, completing difficult tasks is rewarding, but the amount of grinding in this type of games is just too boring for me to stomach. I have played Dark Souls I and II and also Bloodborne and I could never go past defeating the first boss or playing more than 10-15 hours before getting obnoxiously boring. If just by being very hard with a steep learning curve automatically gets you a GOTY nowadays, then there's a big problem with the gaming community. It's not fair for me to say that, since I haven't played the game, but after years of dumbing down games, to make them more "accesibile", it could be just a blowback and not a real thing.
I had a similar opinion until I actually gave these games a try. It's not that difficult, really. If it is for you, that's fine.
 
I've put almost 300 hours in the game, completed the first "journey" and I'm now on my second journey (NG+1). Still finding new things to do, zones of the map (or dungeons) to explore and weird sh*t to kill.

Elden Ring simply is an almost infinite journey, and I still want to enjoy my stay in the Lands Between for the months to come. Well, at least until I'll unlock all endings and try some proper magic build, that's it :-D
 
Love the game but did not finish it. Sometimes I don't want a challenge and would rather just chill and it's absolutely not a chill game.
Plan on going back to it soon though.
 
I can hear my son playing it in the other room - picked it up for $37 for him for Xmas - he's just ploughing through the main quest - no side quests - said he's 5/6 through main campaign - said he's only doing 300 damage - but if he took his time side quests etc- would be like 800 - and something about 3000 for charge attacks.
He never looks at a guide before hand for making it easy - or choosing best character.

So his take - he you get the best build - take your time doing side quests etc - should be easy enough.

My take - doesn't look as depressive as Dark Souls - with more open world - still no happy colours.
yes it looks to recycle heaps of assets as stated above.

Thanks just warned him about NG +1 - remember he was annoyed when that happened in DS as side quests cut off ? or become harder ( again raced through main campaign- well slower than now )

Completely different from myself - in slower rpgs I'm too cautious and normally OP in end game
 
I gave it a red hot go. I've never played Dark Souls and had no intention of bothering even when they are hugely discounted. But Elden looked amazing and the open world and steed made it less oppressive. I was worried about playing it on PC with KB and mouse, but after sucking for weeks things finally started to click and I finally started beating some bosses and learning how to parry etc. Plenty of the bosses are just unfair and that sucked, but you move on. After grinding and grinding it was time to fight Melania. It took me 7 attempts, though 3 of those were silly deaths. AFter beating her, I lost all interest in fighting the Elden beast and just quit the game cold. I could not motivate myself to beat the last three bosses at all. I proved to myself I could play a souls game and that all I needed. I have no interest to ever go back and try again, it was too much effort and punishment. I went back to complete AC Odyssey and Skyrim, and was so relieved to be back in the real world so to speak.
 
I quit Elden Ring , never looked back. I found it really repetitive and boring. Also the art style is very meh. I just don't get all the marketing and hype...game of the year. It's all about killing and dying repetitvely the story is all over the place horizon zero dawn, mass effect , cyberpunk had really good progression and loads of amazing content.
 
I just don't get all the marketing and hype

Its just become a status symbol with which to prove your gaming 'street cred'.

The type who subscribe to the 'You're not a real gamer unless you finish Elden Ring'

The oh-so tiresome 'git gud' crowd,
 
I've put almost 300 hours in the game, completed the first "journey" and I'm now on my second journey (NG+1). Still finding new things to do, zones of the map (or dungeons) to explore and weird sh*t to kill.

Elden Ring simply is an almost infinite journey, and I still want to enjoy my stay in the Lands Between for the months to come. Well, at least until I'll unlock all endings and try some proper magic build, that's it :-D
Yes after you restart and play for two, three hours suddenly it feels like a different game. I also started checking out speed run videos - that's something I want to look into next year maybe. Even if it's kind of cheating - or at least exploiting.
 
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