The launch of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree means, among other things, a resurrection of the timeless debate over difficulty in Dark Souls games. In the eyes of many soulslikers, Elden Ring was notably gentler than its predecessors because if you're getting hammered by one demigod clown or another, you can always take off, do something else for a while, and come back later when you're better equipped to clean house.
Even so, Elden Ring does not have any kind of difficulty selector: It is what it is, and you're either the windshield or the bug. And this is how it needs to be, according to game director Hidetaka Miyazaki, who said in an interview with The Guardian that decreasing the difficulty might open up the game to more players, but would also compromise the experience.
