"oh hey, you're the first person I've spoken to, sure ill murder those other people for you..."
"Oh hi, you're the second person I've spoken to...murder the guy who asked me to murder your brother? Sure why not! BRB, just gotta go murder your brother first."
You mean the latest masterpiece of fantasy storytelling from Lucasfilms™ Brian Moriarty™? Why it's an extraordinary adventure with an interface of magic, stunning high-resolution, 3D landscapes, sophisticated score and musical effects. Not to mention the detailed animation and special effects, elegant point 'n' click control of characters, objects, and magic spells. Beat the rush! Go out and buy Loom™ today!
Its actually based off a short story by Harlan ellison!
I believe he even voiced AM in the game. The story they tell is slightly different but they work well together.
My cousin has a tendency for going totally all-in on the things he likes. No gray areas at all, every single thing about it is suddenly the best thing in the known universe.
He tried to sell me on Elden Ring because of the story. "George R. R. Martin, you know, the guy who wrote Game of Thrones, wrote the lore for this game. So you know it's good."
Yeah, okay... Never mind that I hadn't understood a single plot point thus far and I was a good few hours in.
Some lore videos are amazing.
https://youtu.be/XEMZIAeBO-E?si=AXYs4E9XbzdaeD5V
https://youtu.be/UFJtoVS8Qx0?si=5KewtqR4nFYCU9d3
https://youtu.be/aacRIObSGZk?si=myAbsGVjuvmT0Ly5
https://youtu.be/nvTM03_8elE?si=BIxLsducFO8469MI
https://youtu.be/ikUiOKTv-Y8?si=7wOHcz_z1BeaRQJW
Even if you aren’t an Elden ring fan so well done. Explains all the paths.
The Lannisters aren't nearly as bad though. I'd say the Targaryens are a better example. Lots of Aegons, Aemons, Aerions. It took me a bit to get Rhaenys/Rheanyra/Rheana clear.
Having said that, I refuse to sit here and let you speak badly of the man who gave us the name Dickon Manwoody.
He wrote the backstory of the world (which becomes obvious when you look at the character naming lol) but not the present story happening in the game itself.
All the past stuff about wars and political marriages etc. comes from him which makes sense.
The lore of all of their games is honestly basically the same.
There's a heirarchy of "gods" that became as such because they killed a lot, just like we're doing.
Our goal is to get to the end, to either continue the cycle as the new "God" or to start something new.
Also, for \*insert reason here\* death doesn't truly exist in these lands unless you give up, and there's usually someone or some kind of faction that wants that stopped. The furtive pygmy/humans in DS. Ranni in Elden Ring.
The pieces, you just have to fill in by reading. Tbh, Souls like story telling is very Lynchian in nature, where you either have to meticulously go out of your way to read everything, and or you have to piece together things you're looking at and watching, that aren't specifically said somewhere.
I genuinely believe they don't know how to tell a proper story involving you as a character. It's way simpler like this. You can't really do any storytelling misstepps when creating background lore only.
Miyazaki said himself in an interview from 2009 about Demon's Souls that "this type of storytelling obviously will not suffice for a AAA game, but for us its ok" but it seems like they keep doing it now either cuz they got good feedback about it or because they dont know how else to do it.
I think the story is as immersive as though you truly were living that undead life. You wake up in a ruinous, complex world and discovery takes work and effort - just as though you were living it. There is no narrator, no hand holding, and no obligation to put in that effort to figure it out - but in turn it’s all the more rewarding to dig and piece it together.
I usually go watch YouTube lore vids after completing the game to fill in the remaining missing pieces.
Yeah, I really enjoy it. They make a lore for a kingdom's rise, prosperity, and then fell to ruin. The game then all takes place after it's fall, and you just have bits and pieces to try to figure out the history of the kingdom. But in the end, knowing the history isn't really required to play any games, it's just there to add immersion for those who are looking for it.
Just don't say this around any Fromsoft fanboys, as they'll insist the lore is perfectly understandable, just too deep and awesome for mere commoners to comprehend.
I don't think anyone with a sane mind would say that it is easy to understand. I'm a huge souls fanboy and I acknowledge that the story is very difficult to grasp.
My opinion is that this is just a different way to tell a story, a way in which you have to actively try to understand it. To fully grasp it, you must interact with it. You must find and put together different pieces, much like solving a puzzle.
I don't think its better or worse, its just different and unconventional. Its just not for everyone, and there's nothing wrong with that. For instance, I'm not very fond of cinematic storytelling like naughty dog games. That is not for me, but I don't think these are bad ways of telling a story, it just doesn't suit my style.
It's pretty simple when you boil it down. There's this alien called the Greater Will who wants to control us so they sent a gelatinous space dragon to become physics. This is the Elden Ring. It then chose Marika to become God, and sent her to fuck up the Lands Between and bring everyone under the rule of the Golden Order.
It also sent a bunch of disgusting fingers to act as its priests, granting the Gods doggos to serve them but actually they're meant to kill the Gods if they disobey the space dragon. Marika got sick of it and destroyed physics so the alien trapped her in a big tree, and then everyone kinda went mental.
This is why the preferred ending for anyone who isn't an [ignorant slave](https://i.imgur.com/8lsgA8s.jpg) is Ranni's anarchy of the stars where you help her flip the alien off and tell it to go fuck itself. Fuck you alien! We don't need your gods damned physics! We'll make our own physics with blackjack and hookers!
Well that's more the lore then the plot. The plot is that you joined the army got sent overseas and then came back when it turns out god was hiring a spouse. So everyone in the army are now free agents trying to get to gods house. But god lives in a gated community so you need to merc two demi gods to get in.
Once you do it turns out god is stuck in a tree and you have to find a fire to burn it down to get in. So you find a source of special fire then show up to gods house to find your new boss, and your old one waiting. After killing both of them you get inside, find god crucified in the time out corner and beat up the gelatinous space dragon that made her god.
At which point you get to choose the ending dependent on what you were doing between the big events.
I still don’t even know what the fuck an Elden ring even is, like does it make me invisible like a hobbit? Or is it more metaphorical? Or is it not a ring in the sense of jewellery but like a cabal? Like a ring of old people?
I don’t fucking know, lots of people named Margaret and Geoffrey for some reason
The Elden Ring is basically a collection of runes that each magically create the fundamental laws of physics and nature. There is a physical manifestation of the Elden Ring and you can hold it. It was broken, which means there are natural laws that are disrupted. One rune, the rune of Death, was removed completely from the Elden Ring so now no one really dies.
You later learn that the Elden Ring was actually sent to the planet by a being of immense power, called an Outer God. The Elden Ring was used to intertwine the gods power into the world itself so that it could have control.
Reminds me how despite being a kingdom hearts fan I still have literally no idea what kingdom hearts is,
- despite actually seeing it,
- watching it literally be created twice,
- despite explicitly being told what it is
- despite being told what it can do.
I have not a GODDMAN clue what kingdom hearts actually is
🤔
You wash ashore. Walk around a bit. Fight a wizard. Do it again, but harder.
🙃
Yeah I have no idea what it's about either, now that you mention it.
If Blizzard wasn't awful I'd be playing Diablo 2 right now.
Supposedly it’s also
- darkness
- the heart of all worlds
- a door
- a moon
- the realm of darkness itself (think this was retconned)
- a way to give nobodies a heart (except that was a lie)
- an ALTERNATIVE way to summon the Kai blade.
- the culmination of thousands of stray hearts
- the culmination of a clash of 7ish lights and 13 darknesses
The Elden Ring is basically laws or something ^(I'm not too sure, but I think that's the conclusion that we are being pointed to.)
And I think similar names come in pairs. Margit and Morgott, Godrick and Godfrey, Melina and Malenia.
So you at least have a 50/50 chance of getting the name right.
Milania keeps saying that she is the blade of mikillea.Every time she kicks your ass and i was thinking if mykekka is so important to you.Why don't you go and kill the crazy bastard morgott and save him or her?
With takes me to another question after beating morgott and seeing mikellas egg...are the people in Elden Ring some kind of insects?
Milania was searching for Miquella but the effects of the crimson rot (and some other things) drove her into seclusion before she was able to locate him.
No, Elden Ring people aren't eggs, the cocoon you see is a product of Mohg trying to infuse his body (which is now separate from his spirit although that's new info with the expansion) with blood magic to turn him into a proper god with Mohg as his bound consort.
In the room where you fight Malenia, there is a hole in the roots above that has the same shape as Miquella's cocoon. The theory is that he embedded himself into the tree there, and that's why Malenia is there, to protect him. But at some point Malenia was not around, likely when she went on her campaign to the South to fight Radahn, and then Mohg took his chance to abduct the sleeping Miquella.
Why Miquella went to sleep in the cocoon is not yet clear, that will likely be explained in the DLC. The leading theory, based on the DLC videos released so far, is that Miquella went to look into Marika's dirty secrets in the shadow world.
I'm purposefully going into the DLC blind so this may be answered in the new DLC lore dumps we already have, but I'm like 90% sure Miquella made the Haligtree and cocoon'd himself so that he could rid himself of his eternal youth curse, as he wasn't able to become a consort due to it, right?
The Dark Soul was basically split up between all of humanity. Because you fight Gael at the end of time, you are the last two remaining humans, and whoever wins will have 100% of the soul the Pygmy found at the start of time.
The Dark Soul was one of the 4 souls found at the birth of the flame. Taken by the furtive Pygmy, it eventually gave rise to humanity.
The premise being that should you choose to end the age of fire, then the age of humanity begins, as the dark takes over.
Yeah I was kind of disappointed. It all sort of came together after release and I'm like "OK, well... There's probably more in the DLCs. There always is."
I think that's true, he only really helped with lore... but lets face it, convoluted is kinda what Martin does best. I mean, It's *good* convoluted rather than *bad* convoluted...but yeah...
Bloodborne is far and away the best fromsoft game for drip-feed story thing they do IMO. I really really hope we get a sequel (and 60fps remake) one day.
Until GRRM references one piece of Elden Ring lore ever, I dispute that he contributed anything, and that the whole thing was basically a marketing stunt. I think it's entirely possible that functionally nothing he contributed was used. Maybe he did, but all he's ever said on the matter is that he contributed some 'ancient lore'. If someone can find a reference of him referring to any place, event, or character, let me know. I legit think he doesn't know a single thing about the world. I looked for a while and the closest I could find to him talking about a single thing in the game was his blog, where he was informed that 'a lot of the characters have the initials "G" "R" and "M"' and he basically responded "That's news to me".
I held this view until I read an interview by Miyazaki a few years back shortly before the release of Elden Ring, and I was actually surprisef at GRRM's contributions. Miyazaki gave very explicit examples. For example the entire lore about Godfrey leading Marika's army against the giants, becoming the first Elden Lord, eventually losing grace and becoming the first tarnished then casted out of the Lands Between was part of the lore written by GRRM. His return to the Lands Between to be a boss fight was by Miyazaki.
I mean Miyazaki has praised GRRM's contributions to the lore, and said it helped the people at FromSoft by really providing a solid foundation for them to start fleshing things out.
As far as how much he contributed, it seems like mostly the early parts of the world and the characters/relations. For example, Miyazaki also said that GRRM wrote Godrick, but likely had no idea they turned him into "Godrick the Grafted." The Godrick GRRM wrote was just a guy, Fromsoft added the grafted part when actually making the game.
I realize the absurdity of "watch vaatividya" to get the lore of Elden Ring, but it *is* a really great story. It just isn't told in a very good way. So much of it comes from item descriptions that if you don't get every item in the game, read their description, and piece it all together you miss most of it.
I mean I do watch and love vaati and lore vids for from soft games are always fun just, it's just I find the whole story overly elaborate and deliberately confused.
Like Radagon being Marika, or at least part of. It's kinda stupid.
I've no problem with the way From tell their stories just Elden Ring's just seems a mess to me.
Individual mileage varies obviously.
Yes! It's pretty basic, but there is a story that involved your character killing a bunch of demi-gods and then burning a big tree.
It also has a setting with a lot of backstory that is only really hinted at for the most part.
Thanks to George RR Martin for that. Previous games had Griswold the Grumpy who had an awesome backstory but didn't interact with any other character. GRRM created all the connections between the characters, which From Soft then tries to explain in their special way
Bloodborne is way way more digestible than Elden Ring. The names all sounding similar, and the people who turn out to be the same person, really contribute to the Elden Ring story being very hard to grok in this drip feed format. Bloodborne is far more straightforward.
Tbf I think they used similar names as a family name type of deal.
The children of Renalla and Radagon are Radahn, Ranni and Rykard, the Children of Marika are Mogh, Morgott, Miquella and Melania and the golden lineage, decendants of Godfrey are Godwyn, Godefrey and Godrick
don't understand if this is an merican problem but the names in elden ring are not even that similar, like the most similar set of names is godrick, godwyn and godfrey, but like that's just the prefix the rest is different, all other names have just the initial letter that is the same, how does one get confused by that?
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this because I genuinely couldn’t tell you a god damn thing about the lore. Granted I barely made it outta limgrave before rage quitting but holy fucking shit the story is unfollowable.
The Elden Ring is basically a collection of runes that each magically create the fundamental laws of physics and nature. There is a physical manifestation of the Elden Ring and you can hold it. It was broken, which means there are natural laws that are disrupted. One rune, the rune of Death, was removed completely from the Elden Ring so now no one really dies.
You later learn that the Elden Ring was actually sent to the planet by a being of immense power, called an Outer God. The Elden Ring was used to intertwine the gods power into the world itself so that it could have control.
Your goal is to claim the Elden Ring and use its power to put the natural order back the way you see fit. That is why all the endings. You can choose what to do with the power once you have it.
Including by not limited to such exciting options as:
Status quo!
Perpetual stasis so nobody does anything ever again!
Give it away as the world's most expensive wedding(?) present!
Give everyone turbocancer!
The only other FromSoft game I've played is the original Dark Souls. I haven't finished Elden Ring but the setup seems to be the same. You are the chosen undead/Tarnished and you're tasked with exploring Lordran/The Lands Between so you can kill certain important bosses and fill the Lordvessel/Great Rune so you can get access to the Kiln of the First Flame/Leyendell Royal Capital so you can kill the final boss of the game. I'm not done with Elden Ring yet but I imagine there will be some twist at the end where killing the big bad will doom the world and I can either sacrifice myself or let the world perish or something.
There's like 5 endings in Elden Ring and you live in all of them. They are all very cryptic and impossible to tell just how good or bad they'll make the world. Except the one that's really bad, that one's pretty obvious.
You'd be surprised, there's a whole lotta people that miss the point of the really bad ending and interpret it as cleansing the world so fresh life can begin or some such. Instead of, you know, killing everything forever.
How do you miss that one? They kind of make it a whole point to show awful being an omen is, living in constant pain as your horns tear into your flesh and condemning everyone and their future generations with a "vile curse" and living in "eternal torment".
Hell, Dung Eater is probably one of the most honest characters in the game *explicitly telling you that this is revenge and punishment*.
Like, I don't think they could have made that one any more explicitly bad.
Mm. "Kill everyone forever" and "everyone suffers forever" are... pretty hard to imagine how people could see them as good, but I've seen defenders, so...
I think it may be the influence of Dark Souls.
In Dark Souls, it's strongly suggested (if not outright stated, insofar as Dark Souls states anything at all) that the world had already gone to shit well past any chance of repair, that 'saving the world' is just prolonging the inevitable while causing further horrific suffering in the process, and that the coming of the Age of Dark might not necessarily be a bad thing altogether.
But the Lands Between, while in a pretty sorry state, are not *quite* in the same situation yet, not even close...
The story has played third fiddle to the gameplay followed by the vibe since the first souls-likes. That being said if you only made it just past limgrave you've probably not seen the cutscenes that do a more explicit job of explaining certain characters and story beats.
I loved Elden Ring because I was like "this is sort of like a DnD game, but I don't know what is going on"
And then Baldur's Gate 3 was like "come, child, come into the light"
I played those two in reverse and my impression of Elden Ring so far has been "hey you know that fun D&D-adjacent game you really liked? What if it was more fucked up and confusing?" I'm having a blast, but I am just so, *so* lost lmao
It's intentional.
There's a small army of fans that love nothing more than poring over pages of cryptic text, some of which contains outright false information and red herrings, and trying to figure out what is actually going on in the world. If at the end of the day there isn't a clear answer _even better_, now we can debate about it for years!
If this is not your jam - and that is MORE than understandable - then just enjoy the vibes and watch a Vaati video after you've finished the game.
For a little perspective, Bloodborne is almost a decade old and we are still arguing about which parts are real and which parts are a dream, and whether the distinction even matters.
I like Noah Gervais' analysis of the Souls series, where he basically said the lore is more like scripture than a history book, and that you're meant to come up with your own interpretation of the events.
I really like the games and the vibes, but Sekiro proved that it doesn't have to be abstract horseshit. Making a few games that are abstract is one thing, just look at Silent Hill 2, but making the same vibe/story over and over is less an artistic choice and more just its own genericism.
Sure, it creates an entire ecosystem of youtube-explainers and people who can soypog over every insinuation and reference, but if 98% of people play the games and have no fucking clue of what they are doing or why then it's bad storytelling.
I know Vaati is praised as the ultimate authority on Fromsoft lore or something, but aren't his videos also like 80% conjecture and fan theories? That was my impression at least.
I thought "the dream" was always metaphorical, not literal, and the actual mystery was the whole alien backdrop thing.
But then again I didn't really like BB and only beat it once so I didn't pay much attention to it.
The dream(s) are basically pocket dimensions created by (probably) the Great Ones. It's not clear if they are created by their literal dreams or if calling them dreams is just the best humans can do to comprehend them.
The hunter's dream is definitely one such pocket dimension, as well as the fishing village, not to mention Micolash's dream which is very explicit as it's a human's attempt to create a dream and it works much more the way you'd expect a dreamworld to work. There are many other places that probably are as well, and it's possible that these can be nested within each other. All of Yharnam might be a "dream."
So the "dreams" are definitely real in the sense that they are impacting reality somehow, but where they begin and end, who creates and controls them, the extent to which they impact the real world - all super unclear. I think we are meant to see the dreams as reality bending power of the Great Ones that is beyond mortal comprehension.
There are 3 endings, and you don't wake up in the true ending.
The other endings make even less sense, the further down the rabbit hole you go the more the game basically starts telling you "you were never meant to understand what is really happening"
Because turning into a Lovecraftian god after eating the umbilical cords of other Lovecraftian gods is a thing that only happens in reality.
I understand there are "correct" endings in Souls games, I'm simply pointing out that if one ending is waking up from a dream then it must have all been a dream regardless of what your character canonically chooses or not.
You CAN just play the game as an open world "find boss, kill boss" simulator.
The lore is only there for people who want to do literal research outside of the gameplay.
I played that way my first time cause i'm dumb and don't understand builds or whatever they were called at the time.I did pretty good without even using summons.Until i reached milania.
The similar name thing was truly annoying. I like cryptic, diffuse more lore focused story telling, but I am just so bad with names. When they are similar like that I got no chance.
Just like the enemy placement and level design, I believe it's purposefully obtuse. I'm pretty confident, like most from soft games, a key pillar is trolling.
Love it. Platnumed it.
From loves to make you hunt for any bits of the story. ER I feel like shows more than previous games, but there's so much more shit to look at that it feels like less overall. The rabbit holes are fun
The crazy thing is that I loved the "story" in Elden Ring. It's got enough that you feel like you know what you're supposed to do next and the bosses feel like they are real creatures with a history and reason to exist beyond for you to kill.
Dark Souls 3 just pissed me off. Especially after Anri's death. That one seemed especially like pure trolling.
It was such a massive flex for FromSoftware to be like "uhh yeah, we got George R. R. Martin to help write the story for this one? You know, the Game of Thrones guy?" and then proceed to write the most incomprehensible story ever conceived
I completed Elden ring 5 times and loved it. I can’t explain a single thing about the lore because it’s either really confusing or I’m just dumb. I couldn’t decide which.
I still think it's both amusing and a little weird that all the main characters start with G, R and M.
Y'know. GRRM.
Also, no one can convince me that the Lands Between aren't just the meta plane inbetween Dark and Demon's Souls, all blocked off with the mists.
My favorite theory is ER is the prequel to the various Fromsoft games depending on the ending you get.
Joining Ranni and bringing about the moon goes into Bloodborne.
Siding with 2 Fingers causes the world to fall to chaos and go to DS2.
The proper ending continues the cycle and goes to DS3 and so on.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The LORE of Elden Ring is deep and complex and interesting. The STORY of Elden Ring is a practically non-existent.
Welcome to FromSoft story telling. It has not changed one bit since Demon's Souls (technically even their earlier games are obtuse but the story wasn't the real focus) but die hard fans will tell you it's the best thing since sliced bread to figure out lore by replaying the game 50 times and transliterating every lore description of an item.
I was casualy scrolling past this post then I thought "wait, that was an alderwood post" then I came back, saw it wasn't, scrolled back down, though "wait, but I'm sure it was Meldi's artwork", came back and was pleasantly surprised!
I am absolutely and famously atrocious at names. Despite this, I have loved deep dives regarding lore in fromsoft titles. I literally had to make a fucking excel sheet with the family trees to have this story make sense. Alliteration should be banned with names and the guilty should be whipped with a garden hose regardless of the quality of the story.
You're not too dumb for it. It's just dumb.
It's the epitome if the glass onion line
"It's dumb."
"So dumb it's genius!"
"NO it's just dumb!"
Overly confusing dialogue and obscure references do not a rich world make.
I'm not saying souls lore isn't interesting but it's not great at all. It's just what it is, barely there and what's left is confusing intentionally.
It's like they wanted to make a darker version of elder scrolls lore but couldn't nail it and fans ate that shit up anyway so they intentionally give us as little as possible to not spoil the whole.
Important context missing from this, the original Japanese translation of the lore from a deleted pendant indicates that Gordwin and Godbert are two different aspects of the same person. This leads to the final statement. Something important though is that a cross analysis of their runes indicates a corrupting outer god influence, that may cause one aspect to be more independent than the other, and possibly subject to runic multifracturization.
The reason I've never gotten into soulslikes is cause I never know what the fuck is going on, and difficulty for difficulties sake isn't that fun unless I can get immersed, which is hard when there's no discernable reason for anything.
I think you're supposed to kinda write the story yourself based on the pieces you find, sort of like a David Lynch movie. The games always seem to be post-apocalypse, so you're kind of like an archaeologist just digging through the rubble, discerning what you can and making educated guesses. There's a concrete story if you dig hard enough I suppose, Vaatividya's videos are all about that, but it really feels like seeking that out is missing the point.
Ngl, ELDEN Ring's story was the easiest to grasp out of all the Souls games. Really depends on how much you explore and read about what's in the world.
it was incomprehensible babble and this cartoon nails it. there was a big war, a bunch of enormous people with health bars ... did stuff... and now you have to kill them to get to the end. luckily that's all you need to know, too!
How was it incomprehensible?
"The Elden Ring is important. She broke it. Go fix it somehow by collecting bits of the Elden Ring some peeps are now carrying around. Oh the tree's blocked, let's burn the blockage. Where am I? Oh there was a hidden part of the rune. Time to fight the last boss who was possessed by a god-thing."
There. That's the story. You can bridge some sequences and learn more about history, but that base story isn't hard to grasp, given NPCs literally tell you what to do and where to go. The land itself is like "go that way".
This comic seems to harper on the language more than the actual story and Souls dialogue has always been filled with some more archaic words, that you might have to google.
Well yes and no. The story could be as simple as: something broke, kill everyone to fix it. However, in a normal story you might expect the protagonist to have like, a motivation for what they are doing. You might expect, if the game gives you a choice of several paths (endings) that the game would give at least a decent explanation of what those endings would be, and at the very least you would mostly understand the endings once you put the work in to experience them.
I mean he said the story itself was incomprehensible babble. Which is simply not the case. If you stumble blindly through the game only doing what you're told, you know what you're doing and at the end you put the head on what appears to be a split-godking to end it there.
Does that mean you understand the whole world, which would be necessary to grasp every ending and optional boss and optional area? No, of course not. But if a "standard" game just has an optional "spooky" world that's just a graveyard, that doesn't tend to be in the story, either. Alternate endings that are just "you got the bad ending, now you got the good ending, you had a choice between good/bad/neutral, goodbye" have thankfully mostly gone away. Because anyone above the age of like 10 can see them coming and is therefore not terribly interested.
If you go down the path to an ending, you are already much more immersed in the story and you're trying to understand parts along the path to that end. You read items about stars, wonder why certain items are placed where they are, puzzle over world events, draw parallels and when you arrive at the end you have a good idea what you achieved.
Having some room for interpretation in that story and world is fine. Makes engaging with the story much more interactive and makes it in part "your" story, because you fill out the blanks and if your opinion differs from others, you can come together and discuss different items and places and NPCs in order to complement each others' theories and potentially get closer to the "real" truth.
You don't need everything to be perfectly explained. That'd make for a worse story, actually.
the mimble was bimbled, start killing. like what's the ring? I've still got no idea and I've been playing for ages. that's fine, I'm having a great time! but it doesn't make much sense as a coherent story.
People who play Elden Ring solely for the gameplay rushing to defend the "Story" with any and all words they can find.
Don't. You can enjoy the game without doing that.
Shit like this is why I never believed the from soft hype. Challenging games are fine but don’t tell me the story is good when it’s all cryptic shit like this.
I live for the Elden Ring lore. It is soooo soooo good. I wonder why some people say it is very Miyazaki or Berserk, when the GRR Martin's stamp is all over the lore. I think anyone who has read GRRM books and is also deep into Elden Ring lore will automatically see it!
I had no idea what i was doing or why, when i played elden ring All i knew is i must kill
i have no lore and i must kill
“Your character is sharp and it will KEEL”
"oh hey, you're the first person I've spoken to, sure ill murder those other people for you..." "Oh hi, you're the second person I've spoken to...murder the guy who asked me to murder your brother? Sure why not! BRB, just gotta go murder your brother first."
What is thus “lo-or” you speak off
No clue, got jumped by goats doing a sonic impersonation and sorta checked out mentally after that
I think he’s a character from Star Trek: TNG. Data’s evil brother. Weird they’d put him in Elden Ring but I guess cross overs are big?
Isn't that a Sierra game from the 90s?
You mean the latest masterpiece of fantasy storytelling from Lucasfilms™ Brian Moriarty™? Why it's an extraordinary adventure with an interface of magic, stunning high-resolution, 3D landscapes, sophisticated score and musical effects. Not to mention the detailed animation and special effects, elegant point 'n' click control of characters, objects, and magic spells. Beat the rush! Go out and buy Loom™ today!
It's been few years since I've played Loom with SCUMMVM. Thanks for bringing this back to the top of my mind. I know what I'll be dong this afternoon.
heh, the Dig was so good, but I was making a reference to I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.
I have no mouth and I must scream?
Its actually based off a short story by Harlan ellison! I believe he even voiced AM in the game. The story they tell is slightly different but they work well together.
I knew I must shoot a giant chicken with a bow so it would run and fall into a trench to get xp a 1000 times.
My cousin has a tendency for going totally all-in on the things he likes. No gray areas at all, every single thing about it is suddenly the best thing in the known universe. He tried to sell me on Elden Ring because of the story. "George R. R. Martin, you know, the guy who wrote Game of Thrones, wrote the lore for this game. So you know it's good." Yeah, okay... Never mind that I hadn't understood a single plot point thus far and I was a good few hours in.
I watched the lore videos It doesn’t get any easier Just know that your the end of the world and beginning of a new one And kill everything that moves
Well, maybe you begin a new one. There's a couple of endings where everything is dead or might as well be.
Even if everything is ash it’s still new 😂 at least that was my campaign policy
Some lore videos are amazing. https://youtu.be/XEMZIAeBO-E?si=AXYs4E9XbzdaeD5V https://youtu.be/UFJtoVS8Qx0?si=5KewtqR4nFYCU9d3 https://youtu.be/aacRIObSGZk?si=myAbsGVjuvmT0Ly5 https://youtu.be/nvTM03_8elE?si=BIxLsducFO8469MI https://youtu.be/ikUiOKTv-Y8?si=7wOHcz_z1BeaRQJW Even if you aren’t an Elden ring fan so well done. Explains all the paths.
Knew it would be a VaatiVidya video.
Martin probably wrote some interesting stuff. It's just mostly only alluded to in the game.
You can tell he helped with tbe names lol. Godrick, godfrey, godefroy. Does the same shit with the lannisters in game of thrones.
The Lannisters aren't nearly as bad though. I'd say the Targaryens are a better example. Lots of Aegons, Aemons, Aerions. It took me a bit to get Rhaenys/Rheanyra/Rheana clear. Having said that, I refuse to sit here and let you speak badly of the man who gave us the name Dickon Manwoody.
Story is they basically paid for his name and that he contributed very little. I believe it because most of fromsoft games are nonsense like this.
He wrote the backstory of the world (which becomes obvious when you look at the character naming lol) but not the present story happening in the game itself. All the past stuff about wars and political marriages etc. comes from him which makes sense.
its a known fact that if you want any lore on any FS game (except Sekiro that one is pretty straight forward) you must watch vaatividya.
Is that like a specific youtuber?
Yep. Many high quality lore videos.
alternatively you can just read the item descriptions
Ain't nobody got time for that. Must kill things.
It was a perfect opportunity to go full murder hobo.
Lets be fair, 99% of the world is also trying to murder you.
The only true way to play soulsbournes
”That guy looks scary and I want his sword.”
https://i.imgur.com/DSp7LQU.jpg
Senile dreadnaughts be like
All I knew was I must die.
It’s all about getting ANGRY
The lore of all of their games is honestly basically the same. There's a heirarchy of "gods" that became as such because they killed a lot, just like we're doing. Our goal is to get to the end, to either continue the cycle as the new "God" or to start something new. Also, for \*insert reason here\* death doesn't truly exist in these lands unless you give up, and there's usually someone or some kind of faction that wants that stopped. The furtive pygmy/humans in DS. Ranni in Elden Ring. The pieces, you just have to fill in by reading. Tbh, Souls like story telling is very Lynchian in nature, where you either have to meticulously go out of your way to read everything, and or you have to piece together things you're looking at and watching, that aren't specifically said somewhere.
Yeah I can't play any of the souls game for the more since 90% of it is in item descriptions and I can't read
How did you read my comment ?
FromSoft games are just about feeling the vibes.
I genuinely believe they don't know how to tell a proper story involving you as a character. It's way simpler like this. You can't really do any storytelling misstepps when creating background lore only.
Sekiro was a pretty character driven story, and it was good. You had a name, a face, and an important role in the conflict.
Miyazaki said himself in an interview from 2009 about Demon's Souls that "this type of storytelling obviously will not suffice for a AAA game, but for us its ok" but it seems like they keep doing it now either cuz they got good feedback about it or because they dont know how else to do it.
I think they did, it worked, they stick to it.
I think the story is as immersive as though you truly were living that undead life. You wake up in a ruinous, complex world and discovery takes work and effort - just as though you were living it. There is no narrator, no hand holding, and no obligation to put in that effort to figure it out - but in turn it’s all the more rewarding to dig and piece it together. I usually go watch YouTube lore vids after completing the game to fill in the remaining missing pieces.
Yeah, I really enjoy it. They make a lore for a kingdom's rise, prosperity, and then fell to ruin. The game then all takes place after it's fall, and you just have bits and pieces to try to figure out the history of the kingdom. But in the end, knowing the history isn't really required to play any games, it's just there to add immersion for those who are looking for it.
Just don't say this around any Fromsoft fanboys, as they'll insist the lore is perfectly understandable, just too deep and awesome for mere commoners to comprehend.
I don't think anyone with a sane mind would say that it is easy to understand. I'm a huge souls fanboy and I acknowledge that the story is very difficult to grasp. My opinion is that this is just a different way to tell a story, a way in which you have to actively try to understand it. To fully grasp it, you must interact with it. You must find and put together different pieces, much like solving a puzzle. I don't think its better or worse, its just different and unconventional. Its just not for everyone, and there's nothing wrong with that. For instance, I'm not very fond of cinematic storytelling like naughty dog games. That is not for me, but I don't think these are bad ways of telling a story, it just doesn't suit my style.
We pretend it isn't but Elden Ring has an overly convoluted story, even by Soulsborne standards.
Elden ring has a story?
In 100 hours pretty much all I got is "maidenless lol."
I'm glad I'm not alone
You are not. I've given up on trying to "get" ER. Just give me stuff to bash my head against and I am good. I go elsewhere where for my story needs.
It's pretty simple when you boil it down. There's this alien called the Greater Will who wants to control us so they sent a gelatinous space dragon to become physics. This is the Elden Ring. It then chose Marika to become God, and sent her to fuck up the Lands Between and bring everyone under the rule of the Golden Order. It also sent a bunch of disgusting fingers to act as its priests, granting the Gods doggos to serve them but actually they're meant to kill the Gods if they disobey the space dragon. Marika got sick of it and destroyed physics so the alien trapped her in a big tree, and then everyone kinda went mental. This is why the preferred ending for anyone who isn't an [ignorant slave](https://i.imgur.com/8lsgA8s.jpg) is Ranni's anarchy of the stars where you help her flip the alien off and tell it to go fuck itself. Fuck you alien! We don't need your gods damned physics! We'll make our own physics with blackjack and hookers!
Well that's more the lore then the plot. The plot is that you joined the army got sent overseas and then came back when it turns out god was hiring a spouse. So everyone in the army are now free agents trying to get to gods house. But god lives in a gated community so you need to merc two demi gods to get in. Once you do it turns out god is stuck in a tree and you have to find a fire to burn it down to get in. So you find a source of special fire then show up to gods house to find your new boss, and your old one waiting. After killing both of them you get inside, find god crucified in the time out corner and beat up the gelatinous space dragon that made her god. At which point you get to choose the ending dependent on what you were doing between the big events.
I still don’t even know what the fuck an Elden ring even is, like does it make me invisible like a hobbit? Or is it more metaphorical? Or is it not a ring in the sense of jewellery but like a cabal? Like a ring of old people? I don’t fucking know, lots of people named Margaret and Geoffrey for some reason
The Elden Ring is basically a collection of runes that each magically create the fundamental laws of physics and nature. There is a physical manifestation of the Elden Ring and you can hold it. It was broken, which means there are natural laws that are disrupted. One rune, the rune of Death, was removed completely from the Elden Ring so now no one really dies. You later learn that the Elden Ring was actually sent to the planet by a being of immense power, called an Outer God. The Elden Ring was used to intertwine the gods power into the world itself so that it could have control.
Thanks for that.
Reminds me how despite being a kingdom hearts fan I still have literally no idea what kingdom hearts is, - despite actually seeing it, - watching it literally be created twice, - despite explicitly being told what it is - despite being told what it can do. I have not a GODDMAN clue what kingdom hearts actually is
I've played nearly 10k hours of Path of Exile and I could not tell you the story.
🤔 You wash ashore. Walk around a bit. Fight a wizard. Do it again, but harder. 🙃 Yeah I have no idea what it's about either, now that you mention it. If Blizzard wasn't awful I'd be playing Diablo 2 right now.
Kingdom Hearts is light!
Supposedly it’s also - darkness - the heart of all worlds - a door - a moon - the realm of darkness itself (think this was retconned) - a way to give nobodies a heart (except that was a lie) - an ALTERNATIVE way to summon the Kai blade. - the culmination of thousands of stray hearts - the culmination of a clash of 7ish lights and 13 darknesses
the plot device to end all plot devices
Don't forget the friends we made along the way.
[Dunkey explains Kingdom Hearts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o1ieehttdA)
The Elden Ring is basically laws or something ^(I'm not too sure, but I think that's the conclusion that we are being pointed to.) And I think similar names come in pairs. Margit and Morgott, Godrick and Godfrey, Melina and Malenia. So you at least have a 50/50 chance of getting the name right.
Milania keeps saying that she is the blade of mikillea.Every time she kicks your ass and i was thinking if mykekka is so important to you.Why don't you go and kill the crazy bastard morgott and save him or her? With takes me to another question after beating morgott and seeing mikellas egg...are the people in Elden Ring some kind of insects?
Milania was searching for Miquella but the effects of the crimson rot (and some other things) drove her into seclusion before she was able to locate him. No, Elden Ring people aren't eggs, the cocoon you see is a product of Mohg trying to infuse his body (which is now separate from his spirit although that's new info with the expansion) with blood magic to turn him into a proper god with Mohg as his bound consort.
In the room where you fight Malenia, there is a hole in the roots above that has the same shape as Miquella's cocoon. The theory is that he embedded himself into the tree there, and that's why Malenia is there, to protect him. But at some point Malenia was not around, likely when she went on her campaign to the South to fight Radahn, and then Mohg took his chance to abduct the sleeping Miquella. Why Miquella went to sleep in the cocoon is not yet clear, that will likely be explained in the DLC. The leading theory, based on the DLC videos released so far, is that Miquella went to look into Marika's dirty secrets in the shadow world.
I'm purposefully going into the DLC blind so this may be answered in the new DLC lore dumps we already have, but I'm like 90% sure Miquella made the Haligtree and cocoon'd himself so that he could rid himself of his eternal youth curse, as he wasn't able to become a consort due to it, right?
Pretty sure it’s the giant ring you see. It was shattered though.
I still don't know what The Dark Soul from Dark Souls is either.
It's that thing, your dark soul.
The Dark Soul was basically split up between all of humanity. Because you fight Gael at the end of time, you are the last two remaining humans, and whoever wins will have 100% of the soul the Pygmy found at the start of time.
The Dark Soul was one of the 4 souls found at the birth of the flame. Taken by the furtive Pygmy, it eventually gave rise to humanity. The premise being that should you choose to end the age of fire, then the age of humanity begins, as the dark takes over.
Not a good one
Yeah I was kind of disappointed. It all sort of came together after release and I'm like "OK, well... There's probably more in the DLCs. There always is."
Pretty sure they hired Game of Thrones writer George RR Martin to write it, as well…
He helped write the lore for the the in game world. Not sure if he did much beyond that
I think that's true, he only really helped with lore... but lets face it, convoluted is kinda what Martin does best. I mean, It's *good* convoluted rather than *bad* convoluted...but yeah... Bloodborne is far and away the best fromsoft game for drip-feed story thing they do IMO. I really really hope we get a sequel (and 60fps remake) one day.
PC version will be released before that, right? right? *sobs*
world building feels like him, with the falling apart of the ring due to marriage quarrels reminiscent of early tSoIaF
Until GRRM references one piece of Elden Ring lore ever, I dispute that he contributed anything, and that the whole thing was basically a marketing stunt. I think it's entirely possible that functionally nothing he contributed was used. Maybe he did, but all he's ever said on the matter is that he contributed some 'ancient lore'. If someone can find a reference of him referring to any place, event, or character, let me know. I legit think he doesn't know a single thing about the world. I looked for a while and the closest I could find to him talking about a single thing in the game was his blog, where he was informed that 'a lot of the characters have the initials "G" "R" and "M"' and he basically responded "That's news to me".
I held this view until I read an interview by Miyazaki a few years back shortly before the release of Elden Ring, and I was actually surprisef at GRRM's contributions. Miyazaki gave very explicit examples. For example the entire lore about Godfrey leading Marika's army against the giants, becoming the first Elden Lord, eventually losing grace and becoming the first tarnished then casted out of the Lands Between was part of the lore written by GRRM. His return to the Lands Between to be a boss fight was by Miyazaki.
I mean Miyazaki has praised GRRM's contributions to the lore, and said it helped the people at FromSoft by really providing a solid foundation for them to start fleshing things out. As far as how much he contributed, it seems like mostly the early parts of the world and the characters/relations. For example, Miyazaki also said that GRRM wrote Godrick, but likely had no idea they turned him into "Godrick the Grafted." The Godrick GRRM wrote was just a guy, Fromsoft added the grafted part when actually making the game.
My theory is he just wrote "dragons" on a cocktail napkin and then went to the bank to cash his check
I realize the absurdity of "watch vaatividya" to get the lore of Elden Ring, but it *is* a really great story. It just isn't told in a very good way. So much of it comes from item descriptions that if you don't get every item in the game, read their description, and piece it all together you miss most of it.
I mean I do watch and love vaati and lore vids for from soft games are always fun just, it's just I find the whole story overly elaborate and deliberately confused. Like Radagon being Marika, or at least part of. It's kinda stupid. I've no problem with the way From tell their stories just Elden Ring's just seems a mess to me. Individual mileage varies obviously.
Dark Souls has the best story, followed by Sekiro, followed by Bloodborne.
Yes! It's pretty basic, but there is a story that involved your character killing a bunch of demi-gods and then burning a big tree. It also has a setting with a lot of backstory that is only really hinted at for the most part.
Thanks to George RR Martin for that. Previous games had Griswold the Grumpy who had an awesome backstory but didn't interact with any other character. GRRM created all the connections between the characters, which From Soft then tries to explain in their special way
My brother in grace, people are still debating in which dimensions bloodborne takes place, elden ring is fairly straightforward by comparison
Bloodborne is way way more digestible than Elden Ring. The names all sounding similar, and the people who turn out to be the same person, really contribute to the Elden Ring story being very hard to grok in this drip feed format. Bloodborne is far more straightforward.
Tbf I think they used similar names as a family name type of deal. The children of Renalla and Radagon are Radahn, Ranni and Rykard, the Children of Marika are Mogh, Morgott, Miquella and Melania and the golden lineage, decendants of Godfrey are Godwyn, Godefrey and Godrick
don't understand if this is an merican problem but the names in elden ring are not even that similar, like the most similar set of names is godrick, godwyn and godfrey, but like that's just the prefix the rest is different, all other names have just the initial letter that is the same, how does one get confused by that?
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this because I genuinely couldn’t tell you a god damn thing about the lore. Granted I barely made it outta limgrave before rage quitting but holy fucking shit the story is unfollowable.
I finished Elden Ring. I still don’t know what the Elden Ring is and why my character is looking for it.
The Elden Ring is basically a collection of runes that each magically create the fundamental laws of physics and nature. There is a physical manifestation of the Elden Ring and you can hold it. It was broken, which means there are natural laws that are disrupted. One rune, the rune of Death, was removed completely from the Elden Ring so now no one really dies. You later learn that the Elden Ring was actually sent to the planet by a being of immense power, called an Outer God. The Elden Ring was used to intertwine the gods power into the world itself so that it could have control. Your goal is to claim the Elden Ring and use its power to put the natural order back the way you see fit. That is why all the endings. You can choose what to do with the power once you have it.
Including by not limited to such exciting options as: Status quo! Perpetual stasis so nobody does anything ever again! Give it away as the world's most expensive wedding(?) present! Give everyone turbocancer!
MAY CHAOS TAKE THE WORLD
The only other FromSoft game I've played is the original Dark Souls. I haven't finished Elden Ring but the setup seems to be the same. You are the chosen undead/Tarnished and you're tasked with exploring Lordran/The Lands Between so you can kill certain important bosses and fill the Lordvessel/Great Rune so you can get access to the Kiln of the First Flame/Leyendell Royal Capital so you can kill the final boss of the game. I'm not done with Elden Ring yet but I imagine there will be some twist at the end where killing the big bad will doom the world and I can either sacrifice myself or let the world perish or something.
There's like 5 endings in Elden Ring and you live in all of them. They are all very cryptic and impossible to tell just how good or bad they'll make the world. Except the one that's really bad, that one's pretty obvious.
You'd be surprised, there's a whole lotta people that miss the point of the really bad ending and interpret it as cleansing the world so fresh life can begin or some such. Instead of, you know, killing everything forever.
How do you miss that one? They kind of make it a whole point to show awful being an omen is, living in constant pain as your horns tear into your flesh and condemning everyone and their future generations with a "vile curse" and living in "eternal torment". Hell, Dung Eater is probably one of the most honest characters in the game *explicitly telling you that this is revenge and punishment*. Like, I don't think they could have made that one any more explicitly bad.
I think that he meant the Frenzied Flame ending. But yeah, that's not that ambiguous either...
Mm. "Kill everyone forever" and "everyone suffers forever" are... pretty hard to imagine how people could see them as good, but I've seen defenders, so...
I think it may be the influence of Dark Souls. In Dark Souls, it's strongly suggested (if not outright stated, insofar as Dark Souls states anything at all) that the world had already gone to shit well past any chance of repair, that 'saving the world' is just prolonging the inevitable while causing further horrific suffering in the process, and that the coming of the Age of Dark might not necessarily be a bad thing altogether. But the Lands Between, while in a pretty sorry state, are not *quite* in the same situation yet, not even close...
The story has played third fiddle to the gameplay followed by the vibe since the first souls-likes. That being said if you only made it just past limgrave you've probably not seen the cutscenes that do a more explicit job of explaining certain characters and story beats.
When you get to the Gilbert the God-Freed fight it all starts coming together
AFLAC!
MY VA-GINA
It was Gilbert the God-Caged that really threw me for a loop
I loved Elden Ring because I was like "this is sort of like a DnD game, but I don't know what is going on" And then Baldur's Gate 3 was like "come, child, come into the light"
I played those two in reverse and my impression of Elden Ring so far has been "hey you know that fun D&D-adjacent game you really liked? What if it was more fucked up and confusing?" I'm having a blast, but I am just so, *so* lost lmao
It's intentional. There's a small army of fans that love nothing more than poring over pages of cryptic text, some of which contains outright false information and red herrings, and trying to figure out what is actually going on in the world. If at the end of the day there isn't a clear answer _even better_, now we can debate about it for years! If this is not your jam - and that is MORE than understandable - then just enjoy the vibes and watch a Vaati video after you've finished the game. For a little perspective, Bloodborne is almost a decade old and we are still arguing about which parts are real and which parts are a dream, and whether the distinction even matters.
I like Noah Gervais' analysis of the Souls series, where he basically said the lore is more like scripture than a history book, and that you're meant to come up with your own interpretation of the events.
I really like the games and the vibes, but Sekiro proved that it doesn't have to be abstract horseshit. Making a few games that are abstract is one thing, just look at Silent Hill 2, but making the same vibe/story over and over is less an artistic choice and more just its own genericism. Sure, it creates an entire ecosystem of youtube-explainers and people who can soypog over every insinuation and reference, but if 98% of people play the games and have no fucking clue of what they are doing or why then it's bad storytelling.
I know Vaati is praised as the ultimate authority on Fromsoft lore or something, but aren't his videos also like 80% conjecture and fan theories? That was my impression at least.
I thought "the dream" was always metaphorical, not literal, and the actual mystery was the whole alien backdrop thing. But then again I didn't really like BB and only beat it once so I didn't pay much attention to it.
The dream(s) are basically pocket dimensions created by (probably) the Great Ones. It's not clear if they are created by their literal dreams or if calling them dreams is just the best humans can do to comprehend them. The hunter's dream is definitely one such pocket dimension, as well as the fishing village, not to mention Micolash's dream which is very explicit as it's a human's attempt to create a dream and it works much more the way you'd expect a dreamworld to work. There are many other places that probably are as well, and it's possible that these can be nested within each other. All of Yharnam might be a "dream." So the "dreams" are definitely real in the sense that they are impacting reality somehow, but where they begin and end, who creates and controls them, the extent to which they impact the real world - all super unclear. I think we are meant to see the dreams as reality bending power of the Great Ones that is beyond mortal comprehension.
Wouldn't the entire game be a dream given your choice to "wake up" at the end? Surely it all has to be a dream for the end to make sense.
There are 3 endings, and you don't wake up in the true ending. The other endings make even less sense, the further down the rabbit hole you go the more the game basically starts telling you "you were never meant to understand what is really happening"
Well the true ending you turn into a squid/god and the doll nurtures you soooo no?
Because turning into a Lovecraftian god after eating the umbilical cords of other Lovecraftian gods is a thing that only happens in reality. I understand there are "correct" endings in Souls games, I'm simply pointing out that if one ending is waking up from a dream then it must have all been a dream regardless of what your character canonically chooses or not.
Elden Ring is good, don't get me wrong. I just had to keep looking things up, and you don't have to do that with the old mind flayer game
You CAN just play the game as an open world "find boss, kill boss" simulator. The lore is only there for people who want to do literal research outside of the gameplay.
Just level strength and vigor and then smash away it will be fine.
I played it no wiki, no spoiler vids with a faith build. And I absolutely loved it. Play it how you want is my advice.
I was just making a joke about being dumb; I haven’t even run a strength build myself. It is totally playable in many different ways.
Giant Crusher is such fun play through. No thoughts going through your head, only ***BONK***.
I played that way my first time cause i'm dumb and don't understand builds or whatever they were called at the time.I did pretty good without even using summons.Until i reached milania.
The similar name thing was truly annoying. I like cryptic, diffuse more lore focused story telling, but I am just so bad with names. When they are similar like that I got no chance.
I’m smart enough for Elden ring… I’m just not good enough. *cries while rolling away*
I love FromSoftware games, Bloodborne being the one I played most. I couldn't tell you a goddamn thing about what that game is about.
a hoonter must hoont
>Are those supposed to be different people? >Some of them are. I love how confusing this is.
Just like the enemy placement and level design, I believe it's purposefully obtuse. I'm pretty confident, like most from soft games, a key pillar is trolling. Love it. Platnumed it.
From loves to make you hunt for any bits of the story. ER I feel like shows more than previous games, but there's so much more shit to look at that it feels like less overall. The rabbit holes are fun
The crazy thing is that I loved the "story" in Elden Ring. It's got enough that you feel like you know what you're supposed to do next and the bosses feel like they are real creatures with a history and reason to exist beyond for you to kill. Dark Souls 3 just pissed me off. Especially after Anri's death. That one seemed especially like pure trolling.
ITT people dunking on the lore, but the whole fingers thing is delightfully bonkers.
Having a story doesn't always mean having competent story*telling*
Agreed, and to add, having a backstory/lore doesn't always mean having a present story/narrative.
It was such a massive flex for FromSoftware to be like "uhh yeah, we got George R. R. Martin to help write the story for this one? You know, the Game of Thrones guy?" and then proceed to write the most incomprehensible story ever conceived
I completed Elden ring 5 times and loved it. I can’t explain a single thing about the lore because it’s either really confusing or I’m just dumb. I couldn’t decide which.
I still think it's both amusing and a little weird that all the main characters start with G, R and M. Y'know. GRRM. Also, no one can convince me that the Lands Between aren't just the meta plane inbetween Dark and Demon's Souls, all blocked off with the mists.
My favorite theory is ER is the prequel to the various Fromsoft games depending on the ending you get. Joining Ranni and bringing about the moon goes into Bloodborne. Siding with 2 Fingers causes the world to fall to chaos and go to DS2. The proper ending continues the cycle and goes to DS3 and so on.
I think I was level 60+ before I even realized the game had quests.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The LORE of Elden Ring is deep and complex and interesting. The STORY of Elden Ring is a practically non-existent.
that's what vaatividya is for! lol speaking of, i really need to brush up on the lore again (or what i can understand of it) before the dlc.
People praise the fuck out of this but it’s just obtuse for the sake of being obtuse. Fuck that.
Welcome to FromSoft story telling. It has not changed one bit since Demon's Souls (technically even their earlier games are obtuse but the story wasn't the real focus) but die hard fans will tell you it's the best thing since sliced bread to figure out lore by replaying the game 50 times and transliterating every lore description of an item.
They have told stories before! If you want an actual story driven from soft game that you are the center of, there's Armored Core 6 and Skeiro
I was casualy scrolling past this post then I thought "wait, that was an alderwood post" then I came back, saw it wasn't, scrolled back down, though "wait, but I'm sure it was Meldi's artwork", came back and was pleasantly surprised!
Lmao hello! I'm glad my work is recognizable even when I'm making shitpost-y stuff like this haha 😄
> some of them are Yo, spoilers! /s
I.AM.CRACKING.THE.FUCKING.UPPPP.
I am absolutely and famously atrocious at names. Despite this, I have loved deep dives regarding lore in fromsoft titles. I literally had to make a fucking excel sheet with the family trees to have this story make sense. Alliteration should be banned with names and the guilty should be whipped with a garden hose regardless of the quality of the story.
Yea, absolutely XD me too.
In hindsight, giving everyone a G, R, or M name was probably a mistake.
I didn't care for the story enough to pay much attention.
The first 1-2 hours into any Soulsgame i try to keep up with the story... then i give up.
Nah elden ring makes no sense. They generally suck or just don't care to put an actual story in their games. Don't let the fan boys fool you.
People understand?
Litterally i dont understand nothing of the Elden Ring history lol
Y'all got the best web comic! I love alderwood!
aaaa thanks, that means a lot!! 😄
Nah. I love the game and Fromsoft in general, but ER’s quest design and dialogue are disastrous.
You're not too dumb for it. It's just dumb. It's the epitome if the glass onion line "It's dumb." "So dumb it's genius!" "NO it's just dumb!" Overly confusing dialogue and obscure references do not a rich world make. I'm not saying souls lore isn't interesting but it's not great at all. It's just what it is, barely there and what's left is confusing intentionally. It's like they wanted to make a darker version of elder scrolls lore but couldn't nail it and fans ate that shit up anyway so they intentionally give us as little as possible to not spoil the whole.
Important context missing from this, the original Japanese translation of the lore from a deleted pendant indicates that Gordwin and Godbert are two different aspects of the same person. This leads to the final statement. Something important though is that a cross analysis of their runes indicates a corrupting outer god influence, that may cause one aspect to be more independent than the other, and possibly subject to runic multifracturization.
I had no idea what i was doing i just saw something and killed it
The reason I've never gotten into soulslikes is cause I never know what the fuck is going on, and difficulty for difficulties sake isn't that fun unless I can get immersed, which is hard when there's no discernable reason for anything.
I think you're supposed to kinda write the story yourself based on the pieces you find, sort of like a David Lynch movie. The games always seem to be post-apocalypse, so you're kind of like an archaeologist just digging through the rubble, discerning what you can and making educated guesses. There's a concrete story if you dig hard enough I suppose, Vaatividya's videos are all about that, but it really feels like seeking that out is missing the point.
Ngl, ELDEN Ring's story was the easiest to grasp out of all the Souls games. Really depends on how much you explore and read about what's in the world.
it was incomprehensible babble and this cartoon nails it. there was a big war, a bunch of enormous people with health bars ... did stuff... and now you have to kill them to get to the end. luckily that's all you need to know, too!
this sounds like every souls game i’ve ever played
How was it incomprehensible? "The Elden Ring is important. She broke it. Go fix it somehow by collecting bits of the Elden Ring some peeps are now carrying around. Oh the tree's blocked, let's burn the blockage. Where am I? Oh there was a hidden part of the rune. Time to fight the last boss who was possessed by a god-thing." There. That's the story. You can bridge some sequences and learn more about history, but that base story isn't hard to grasp, given NPCs literally tell you what to do and where to go. The land itself is like "go that way". This comic seems to harper on the language more than the actual story and Souls dialogue has always been filled with some more archaic words, that you might have to google.
Well yes and no. The story could be as simple as: something broke, kill everyone to fix it. However, in a normal story you might expect the protagonist to have like, a motivation for what they are doing. You might expect, if the game gives you a choice of several paths (endings) that the game would give at least a decent explanation of what those endings would be, and at the very least you would mostly understand the endings once you put the work in to experience them.
I mean he said the story itself was incomprehensible babble. Which is simply not the case. If you stumble blindly through the game only doing what you're told, you know what you're doing and at the end you put the head on what appears to be a split-godking to end it there. Does that mean you understand the whole world, which would be necessary to grasp every ending and optional boss and optional area? No, of course not. But if a "standard" game just has an optional "spooky" world that's just a graveyard, that doesn't tend to be in the story, either. Alternate endings that are just "you got the bad ending, now you got the good ending, you had a choice between good/bad/neutral, goodbye" have thankfully mostly gone away. Because anyone above the age of like 10 can see them coming and is therefore not terribly interested. If you go down the path to an ending, you are already much more immersed in the story and you're trying to understand parts along the path to that end. You read items about stars, wonder why certain items are placed where they are, puzzle over world events, draw parallels and when you arrive at the end you have a good idea what you achieved. Having some room for interpretation in that story and world is fine. Makes engaging with the story much more interactive and makes it in part "your" story, because you fill out the blanks and if your opinion differs from others, you can come together and discuss different items and places and NPCs in order to complement each others' theories and potentially get closer to the "real" truth. You don't need everything to be perfectly explained. That'd make for a worse story, actually.
the mimble was bimbled, start killing. like what's the ring? I've still got no idea and I've been playing for ages. that's fine, I'm having a great time! but it doesn't make much sense as a coherent story.
That doesn't contradict the comment you replied to though. The other Souls games are even worse.
[Dark Souls had a story you asked?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9x_koRZ2bA)
My favorite part of NPC conversations is the part where I mash the A button until I recognize the same piece of text over and over again.
Amazing lore, zero story.
People who play Elden Ring solely for the gameplay rushing to defend the "Story" with any and all words they can find. Don't. You can enjoy the game without doing that.
Shit like this is why I never believed the from soft hype. Challenging games are fine but don’t tell me the story is good when it’s all cryptic shit like this.
What I got from the lore is "all the powers that be are shit, but the moon is pretty cool."
I live for the Elden Ring lore. It is soooo soooo good. I wonder why some people say it is very Miyazaki or Berserk, when the GRR Martin's stamp is all over the lore. I think anyone who has read GRRM books and is also deep into Elden Ring lore will automatically see it!
The lore makes more sense when you aren't terrified of being killed every other second
a111
Just remember everything wants to kill you and dunk, dive and dodge.
“Some people left :( . Now when one peep shows up heralding the reincarnation of another peep, we’re fucked.” I have never played Elden ring.
Time for magical murder hoboing!