I’ve now clocked 250 hours with Elden Ring. Two-hundred and fifty hours. And while I realize that’s small change for some folk – there are some players out there who’ve spent several thousand hours roaming the Lands Between from pillar to post at this point – the fact that FromSoftware’s five-star masterpiece only landed in February, plus the fact that I have two small children whose bedtime routines can prove more challenging than a no-hit bout with Malenia in New Game+, the very fact that I’ve clocked anywhere near two-and-a-half centuries filling the Omenkiller Boots of the Tarnished is, to me, impressive. So impressive, in fact, that the only other games I think I’ve come close to that number with in recent years are Football Manager, GTA Online, and, across its myriad platform incarnations and enhanced editions over the last decade, Dark Souls.
