Challenge in video games is something I seldom seek out intentionally. I’ve broken more controllers from game induced frustration than anyone I know and, even recently, physical copies of games. Despite all this I’ve always maintained an interest in the Soulsborne games, and their Soulslike counterparts. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be yet another one of those articles which tell you to keep trying until you fall in love with the genre. I’ve tried to emulate that feeling on a number of occasions, and even when I do succeed in felling a mighty foe, there isn’t a burst of euphoria when I do. Instead all I am rewarded with is a hollow feeling of having wasted time I could have spent on a different game, which didn’t hold me and my efforts in such contempt. No, I’m not here to defend hard games, not in that way anyway.
The challenge I’m writing about today is the void created by its absence. I have often said, as have others I have seen, that we would love to play games such as the Dark Souls trilogy, even as a sightseeing tour. “Feel free to disable trophies in an easy mode” is the frequent request from my brothers and sisters unwilling to grit our teeth and ‘git gud’, and until 2024 no developer had taken us up on that idea. Until now. Enter Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn.
While nobody will tell you that Flintlock on its standard difficulty is on the challenging end of the Souls spectrum, I was instantly interested in playing the game as soon as I read it offered the difficulty mode described above: No challenge in exchange for no trophies. At least if it’s a bad game it will never appear in my PSN trophy history.
Before I go into detail on my experience with the game so far, it’s time for some context. As I said at the beginning, I don’t often want a challenge in the games I play but have in recent years taken the odd dip into punishing gameplay. I spent over 100 hours with Elden Ring, across three playthroughs, all of which ended in disaster when different bosses sought to gatekeep the rest of the game. Once the obsession wears off from Elden Ring, it wears off hard, and I highly doubt I will ever reinstall it on my console let alone attempt its expansion: Shadow of the Erdtree.
Based off its incredible marketing I started, and became addicted to, Lies of P at launch. It wasn’t until the end of my fourth playthrough that I experienced an unfortunate and exceptionally rare glitch where my killing blow against the secret optional story end boss didn’t connect, allowing them to kill me instead. I ripped the disc from the console and cracked it in half across my coffee table before reducing the case to delightful, if sharp, confetti. I still tell people it’s one of the best games I’ve ever played, and despite that, I fucking hate it.
To return to my point concerning Flintlock, I wondered if playing an easy version of a more challenge leaning game could lead to a sour experience or if it would be all that I had hoped for. To my surprise, the answer leans more favourably on the former. Make no mistake, I enjoy the game and will keep playing it, but the very structure of a Soulslike down to its checkpoint and enemy placement is weakened somewhat when every obstacle rolls over the second I show up.
One of the main attractions to a game such as the original Dark Souls is how its branching paths and interconnected world reward players by looping back on itself, providing access to shortcuts and secrets. When a game such as Flintlock or Elden Ring pivot to attract an open world crowd, some of the charm is lost in the transition. This is one of the places where Flintlock has so far been weakest, as without challenge it feels like I’m spending little more than 15 minutes or so in any location before being whisked onwards to somewhere new. By comparison, I’d spend at least an hour in each new locale in Lies of P on my first playthrough, before I could really begin to make any meaningful progress.
The Souls genre itself owes everything arguably to the Dark Souls trilogy (well, 1 & 3, from what I’m told) and Bloodborne. If they had included easy mode options from launch they may have not achieved the indisputable cult status that they have today. In a parallel universe to ours, maybe the addition of a mode to practise and learn the game first before jumping in to the real experience would have increased the player base to a more dizzying height than it currently has. Food for thought, though I can sense the notion is already an unwelcome opinion among veterans and enthusiasts of the pure Souls experience.
The point I’m trying to make is simply this: Challenge absolutely has its place in video games. While Flintlock demonstrates that the idea some of us have been clamouring for throughout the last decade doesn’t really work in practise, if anything as a result I have now been more convinced that Soulslikes shouldn’t try and accommodate everybody.
What do you think? Do you agree with my points, or do you think Dark Souls and Elden Ring should in fact have easy modes? I will continue to paddle in the waters of hard games, but nothing more than that, at least until Lies of P’s expansion comes out (and the game is added to PlayStation Plus!). Thanks for reading, and feel free to check out one of my series below from my Get Low Gaming channel. Catch you next time!
Written and edited by Alexx.
Maneater series – Get Low Gaming
Days Gone series – Get Low Gaming
Liberty Lives In The Execution
