Souls Games Are Not As Hard As You Think
People calling for From Software games to have an easy mode are missing the point: Fromsoft games (which I’ll just call Souls games for convenience from now on) already offer the means to make playing them easier.
Souls games let you summon players and NPCs. If a boss is too hard, you don’t have to fight them alone. Beating a boss this way isn’t as satisfying as beating them yourself, but neither would be beating a boss on easy mode, so it’s a wash.
If you really want to beat bosses yourself, you can level up and find better gear. Most people who struggle with a boss keep trying until they give up or win—they act as if the Souls games were strictly linear experiences, fighting each boss with the level and equipment they have when they reach the fog gate.
But you don’t need to fight a boss the moment you reach it; the option to turn back and do more preparation is always there. People usually disregard this option because farming souls is boring. And while that may be true, the effort it takes to farm will make the eventual easy defeat of the boss feel as satisfying as if you fought it without farming; in either case, it took time and effort—whether inside the boss arena or outside—to achieve victory.
These means of making the game easier render easy mode unnecessary. The only advantage an easy mode option in the menu would bring is convenience. Farming, gear collection, upgrading, leveling up, and summoning all take time, effort, and, in the case of summoning, sharing the glory. A simple menu option would be more convenient—but it would not be worth it.
Theme
The Souls games (including Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring) are games about struggle and perseverance. Whatever struggles the games put you through, practice and preparation will always make things easier. These are the themes that have united every From Software game since Demon’s Souls.
With these themes in mind, farming to make the Souls games easier fits with From Software’s artistic vision. So does summoning and scavenging and even checking out guides.
Souls games don’t give you anything for free. If you want them to be easier, you must earn it. You cannot simply ask the game to go easy on you; you must find a way to make the game easier using the rules From Software has established. This is the lesson From Software wants to teach the people who play their games: that persistence and preparation make hard tasks easier to accomplish.
If an easy mode were available in the menu, tens if not hundreds of thousands of players who beat the games and derived massive satisfaction from it may have opted for easy mode in a moment of weakness. They would have robbed themselves of the satisfaction of beating the game properly and they would not have appreciated the theme the Souls games are designed to impart.
I myself would certainly have resorted to easy mode in my first playthrough of Dark Souls. I nearly quit the game before beating the Gargoyles. I specifically remember thinking: ‘I wish this game had an easy mode’. The fact that this option wasn’t available kept me from spoiling the game for myself.
Easy Mode Integration
Keeping easy mode out of the menus also makes the Souls games more immersive.
Most games put an easy mode option in a menu somewhere. From Software, however, integrates easy mode into the mechanics of the worlds they create. Instead of an option, you can farm, or summon, or collect gear, or find some cheesy tactic.
They do this for a lot of mechanics; mechanics that could have gone into menus are instead integrated into the logic of the world. Checkpoints, for example, don’t just happen—players rest at bonfires that actually exist in-universe. When they respawn, they are actually being reincarnated in-universe. Instead of connecting to people online in a purely technical sense, you are actually summoning someone in-universe using an in-universe summon sign.
Everything you do is explained in-universe in some way. This includes easy mode which is not attained via a menu option but through engaging with the mechanics of the world. From Software has thus created worlds that feel more real, more alive, and more immersive than the worlds of most other games. If easy mode was made into a mere menu option, a part of that connection between the player and the world would be broken.
The ‘Don’t Care’ Argument
A common argument for easy mode is that some people don’t care to be tested or indulge in the theme of the game—they just want to fight cool bosses and look at cool stuff.
This argument is often paired with complaints that they have jobs and lives and that they don’t have time to learn the games properly or do whatever farming they need to make the game easy. They also argue that easy mode will make the Souls games more accessible and therefore increase sales.
Ignoring the implication that people who play Souls games don’t also have jobs and families and lives, there may be some truth to the idea that having an easy mode would increase sales.
It’s hard to say; the Souls games did, after all, get popular largely through word-of-mouth. The most common thing people said about them was how hard they were. If an easy mode had been available—and if many people picked it as I believe they would—the word-of-mouth message would’ve been a lot different.
Without an emphasis on the series’ difficulty, the Souls series may have had a harder time standing out from the crowd. People who played on easy mode may have been less enthusiastic about the game and thus less likely to praise it to others.
Again, it’s hard to say. It’s definitely not as clear-cut as easy-mode advocates are making it out to be.
The Creeping Easification of the Souls Series
There is a danger that catering to those who want easy mode will inevitably change the way From Software designs their games going forward.
Let’s say easy mode was added to Elden Ring. A lot of people would choose it: people who don’t want to be challenged, people who give up when the going gets tough, and people who assume easy mode is the best way to play.
If From Software sees that a significant portion of their playerbase is playing on easy mode, and if Elden Ring’s sales increase due to an influx of people attracted by the addition of an easy mode, From Software may feel compelled to disregard their artistic integrity and pander to this new growing audience who like their games easy.
Hard bosses could give way to more scripted bosses that emphasise spectacle. Complex maps could be replaced with more linear ones. Various features could be ‘streamlined’, as features of so many other games have been streamlined to cater to casual audiences.
Those who like to play From Software games ‘the way they’re meant to be played’ may find themselves increasingly ignored with each new game as so many hardcore fanbases have been ignored by the developers of other franchises that were once considered niche.
Is it any surprise that Souls fans are so eager to gatekeep From Software properties when so many other once-unique and interesting franchises have been casualised into mediocrity for the sake of increasing market appeal?
What Do People Actually Want?
This entire debate assumes that advocates of easy mode would actually enjoy easy versions of the Souls games.
Would an easy version of Dark Souls even be fun? I’m sure it would be, but would it be as fun as it is now? I doubt it.
As I said earlier, offering an easy mode might bring a short-term increase in sales, but in the long term it could be detrimental to the series in terms of sales and popularity. People who play easy mode may have fun, but they are unlikely to show the same level of devotion as the current fanbase does. Adversity breeds loyalty. Players of easy mode, meanwhile, may just move on out of boredom and lack of fulfillment.
The gameplay of every Souls game is not easily adapted to easier play. Bosses can be given smaller health bars. Player attacks can be made more powerful. But how would such a game be? What is the Souls formula without a healthy dose of challenge?
It is likely that From Software, who have undoubtedly tested all their bosses with a wide range of health stats and attack speeds, understand that fighting easy bosses and enemies isn’t as fun as some like to think it would be. An easy mode would just leave players feeling hollow, and so to those who want it I say: get gud.