Which is harder? Returnal or Elden Ring?

[Rebourne07]

Poll. Question is also posed in the Elden Ring forum. 

 

Edit: This question WAS also posted in the Elden Ring forum to get feedback from both communities. A rude mod deleted it without saying anything to me.

Edited February 15, 2023 by Rebourne07

[DrBloodmoney]

Without using any sort of guides or online help/ resources? 

Probably Elden Ring.

 

 

Using that stuff though?

Probably Returnal.

 

They're relatively evenly matched though, IMO, though their difficulty comes from different areas.

 

Elden Ring's difficulty comes form it's vast scope, lack of guidance, and esoteric or obtuse narrative mechanics.

 

Returnal's comes from raw twitch reflex requirement and testing peripheral awareness and spacial movement. 

 

Returnal is conquered by building aptitude in a specific skillset, where Elden Ring is conquered by exploration and doing "detective work" within a vast lore - so I'd argue that people's answers are going to be more weighted by their own personal preference of difficulty "type" rather than a one-to-one objective comparison... as that is very difficulty to do with these two games.

Edited July 25, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[Txustrilla]

Returnal is much easier in my opinion once you adapt to its mechanics.

[steel6burgh]

Neither are overly difficult for the same reasons.   In Returnal You can summon for help, make save points, farm biomes over and over for cyphers by saving prior to entering biome. etc.  Elden ring  you can summon help, over level, use boss cheese methods, etc.

 

Both games have many methods to obtain completion without having to play the game the way intended.  both games can be exploited to your advantage.  

 

With that said, having to choose, Returnal is more difficult but not by much as i'm not the best at bullet hell type games and I had no problems learning to beat the biomes on a clean run without save states.  learning how to craft a build will come with time and you will be over powered for all platinum requirements.

 

Edited July 25, 2022 by steel6burgh

[Rebourne07]

12 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Without using any sort of guides or online help/ resources? 

Probably Elden Ring.

 

 

Using that stuff though?

Probably Returnal.

 

They're relatively evenly matched though, IMO, though their difficulty comes from different areas.

 

Elden Ring's difficulty comes form it's vast scope, lack of guidance, and esoteric or obtuse narrative mechanics.

 

Returnal's comes from raw twitch reflex requirement and testing peripheral awareness and spacial movement. 

 

Returnal is conquered by building aptitude in a specific skillset, where Elden Ring is conquered by exploration and doing "detective work" within a vast lore - so I'd argue that people's answers are going to be more weighted by their own personal preference of difficulty "type" rather than a one-to-one objective comparison... as that is very difficulty to do with these two games.

Spot on. And yeah, these polls arent meant to be precise or scientific, just to get a guage of how the communities feel. I personally think Returnal is much harder, but that's because I'm better at detective work than twitch reflexes haha

[LancashireLad87]

Quote

I haven't played Returnal but it's very difficult to answer such a question because of many contributing factors which I'll list below;

 

1. Player proficiency/experience within the genre. Skill and experience go hand in hand in my book, you cannot get one without the other. Naturally players who are more versed in souls titles will have an easier time with the content because they've most likely played through a number of them prior to playing Elden Ring. The souls tried and true formula hasn't changed much since Demon's Souls so the skills you learn in that transfer straight to Elden Ring. I've seen YouTubers spend hours upon hours being stuck on bosses like Melania and Maliketh and yet I beat both of them in under an hour and my build is far from OP.

 

2. How strong their build is? I've seen builds that completely annihilate a bosses health bar. If your build is optimised with purpose instead of randomly throwing stat points all over the place you'll have a much easier time with Elden Ring. 

 

3. Solo or Co-operative play. The game is much easier to complete with a good co-op partner since they can de-aggro enemies and give the host breathing room to heal. Sure the bosses will gain more health when your in co-op but you can tackle the games hardest challenges in a completely different light. 

 

4. The manner you approach the game. People can simply farm for runes if they wish to become overpowered or rush through areas on horseback so they can collect smithing stones to improve their weapons  damage scaling to overpower the challenge presented to you. Speed runners use this tactic to get a +10 Somber Smithing weapon in no time at all then they hit Margott 3 times and he dies removing any challenge from the fight.   

Edited July 25, 2022 by LancashireLad87

[Eternal21]

I've platted both games.  Returnal hands down.  You can't grind your way to cheese the battles.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Eternal21

[archangeltw_]

I plat both. Since I have been doing returnal carries on psnp and official discord. I vote Elden ring. And I died at malenia more times than all of returnal bosses.

 

if anyone needs boss carries for returnal feel free to message me. But only available after mid-august

[Ashande]

Depends on what aspect of the games you’re talking about. If you mean just the general difficulty to beat the game, then I would say Elden Ring. Yes, you can grind yourself to insanity and brute force it, if you prefer, but if you’re coming at them at an appropriate level and lacking insane gear, each boss is designed as a puzzle or a dance that you have to learn, with varying tactics, strategies and loadouts that you’ll need to master to triumph. Returnal, in contrast, teaches you what you need to know about combat very quickly and doesn’t significantly change the formula or modify the tactics required through the entirety of the game. The same skills that will get you past the first boss will carry you through to the end, with minimal variation or deviation from that pattern. Elden Ring also has a very large world, with some jarring difficulty spikes that can catch you unawares if you wandered into the wrong area or tripped over a boss by accident, while in Returnal you are always exactly where you’re supposed to be and the only meaningful gatekeeping (the weapon proficiency stat and its link to the quality of weapons you find) is automatically brought up to par for the area in the first room of each biome. Keep in mind that it’s also skillset dependent, however; someone lacking in twitch reflexes is probably going to have a harder time dealing with Returnal, and folks who lack a sense of rhythm or patience are going to go mad trying to deal with Elden Ring.

 

Now, if you’re talking the difficulty of 100%ing/Platinuming the game, then Returnal is far more difficult, being heavily reliant on RNG and an immunity to the tedium of running the same six (or, realistically, one, since everyone seems to get hung up on Crimson Wastes sooner or later…) zones over and over and over again to collect all the Logs and Ciphers. Guides and walkthroughs are of minimal assistance, since it is almost entirely up to the game to decide to be nice to you or not. Elden Ring, on the other hand, you can head over to YouTube and find whatever you’re missing with minimal fuss.

 

I should note both of those opinions come from someone who plays solo; I imagine both games are significantly easier with friends, and judging from game mechanics, I’d say Returnal probably becomes the more difficult game to finish co-op when compared to Elden Ring… but that’s just a guess.

 

But that’s just my two cents. I’m sure others have very different experiences.

[Beatmania2dxs]

While this game can be kind of frustrating at times, I've found that future playthroughs are pretty forgiving. It almost feels like Hades. Returnal will throw more enemies at you in earlier levels as you advance in the game, making it easier to upgrade proficiency early on and deal with harder enemies. I went into the Nemesis battle with a lvl 15 weapon and nuked it in a few minutes.

[Fr_0zt]

Returnal.  You can turn ER into a difficulty 2-3/10 platinum. 

[Nego_Brown_]

Returnal is way more unforgiven and a bit more skill demanding.

 

After some point, Elden Ring turns more accessible and if you arent skilled nough, you can always grind.

 

Until now, when skill wasnt enough on Returnal, i relied on luck. 

 

 

[xJaegerwulf]

While the playstyle is entirely different, to the point where these two games are not comparable, for the sake of argument I will say Elden Ring.

 

Returnal can be frustrating at times, with the rogue-like element being extremely unforgiving at times (eg. having a "perfect" 2 hour run clearing everything only to die of a stupid mini-boss in Abyssal Scar). But in all honesty after unlocking the Electropylon Driver I feel like I'm playing the game on easy mode.

After you get accustomed to the bullet hell it's really not a challenging game at all. That being said, I find the RNG element in collectibles for the platinum trophy to be infuriating, since you can run 10 times through a biome for a single Cipher and still not get it.

As for Elden Ring, it's not even the hardest game by FromSoftware but it still puts you through the ordeal of Bosses (in comparison Returnal's bosses were a joke, I didn't even die to the last 3 bosses, not even my first time fighting them). Also the open world element of Elden Ring made the game twice as massive as its predecessors (it's by far the FromSoftware game that I clocked up the most). While most side bosses were a joke, I found myself getting angry maaaany more times than Returnal.

 

Anyway as I said earlier, comparing these two games can't be very accurate due to the difference in gameplay and general setting.

 

PS. Returnal's story sucks

Edited August 26, 2022 by xJaegerwulf

[ShadowReplicant]

I think I only died two or three times during my time with Returnal, so I'm just gonna say Elden Ring.

[breakXedge]

I think Returnal is just challenging, not hard. I'll go with Elden Ring.

[GRDavies]

On 25-7-2022 at 6:51 PM, Txustrilla said:

Returnal is much easier in my opinion once you adapt to its mechanics.

 

+1

[JPtheNeurotic]

Hmmm returnal started off harder than any from soft gabe for me but that didn’t stay . By the end I felt pretty confidant in mu skills at the game . 
 

I haven’t finished elden ring yet but that isn’t a difficulty issue so…idk lol. They both work with the idea of the player themselves getting better over time but they do things very differently. 

[Karlhaus]

Returnal is much harder : no farming possibilities when ER allows to level up artificially, level resets with cycles when ER allows you to restart with full equipment/level. Period.

[NieSwiety]

It's hard to compare those two games. You will die more often in Elden Ring, but Elden Ring is fair and eventually you will finish the game quite easy. 

Returnal in other hand is a pure cancer, and it's a mobile-like time waster if you want to finish the game. I can't see the ending, because for the past 10 hours of walking through the game without other purpose, the game doesn't generate one (sixth) element that I need to find before I can proceed further. Pure RNG to see the ending!  Elden Ring would never waste your time like this. 

 

Tl;dr: You will die more in Elden Ring, but it's more likely you will finish it, and after that you will rate it as an easier game / experience.

[SaiyanSenshi]

On 25-7-2022 at 6:50 PM, DrBloodmoney said:

Without using any sort of guides or online help/ resources? 

Probably Elden Ring.

 

 

Using that stuff though?

Probably Returnal.

 

They're relatively evenly matched though, IMO, though their difficulty comes from different areas.

 

Elden Ring's difficulty comes form it's vast scope, lack of guidance, and esoteric or obtuse narrative mechanics.

 

Returnal's comes from raw twitch reflex requirement and testing peripheral awareness and spacial movement. 

 

Returnal is conquered by building aptitude in a specific skillset, where Elden Ring is conquered by exploration and doing "detective work" within a vast lore - so I'd argue that people's answers are going to be more weighted by their own personal preference of difficulty "type" rather than a one-to-one objective comparison... as that is very difficulty to do with these two games.

But in returnal u can just use the save scum with ps plus if you die just load back to your previous save 

[DrBloodmoney]

7 minutes ago, SaiyanSenshi said:

But in returnal u can just use the save scum with ps plus if you die just load back to your previous save 

 

 Not when I wrote this you couldn't ?

[SaiyanSenshi]

Just now, DrBloodmoney said:

 

 Not when I wrote this you couldn't 

Okay my bad ? didn’t know that 

[DrBloodmoney]

Just now, SaiyanSenshi said:

Okay my bad didn’t know that 

 

Yeah, I think the ability to save and come back later was patched in later on - not the worst change TBH - it's quite long runs in the game, so makes sense - but it did make the game a bit easier I think, since it allowed some save-reloading via the cloud, as you say

[SaiyanSenshi]

Yeah for sure it makes it easier. A question btw I’m demon souls you can do the same thing. Is it this the same case with Elden ring?

[DrBloodmoney]

1 minute ago, SaiyanSenshi said:

Yeah for sure it makes it easier. A question btw I’m demon souls you can do the same thing. Is it this the same case with Elden ring?

 

Save reload? Yes, you can.

 

Only time one would really want to do so would be for the endings, I think, as there is no real penalty for dying, but I personally did two playthroughs, but reloaded my save at the end of one of them to get the final trophy-enabled ending.