For any players who are looking for a new single-player Action RPG that offers a similar experience toElden Ring,The First Berserker: Khazanis a new Soulslike game from Neople that’s highly worth checking out. Before jumping intoThe First Berserker: Khazan, players should know what to expect from this game’s difficulty and how it compares toElden Ring.
Overall, despite having a more flexible difficulty,The First Berserker: Khazanarguably feels closer to the difficulty ofElden Ring’s controversialShadow Of The ErdtreeDLC. However, the various layeredprogression systems inThe First Berserker: Khazanmake it possible for players to periodically overcome the game’s steep difficulty curve.
Comparing The First Berserker: Khazan’s Difficulty to Elden Ring’s Base Game and Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC
The First Berserker: Khazan’s Bosses Are as Tough as Shadow of the Erdtree’s
By no means isElden Ring’s combat simple, considering the sheer variety of weapons, spells, and equipment players can experiment with, but players can often find success by investing in a particular weapon or playstyle until it becomes reliable in any given situation. Despite having a relatively limited variety ofweapon types inThe First Berserker: Khazan, players will need to familiarize themselves with various offensive and defensive abilities to take on some of the tougher enemies throughout the game because of their large health pools and the sparse opportunities for getting free attacks in.
So, unless players quickly become familiar with blending offensive and defensive abilities to create their own opportunities for counterattacks, the major enemies and bosses inThe First Berserker: Khazancan arguably be just as difficult as those fromElden Ring’sShadow of the ErdtreeDLC. Admittedly, this is saying a lot, considering that theShadow Of The ErdtreeDLC’s difficulty was highly controversialeven among veteran Soulsborne players. However, while the main bosses inThe First Berserker: Khazanserve as hard barriers for the game’s linear quest progression, players can still find ways to improve throughThe First Berserker: Khazan’s generous progression systems.
Players canlower the difficulty inThe First Berserker: Khazanfrom normal to easy, though the difference is seemingly negligible, and the easy mode is still widely considered hard compared to other Soulsborne and Soulslike games.
The First Berserker: Khazan’s Progression Systems Are Far More Generous Than Elden Ring’s Typical Soulsborne Upgrade System
Lacrima inThe First Berserker: Khazanis the equivalent of Runes inElden Ring, which is the currency used for upgrading players’ attributes. In both games, players will drop these progression currencies when they die and need to retrieve them, or else they will be lost forever. This mechanic is a staple of Soulsborne and Soulsike games’ difficulty, thoughThe First Berserker: Khazanis a bit more forgiving with Lacrima thanElden Ringis with Runes.
When players die duringboss fights inThe First Berserker: Khazan, their Lacrima will be dropped outside the boss arena for easy retrieval, and additional Lacrima will be awarded based on how much health damage the boss took during the attempt. These generous QoL features allow players to slowly accumulate upgrades between failed attempts at a boss.
Beyond the typical attribute-upgrade progression system found inElden Ringand other FromSoft games, players can also take advantage of several other, permanent progression systems inThe First Berserker: Khazan. This includes various ways of upgrading players' weapons and armor, as well as the character and weapon skill trees inThe First Berserker: Khazan.
When it comes to major enemies and boss fights inThe First Berserker: Khazan, the early game is arguably as difficult asElden Ring’s controversialShadow Of The ErdtreeDLC. However, as players expand their arsenal and skills with the various progression systems that can be unlocked throughout themain quests and side quests inThe First Berserker: Khazan, the difficulty curve becomes much more forgiving.
