Forget “Git Gud”: Elden Ring Is One of the Best Hang-Out Games

Like pretty much all of FromSoftware’s games, Elden Ring (and its new DLC expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree) is notorious for its difficulty. It’s precisely calibrated to punish you if you can’t get its mechanics and rhythm down tight, to the point many players struggle to enjoy it. And learning how to improve at Elden Ring can feel hopeless, especially with a portion of the From fanbase regularly mocking and insulting those who can’t hang with the games, condescendingly posting on social media and message boards about how people struggling with the game just need to “git gud.” 

You should try to stick with it, though. I toughed it out with the original Elden Ring, gritting through the annoyance of constant death, regularly losing tens of thousands of souls during ill-advised attempts to keep pushing forward into unexplored territory, and spending what felt like less than a quarter of the 200 hours I put into the game on following the actual story path. I became just decent enough at the game, and my character just powerful enough, to realize something surprising: Elden Ring eventually turns into a fantastic hang-out game.

I don’t think there’s any kind of “official” genre description for the hang-out game. It’s a term I use often to describe any game that’s fun to just exist in, where you don’t always feel pressure to keep moving on to the next goal. A hang-out game can have tasks—Animal Crossing is one of the definitive hang-out games, and it’s nothing but tasks—but it doesn’t constantly remind you to do them. They’re almost like suggestions, things you can do if you want to make it feel more like a game, but with no penalty for taking your time. The core of a hang-out game is a total lack of anything resembling a rush, and that’s been a defining part of From’s games since they went open-world with Dark Souls. 

Playing Shadow of the Erdtree for the last few weeks has reminded me of how great it is just to explore Elden Ring. The Gravesite Plain that you first find yourself on appears a little drab at first, just another brownish-green expanse, but the spectral tombstones that populate it make for a stark, luminous sight. Towering castles, mighty waterfalls, and lush vegetation abound, with that awe-inspiring mystical tree looming over everything. Hidden nooks like the Cerulean Coast appear like breathtaking visions, its vibrant, magical blue grass swaying in the wind; its sanguine cousin, Charo’s Hidden Grave (the cuchi-cuchi queen would make for a hell of an Elden Ring boss, by the way), is just as striking and unforgettable with its menacing fields of red. At its most visually inspired Elden Ring is a glorious medieval fever dream, an unnerving and unearthly version of the ruins you can visit throughout Europe today.

Between its gorgeous scenery, impressive architecture, and striking and distinctive environments, its style remains impeccable. What really makes these games fun to explore, though, and thus rewarding to hang out in, is the amount of weird surprises you bump into along the way. From unexpected underground fortresses, to random battles between dragons and other enemies, to a plethora of From’s infamous cryptic NPCs, Elden Ring, and From’s other recent Souls-style games, are unpredictable not just in their difficulty, but in the worlds they create and the stories they tell. 

Of course it takes a solid amount of work to reach a point where you can freely travel through The Lands Between (or Shadow of the Erdtree’s The Land of Shadows) without having to worry too much about getting killed by some random yahoo just going about his regular jackass day. My hybrid sorcerer / swordsman is approaching level 200, which means I can move securely through most of the map without too much risk. If some bozos attack me out of nowhere, I can usually take them out with a few quick flicks of my souped-up sorcerer’s staff. And if they’re too quick for that to work, my HP and defensive stats will generally prevent me from dying from a single hit, and my sword has been upgraded as much as it can be, so I’ll always have a fighting chance. I’ve worked hard to be able to hang out safely in this messed up world, without ever getting all that “gud” at it..

That comes hand-in-hand with hanging out. As you explore you’ll naturally improve, if not your skills than at least your character’s. You don’t have to “git gud,” no matter what the gatekeeping assholes say, to enjoy Elden Ring, but the game will grow easier as your character gets stronger. And the open-world structure incentivizes the kind of exploration that both makes your character stronger and also makes these games so memorable by giving you the opportunity to go on hours-long diversions instead of immediately tackling the next storyline boss. When the mandatory boss Rellana, the Twin Moon Knight, kept embarrassing me in front of my mimic ashes early in Shadow of the Erdtree, I just spent the next 10 hours running all over every inch of the new map, splurging on souls and jumping another half-dozen or so levels in the process. I didn’t kill any of the optional side-bosses, I didn’t further storylines with any of the game’s NPCs, and I certainly didn’t make any direct progress in the main story, but I did fill out the map, and when I returned to challenge Rellana again I took them out the very first time. And I was able to reach that point by simply hanging out in the game, marveling at the world around me, and occasionally busting up some bad guys when necessary. The grind never got boring, and never even felt like a grind. 

So if you’ve dabbled with Elden Ring and felt overwhelmed, maybe approach it again with patience and a sense of wanderlust. Think of it as a lovely hike instead of a death march. And ignore the bastards and buzzards who act like the only way to enjoy it is to become some kind of high-level videogame obsessive. Take your time, hang out, and you’ll get good enough for you along the way.

Senior editor Garrett Martin writes about videogames, comedy, travel, theme parks, wrestling, and anything else that gets in his way. He’s also on Twitter @grmartin.