Meh, I watched the review and I feel as though he was purposefully being too harsh on it. If reviewers are giving the game 10/10 too easily, he would be on the other end of the extreme where he'd give 0/10 too easily.

While I agree that the port really isn't as good as it should be and that reviewers give 10/10s way too easily, I think even with the current state on PC, it's a game worth playing for many people.

Firstly, you would never play a game like this with a keyboard and mouse. While I 100% agree that the way they handled keyboard bindings is terrible and it's very facepalm worthy and they should absolutely fix it, realistically, you shouldn't be playing it at all with a keyboard and mouse. You can get out of that section by hitting the right click on your mouse which pops up a menu and then clicking on the back selection. It is very unintuitive because the Esc key which really should be the last resort key doesn't do anything. It's another shitty quirk of Japanese game developers but it's really not deal breaking by any means.

Also that part where he dies,

There is stuttering issues and really, that's the main problem with the game. However from my experience so far, the stuttering isn't present when you are in fights and such. Only really present when it's loading areas. It's certainly not ideal by any means and they need to optimize it and that I'd consider to be a deal breaker until they do.

Overall, I think the video isn't being completely fair because imo, many of the criticisms aren't deal breakers for most people.

I honestly feel like the fans are hyping it up way too much, and I'm more of a believer of proven track records, and just like DICE, FS isn't known for extremely polished games, and in FS's case, their worlds aren't exactly interactable as much (I watched some of Mac's livestream on ER and it's fight enemies, fight boss, move on, hardly much else to do besides that). 

The part that got him  most was him having to use a gamepad to be able to play a 3rd person, 3rd party game, and yea, I'd agree with him, that's batshit stupid to see being enforced today, when we've seen other games and even some japanese PC ports allowing for keyboard controls and rebinds, while a high budget game like ER is just not doing it. 

Tbf, games that are third person should stop being completely designed around controllers, because we saw what happened to KB+M users in the era where 1st person shooters tried to cater to gamepads first, and I don't want to go back to that time period. Gamepad users have their band aid auto aims and the like, just make it for K+M first (if you couldn't tell already, I've largely stopped using gamepads, and I'm finding them rather archaic as time goes by). 

I also dunno why for the life of me that everyone on earth is hopping into Epic's bribing lap when it comes to that anti-cheat, there's no anti-cheat on earth that stays invincible forever, and so far it's been giving ppl issues across a myriad of games.

]You'd also think with how long ER was in the oven, that From would have at least tried to greatly minimise the stuttering, but then again, AAA games (indies in early access will always get the benefit of the doubt due to their smaller budget, skill and team sizes) seem to be following the mobile app trend of ship it broken, fix it later (and I absolutely hate that model, because it's many steps backwards for our evolution and the model is designed to never improve if you're supposed to ship shit broken right off the bat). 

Completely unrelated (but feeling similar), but for months, if not since Dec 2020, I've seen ppl on Steam forums constantly stanning for 2077, despite all it's bug issues, and now, even after patch 1.5, with next to no new content in 2022, ppl are still defending it.

I can easily see ER getting that level of treatment, if not more (not the content, I'm talking about defence of all it's faults). Not saying you'll be one of them, but I know Steam forums are going to be chock full of overly optimistic folks that'll try shutting down any sort of criticism against the new game. 

The thing is, there are various ways to look at a game like ER. You could look at it in a perspective of you just fight enemies, bosses and there isn't much else to do but imo, that's over simplifying the uniqueness of the game. Yes at it's core, that is essentially all you do and maybe that is something that you aren't interested in. But for me and many who are enjoying the game, that is a breath of fresh air. This isn't a game that feels like a checklist. More often than not, you look at 90% of the open world games that come out these days, it all feels like it's a checklist that's there to add in filler and do little else. In ER, the bosses, enemies and such all feel unique and carefully crafted. It's a game that feels like they cut out the filler and got straight to the point and the atmosphere imo is insane because you will never know what you will run into next.

Like if you play a traditional Open world game like Far Cry and such, sure there's tones of different things to do but 99% of the things gets repetitive very fast. Many open world games just feels like you have been here before doing the same thing over and over again. In ER, it doesn't. It feels like the world is carefully crafted and that's why many people are liking it. Yes you fight bosses and enemies but the bosses and enemies you find throughout the world are so unique that it keeps you on your toes.

And sure, you can argue whatifisms but I personally think that a game like this is unique and interesting enough to forgive the minor issues at launch. The stuttering and hitching, yes that's a big issue. Using a controller instead of a keyboard? Imo, not a big issue for 99% of the people cause realistically, anyone going into this game with the intent of actually wanting to play it is going to use a controller. Yes the game wasn't designed around keyboard and mouse and if this was a normal non-ambitious run of the mill ubisoft game that doesn't do anything interesting, I'd be harsh on it. But to me, it feels like he's being harsh for the sake of getting clicks. Yes ER has it's own set of issues but imo, he is overreacting to the point where I can't take him seriously.

I mean, at it's core, you are pretty much fighting bosses and picking up trappings of the game's lore, which have been made known by now, to being scattered about, almost like a scooby doo style mystery for you to figure out on your own (for it's own series, that's fine, because it gets the community to band together and solve questions/theories).

But that's pretty much how I've seen the series over the years. I've not seen anything new and extra added to the franchise, like say, randomly being able to befriend an NPC, go out on adventures with them, pet a dog, hunt wildlife. Like I get that it's dark fantasy, but even I know in that kind of setting, you can do so much more than sit around in a corner, all "the world is over, misery and dank" and acting edgy in that world, like we have Warhammer 40k, featuring all sorts of dank and death inspiring stuff, but even in that IP's setting, all sorts goes down, but with Souls, it just looks like Pokemon at this point, same series, slightly different coat of paint, same dreary colours, castles, skelly boys etc. 

If I was into that series, by now I'd want the game to allow me to do other stuff other than solve purposefully scattered lore (which by now has become predictable to do, because that's more or less the Souls staple, otherwise you're going to be spoon fed the story like every other AAA game out there, do you see where I'm going with this?, the IP has but itself into a corner by doing the complete opposite of other games, but it's also made it very black and white by going the opposite route, instead of in the middle with how it sprinkles it's lore around the place), and fighting a few bosses in big rooms. 

I also feel a lot less impressed by it's visuals, considering how ppl before were hyping this game as a visual step up, and I just look at the grass and colour grading/lighting and I'm wondering what it is they spent more years working on, because visuals don't look like one of them.

I mean I totally agree with you on every other open world design, but that's just something the industry needs to sit down and solve together as to how everyone should approach it going forward. Hand crafting is totally fine, but again, if it's going to become your thing where you have 5 enemies in a room, or a boss and a big room, you kind of cut your own legs off by limiting yourself to that style of craft. Like I get that the fans don't mind that or even love it, but as much as I sure love my C&C, I want that IP to evolve and not stay in it's 90's roots (I thought the C&C remaster was shite and refunded it once I discovered that they didn't change the AI at all, which made unit pathing shit and unplayable for me in VS AI modes/campaigns). 

I dunno man, I can't really let go of nearly any game these days that comes out and boasts something or that has a loud community behind it. I like shows like Hazbin Hotel and Helluva boss, love the artist even, but hot damn, do I not like it's community, and that made me realise that I'm just not a fan of other IP communities in general and distance myself from them, which as a result makes me see those people as the types that wear rose tinted glasses (no offence, but you're looking past some of these issues, when they shouldn't even be issues to begin with, FS aren't a Mom & pop studio anymore, they have the budget, the pages of many books of mistakes and advancements to read/learn from). 

Also, I remember how Ubi games play and how Ubi treats PC in general, not even they care much for PC's rebinds or controls, let alone "optimisations" that much, so I guess that leaves us with MS, since they've made us an RTS for our controls first, and then there's Gears, which I've had no issues using M+K with. The only times it's ever sucked for me is when it's a third party that either doesn't care or has a bad track record with anything to do on PC.

Mac does all sorts of stupid shit tbh, but I def get his gripes with the AAA industry, one that FS is a part of, and well, I'm kinda really tired of even hearing about any part of any PC version still suffering these sorts of issues. It'd be swell if the AAA side just stopped treading million dollar projects like dinky little throw away apps to slap patches onto at a later date, instead of focusing on how much money they are making week 1. I'd be a lot less jaded and less angry like Mac if that side just stopped being so...sucky at their job (I mean it's their job, how can you keep screwing this up, it really is history repeating itself and I hate that dumb straight line repeating itself each time I see it). 

Personally, I don't really delve into whatifisms very much. What if the game had this or what if the game had that isn't very useful to look at because that generally overlooks what the game devs were going for. Game doesn't need to add copious amounts of new things if the game itself turns out to be really good which is what ER is if you like this type of a game. ER does add plenty of new things to the franchise which you can watch reviews for to find out. The amount of new things may not be as comprehensive as some of the other Open World games but what they have works quite well. ER being open world and the way they paced the game fundamentally changes ER from previous From Software games while still having that familiar feel.

The thing is that, I am not going to try and change your opinion of the game or you taste in games. But personally, I think that people like Mac doesn't actually do much for the industry similar to the reviewers that easily gives out 10/10s. He can despise AAA games all he wants but he's part of the problem. If he wants to make real change in the industry, then he needs to give the games a proper chance. But because he doesn't, it's very hard to take him seriously and most importantly, it's hard for companies to take him seriously.

This is why I like DF so much. They don't go into games with the intent of disliking them which is what feels like Mac does. They go into the games with the intent to like them and when there's major issues or minor issues, they report on it and developers listen to them. That's how you get real change in the industry similar to what TB used to do (but granted DF isn't as critical at times). DF now has their new video out about ER on PC and they show how the optimization on PC is quite poor:

And because of the way DF does their videos, the developers do generally listen to them.

DF's PC performance review of Elden Ring shows that any new thing - animation, effect, enemy, etc. - causes stutter. Loading stutters as well, and it can also be random. Even overpowered hardware and low settings can't avoid stutters, neither can VRR.

It does feel like playing Dolphin or something where the emulator slows down when it's compiling shaders.

Yea it's the shader compilation issue that developers that don't have experience with DirectX 12 and PCs don't realize. I am assuming the reason they choose DX12 on PC is because they wanted to add Ray Tracing in the future as DirectX 11 does not support Ray Tracing. The annoying thing is that it's a simple enough fix from what I have seen because all you do is pre-load the shaders but if they don't program it in... It's like :

Lol at Tim Sweeney and his takes at Valve banning NFTs

Poor Sweeney hit his head and now can't think right.

Tbh just because they are a scam doesnt mean he kinda has a point