Elden Ring finally recovers after being review bombed by bad players

It took a little while, but the Steam reviews for Elden Ring are back up to 90% positive thanks to the review bombing having died down, and the ‘easy mode’ patch which seems to have made the game much more palatable to the those previously struggling with it.

As the first few critic reviews were coming out for Elden Ring, most noted that it was particularly difficult. Notably, or notoriously, Eurogamer awarded it a three out of five, which was followed by plenty of discourse on typical gaming networks that gaming journalists were simply bad at games, and that it can’t have been that difficult. Well, shortly after the game launched to the general public, it was emphatically review bombed. Difficulty was of course at the centre of this controversy, and Bandai Namco issued out a PSA to suggest how to make it easier, while From Software even went ahead and released a patch to buff Scadutree Blessings.

At least now, the natural order of things seems to be returning. Elden Ring is back up to its Mostly Positive review score, and the players once unable to complete the expansion thanks to its difficulty are finally able to.

Elden Ring was once the Game of the Year winner in 2022, and has been consistently critically applauded for its excellent world-building and gameplay. For a long period, it was sitting at a Mixed review score – roughly 60-70% of these reviews being positive.

This was largely thanks to the fact that most players were being one-tapped by enemies, bossess such as Messmer were serving up defeat after defeat to players, while the final boss still remains close to impossible for many to beat. The presence of community figures such as Let Me Solo Him (rebranded following the Shadow of the Erdtree release from Let Me Solo Her) has done little to solve the game’s difficulty curve, since they can only help a finite amount of people with the final boss.

For the record, I never thought it was too difficult. Just a skill-issue.