Early impressions for someone who got an early copy:
“I'm going to preface this by saying that I am not downplaying the difficulty of this game at all, nor am I trying to paint myself like I am some amazing gamer. At most, I would consider myself slightly above average. I have finished Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1-3, Bloodborne and Sekiro, finding them all fairly difficult in their own unique ways. I am definitely not some Souls prodigy and I won't even pretend to be one. I have played Housemarque's previous titles, however none of them really past a couple of hours.
That being said, I have been playing this game for about five hours straight tonight and the only time I have died is at the very beginning of the game, which I am going to guess was in the first 10-20 minutes.
This game is definitely tough, and I could be running on a great build and not even realize it at this time, but I think for anybody that is okay with the difficulty of souls, you will be absolutely fine here. I would even personally argue that it is easier than those games just due to the third person nature of the gameplay, but of course that is 100% subjective, and some people may find other genres easier. The controls are extremely tight and I think that definitely adds to the ability to overcome the challenges that the game presents. If the game is going to have a massive spike then I may be surprised, but based on what I have seen, everything appears to be fair and progression is obtainable.
All things considered though, this game for me is a masterpiece and I am blown away so far. For sure my GOTY at this time and I don't even know if it is close.
TLDR: Please do not let the difficulty of this game scare you off, as long as you understand what you are getting in to! Game is tough, but doable!”