The Elden Ring pause mod allows me to finally play the game

Last Updated on: 9th April 2022, 05:34 pm

After months of delays and a lot of anticipation, Elden Ring was finally released in February 2022, and to say it has been successful would be an incredible understatement.

In less than one month on the market, Elden Ring has sold over 12 million copies, it has the fifth-highest amount of peak concurrent players on Steam, only behind PUBG, Lost Ark, CS:GO, and Dota 2, and it is the best-selling third-party Japanese game of all time, oh and its concurrent peak is more than double of all other FromSoftware titles combined, not bad for a Soulsbourne game that typically only appeals to a very niche market.

Like many gamers, I have never played a Soulsbourne game before and Elden Ring is my first. I’ve actually owned Dark Souls on PC since 2014 or 2015 but I have never played it because, to be honest, the concept of the genre didn’t seem that appealing. My friend described Dark Souls to me by saying something to the effect of, “You will get destroyed by a boss and then spend 10 minutes getting back to the boss only to get destroyed again.” I’ve got to say, that sounds very…fun.

So, for the longest time I have held off playing a Soulsbourne game, but like millions of others, I got sucked into the hype of Elden Ring and finally decided to make this my first time playing a Soulsbourne game.

Unfortunately, I only ended up putting two hours into the game before choosing to do three back to back to back playthroughs of Resident Evil 4 and put 50 hours into WWE 2K22. But, it wasn’t because Elden Ring is too difficult, although it is incredibly challenging, it is for another reason that a simple mod has completely fixed, and now I can enjoy my time in the world of the Lands Between.

READ MORE: Elden Ring mods add an easy mode to the game

The mod in question is a simple pause mod, allowing players to pause the game. It sounds simple enough and a standard in most video games, but Elden Ring can’t be paused.

If you want to navigate the menus or put down the controller for a minute, the world of Elden Ring continues to play around you and the enemies really don’t care whether you’re at your console/PC or you are AFK, they will try and destroy you.

Now, I didn’t install the pause mod because I can’t handle playing the game and need to pause mid-fight, although I will admit Elden Ring is challenging. But, I have been gaming for close to 30 years, starting in 1993 on the SNES and so far no game has ever truly beaten me, if I want to complete it I will. I have given up on some games or modes, such as a Halo LAZO playthrough, but if I put my mind to it I know I would beat it.

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However, as you will have gathered from how long I’ve been playing games, I’m no youngling, I am now in my 30s and have a family and a child, a newborn child at that.

Most of my gaming is done late at night and my son, being a newborn, often needs my attention which means I need to leave my PC whether I am in the middle of a game or not.

Over the last month or so I have found myself not playing as many online games such as Fortnite, or planning any playtime around times I think I won’t be disturbed. But, this has led to me neglecting Elden Ring and not putting any time into it. Now, with the pause mod, I am able to enjoy Elden Ring while also taking care of my parental responsibilities.

I don’t even really know the purpose of this opinion piece, except I suppose it is to say, don’t feel like you’re less of a gamer if you need to use things such as the pause mod to get through the game, especially if you’re not able to sit for an extended period of time and game undisturbed.

READ MORE: Elden Ring: All You Need to Know About Rivers of Blood

Now, had the game come out this time last year I wouldn’t need the pause mod as I could game undisturbed, and I still think you’re a scrub if you need to use cheats to beat a game or struggle to play it on easy mode.

But, as long as you’re happy that is all that matters.