Sekiro vs Elden Ring: Which to Play - Game Scout

Sekiro runs on posture, not health. You win by deflecting a strike at the last frame to break an enemy's guard, then landing a killing blow, and there is exactly one shinobi to do it with. No shields, no spells, no summonable help, and player reviews single out that combat system as the game's masterclass. It is also the most common wall: the recurring complaint in reviews is the steep learning curve, because there is no build to lean on when a fight goes wrong.

Elden Ring is the opposite design. In Elden Ring you mix weapons, spells, and summonable Spirit Ashes, and you can respec to chase a new setup whenever you want. The most-praised feature in its reviews is exactly that build variety and the replayability it drives. If you want one rhythm to master, Sekiro is the pick. If you want to keep rebuilding your character, Elden Ring is.

They get hard in different ways. Sekiro has no difficulty settings and no way to grind past a wall, so a stuck player has to get better at the one system the game teaches. That single path is why players coming from other FromSoftware games consistently frame it as the sterner test, and why its steep learning curve is the top complaint in reviews.

Elden Ring hands you the escape valves Sekiro withholds. The open world means a wall boss is rarely mandatory right away, you can go level somewhere else, and Spirit Ash summons can turn a duel into a two on one. That is why it is the common recommendation for a first FromSoftware game. The late game narrows again: the recurring complaint in Elden Ring reviews is boss difficulty spikes, where the open-world tools matter less.

This is where the two games stop being comparable. Sekiro runs about 40 hours for a normal clear and roughly 50 for a full completion. Elden Ring runs about 120 hours normally and past 170 to see everything, so by the clock it is close to three times the game.

Size is not the same as content, though. In Elden Ring the handcrafted Legacy Dungeons are the genuine draw, while the recurring complaint in player reviews is repetitive catacombs and reused bosses stretched thin across the map: that is the padding to skip on a completion run. Sekiro has no procedural filler at all. It is linear, a few areas get flagged as bland in reviews, but almost every hour is handcrafted. Sekiro is the tighter clear worth doing end to end. Elden Ring is the far bigger one, where a full clear means learning which catacomb is worth your time and which is not.

Sekiro is a PS4 release with no native next-gen version. It plays on PS5 through backward compatibility, which is the only way to run it on the current console. Elden Ring is cross-gen: one purchase covers the native PS4 build and the native PS5 one.

Neither is on PlayStation Plus, so both are separate purchases at full price rather than something a subscription hands you. On value they are level. The access difference is about which console you own and whether a native PS5 version matters to you.

Start with Elden Ring if this is your first FromSoftware game. The open world and the summons give you room to breathe, and the option to lower the difficulty yourself is why newcomers get steered there on the r/fromsoftware boards. Come to Sekiro once you already know you like the studio's combat and want a single system to master with no safety net.

• Play Sekiro first if you want one sharp combat system, a tighter 40-hour clear, and no padding to wade through.
• Play Elden Ring first if you are new to the genre, want the biggest world and build freedom, or care about a native PS5 version.

The ratings land where the reviews do: 4.66 and 4.71, both great, close enough that the honest answer for a lot of people is both. Pick by what you want more, the focused test or the sprawling one, and the completion math sorts the rest.