Elden Ring Is an ADHD-Friendly Dark Souls

Welcome to Press Play, POPSUGAR Australia’s first-ever gaming initiative focused on accessibility. Our aim is to shed light on the experiences of people with disability who play games, while helping to identify the features needed within games to make them truly accessible to all players.

The initiative includes interviews with key figures in the gaming space as well as first person pieces produced by writers with disability who can speak from experience about these features. Press Play is supported by our newly launched text-to-voice feature. You can find all the pieces here.

If you’ve spent a significant amount of time online recently, you’ll have heard of Elden Ring. The new action role-playing game was developed by FromSoftware, who have made cult classic Souls games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne. The hype leading up to Elden Ring was huge. Like, insane. That’s due in part to its collaboration with fantasy novelist George R. R. Martin, who provided material for the game’s setting. And since release, it’s been a sales success and by far one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time.

One key concept where Elden Ring differs from its Souls kin — and part of the reason for people’s excitement — is its open world.

Open world games have had a boom in the last few years, along with more social sandbox type games, giving gamers exploratory stories to discover. These types of games, however, often divide people like nothing else. The freedom to go wherever you want, whenever you want can be too overwhelming for some, too boring for others — or give them the creative freedom they need to stay engaged with a game. It really is open to opinion, pun intended.

In this way, Elden Ring has opened up the Souls franchise to new players, especially those who would rather play on their own terms — like people with ADHD. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that creates deficiencies in the brain’s neurotransmitters, primarily affecting the chemical dopamine that is characterised as the motivational chemical. Although often associated with hyperactive boys not paying attention in class, ADHD doesn’t discriminate by gender and has varying different types — from inattentive to hyperactive or a combined type — and has far more symptoms than just the restlessness seen in movies.

The four symptoms that often come into video game play are: hyperfixation, being easily distracted, having a short attention span and rejection sensitivity. Generally, what videogames are known to do an excellent job of for people with ADHD is holding their attention, as feedback from video games is often immediate in a way we rarely see in the real world. We don’t get a gold coin for completing laundry, for example, but we do get instantly rewarded for defeating a boss in Elden Ring.

However, with games as difficult as the Souls franchise, people with ADHD can struggle if they feel like they’re constantly being punished for getting distracted or being pushed towards a specific storyline or boss fight. These are all elements that have made the Souls games popular, but they can also lead to people — and especially people with ADHD — losing interest, feeling defeated and possibly even not picking up the game again. At some point, a game like this starts to feel like one more place you’re fighting an uphill battle.

The open world features seen in Elden Ring, then, have great potential to make video games more accessible for those with ADHD or other forms of neurodivergence — or even just for new players of the franchise.

Robin LeeAnn, a freelance editor with anxiety disorder, has found open world games far easier to get into, commenting: “In some games, when you get sidetracked or when my anxiety gets too high about one particular task, I have no choice but to do the main quest and to keep going. Or what I usually did, was just set the game down and get back to it later. However, with open world games like Elden Ring or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I can keep exploring and fulfilling my curiosity. I could see a cool mountain and spend the next hour or two climbing it without any consequences. I didn’t have any limitations or was forced to do anything in a particular order too, which made my gaming experience unique every time I played it.”

In her YouTube series Psychgeist, Dr. Rachel Kowert helps break down the psychology behind why we enjoy certain games by using self-determination theory. In short, this theory suggests that there are three basic human requirements that motivate us to complete tasks: autonomy, competence and relatedness. Elden Ring has these in spades. From the very beginning of the game, Elden Ring tells you there’s no right or wrong way to be competent within the game rules, and you’ll have at least some level of success wherever you end up. The lack of map markers makes you feel like you have autonomy over your in-game experience.

Of course, this feature may not work for everyone, as ADHD and neurodivergence is experienced differently by each individual. Open world games aren’t for everyone with ADHD — and they’re certainly not for everyone generally.

With that said, Elden Ring is providing a different experience for Souls fans. For some people with ADHD, this new approach has really helped them enjoy Souls games. And that’s a chance every gamer deserves.