Elden Ring is peak Demon Souls which was peak Kings Field (FromSoftware 1994).
The lack of gameplay and qol enhancements makes Kings Field a weird boring game, but after having playing the serie (I-IV) during the pandemic I can say that the scope and purpose of these games are the same.
While there are some very difficult arcade games, Kings Field, SoulsBorne and Elden Ring build a landscape around difficulty in such a way that it becomes an inherent property of the world in which the games are set.
The embodiment of difficulty is where these games shine;
- the landscape is a maze, and every new place you encounter needs you to overcome a sort of soft anxiety (Souls games were weird in this sense, every new place you encountered was a relief because it meant you were done with the previous place; but at the same time it was a chore because you became so accustomed to the previous place (LITERALLY HELL) that it felt like you were leaving your house for the unknown wilderness)
- the choreographic patterns of the enemies were exactly the same. You beat a boss forever, on NG+ every boss you encounter is a joke because you feel at home. The way enemies move makes you run backwards, and you feel like you're trapped in a no-match boxing contest where you're a salmon swimming around white sharks; until you realize that all of the mess happening is nothing else than scripted patterns and animated 3d meshes. The bosses seem strong because they seem random or 'human". Pontiff and Malenia seemed to me so spontaneous and virtuosos that it felt impossible to beat them on the first encounters, and it didn't felt "arcade" difficult, but organic-mozart-michelangelo difficult, everything in the fights was there to participate closely to the dramaturgic aspect of the game approach of difficulty.
- Kings Field save spots (and therefore, the lack of save spots) probably lead the way to the bonfire approach featured in souls games. It feels like a "galvanisation" of the concept of obstacle made possible only by the fact that you don't know in advance the location of possible "safe places" (it goes with point number 1). You have to RISK your runes/souls/money in order to progress through the unknown. Kings Field felt sometimes like a collection of safe place connected by some dev jokes that would insta-kill your character, and you knew that to reach hypothetical safe place B you had to go through real trap 1,2,3 and 4.
- Playing the game is a chore and a pleasure at the same time. The gameplay is incredible, the feel is rewarding, succeeding is satisfying and etc, but sometimes in my younger years when playing Souls I really could question my own desire to play the game: a lot of things in the game is made to impress/intimidate/bully you, I never identified what gave me the motivation to continue, all that I can say is that other games felt bland after playing my first fromsoftware game, and that since then I only open steam for one month everytime fromsoftware release something.