What PISSES me off about ELDEN RING story and worldbuilding

Be sure to check out CAMPFIRE WRITING for awesome worldbuilding recourses: www.campfirewriting.com/write...
It's only because Elden Ring is SO good that I'm annoyed so much.
My novel, Shadow of the Conqueror Audio Book affiliate links:
US: www.audible.com/shadbrooks
UK: www.audible.co.uk/shadbrooks
CA: www.audible.ca/shadbrooks
AU: www.audible.com.au/shadbrooks
Ebook, Paperback and Hardcover available from most major book retailers, here are a few of the main ones:
Amazon affiliate link (be sure to navigate to your country's amazon site):
amzn.to/2XErUaR
Barnes and Noble:
www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shad...
Kobo:
www.kobo.com/au/en/ebook/shad...
If you like the content and want to support the channel, you're welcome to do so through patreon or subscribe star:
/ shadiversity
www.subscribestar.com/shadive...
Awesome Shirts and chainmail print clothing: teespring.com/en-GB/stores/sh...
Visit Calimacil for the best replica foam swords and LARP weapons: calimacil.com?aff=38
Buy my sword IMPERIOUS from Calimacil: calimacil.com/products/imperi...
Come check out my new channel KNIGHTS WATCH: / @knightswatch
Community run discord server: / discord
My official website: www.shadmbrooks.com/

[@shadiversity]

To be clear, it's because Elden Ring's worldbuilding and story are SO GOOD that I'm pissed off that it couldn't even give me enough of a taste, in the game itself, to make me invested, which it could have easily done because the story is incredible. Instead, that bare minimum has been purposefully obscured and hidden by the developers. If it wasn't this good, I wouldn't have cared. Also, not my first souls game, just the first I liked so much to bother looking into the story.

[@fisheyes9744]

I just rely on VaatiVidya and others to do the work in knowing the the lore for me XD

[@yourdad5799]

Well that makes things a little more clearer. Most people will think he's doing all this for the attention

[@Nico_Write]

Don't worry Shad, don't let the radicals get into you.

[@davidenriquez4582]

I believe either they are holding some important story information for a potential dlc or for the future sequel. They done it with the dark souls series by revealing important parts of the story on each game until the last one. It honesty doesn’t bother me since it gives us enough to speculate and theorize since the design of the story is meant for you to think and come up for what you believe the story is. Is not really for everyone which is ok. Edit: there’s also item description that could help you understand the story a bit more but of course it requires interpretation, npc dialogue, environmental story understanding etc( again not for everyone)

[@etolanleyvon8277]

I glad you said this cuase I was legitimately questioning if you were ever going to say something positive about any modern form of media ever 😆.

[@twistanturnu529]

Yall think this is bad? The Kirby fandom been reading developer miiverse messages for context for years lol

[@ETHANR26]

Kirby on top tho. didn't even know there was story

[@anderkid1090]

At least Kirby doesn’t give the impression of an underlying story (for the most part)

[@eurasiaacaci.-110]

Theres actually a story? what?

[@lolface_9363]

The thing is you don’t need to read the deep Kirby lore to have a complete story to be told

[@totallynotthebio-lizard7631]

I thought moo verse was shut down

[@LightzerB]

For me, the promise of meeting a character named "the Loathsome Dung Eater" was enough motivation to get far enough I learned the lore

[@thelaughingman4791]

based and dungpilled

[@lonelypancake5979]

@@thelaughingman4791 fuuuuuck you already said it

[@Levigumba]

Most people

[@piusdoe8984]

Are you OK 😆

[@bradeye1133]

Chad

[@emoharalampiev1590]

lol love how Oz is like "she's Malenia, don't confuse her with Melina" when he literally switched around the two and confused them XD

[@TheOnlyFin]

FromSoft worlds are broken, dying, or dead. You come in at the end of a story. Almost everything of note that would happen or could happen has already happened. These games are more like archeological dig sites. People who know and expect this are thrilled to pick up every new item. Read each boss remembrance, hunt down NPCs for long disjointed quests. That's what a FromSoft game is, and that's how it is meant to be taken in. I think it's great that people read the lore in the game, aggregate it, and share it for the less patient or the folk who don't enjoy doing so. You may like to look at the skeleton of a T-Rex, but you might also not like digging up the skeleton of a T-Rex. I would not then say "you should just be able to see the T-Rex, none of this digging it up nonsense." My friend and I spent well over 100 hours in the game on our first playthroughs. Reading, sharing, and building out what happened in this world. It was one of the most enjoyable experiences in a video game I've ever had. If someone just sat down and read me the lore I might be entertained for 20 minutes, but building it up over 3 weeks (and even still finding new things) has been a one of a kind experience. PS: Since you mentioned some specific instances of needing to look outside of the game for the lore, I thought I'd share where it is located plainly in game. Miriel "Turtle Pope" tells the full story of Rennala and Radagon's tragic love in game at the Church of Vows (he also hints at the huge twist and reveal you didn't quite say but clearly know about Radagon). Gideon, the All Knowing, found at the Roundtable Hold, tells you detailed information about each "Shardbearer". Where to find them, what the location is like, and what each Shardbearer is like. Lastly, Melina can be talked to at Churches of Marika fairly often. Sit at the Grace and she will share the words of Marika with you in place of the guidance of real maiden. - an Elden Ring fan who watched to the end

[@music79075]

Bro. fantastic comment. Gonna remember that archaeology comparison cause it's 100 percent spot on.

[@Halcyon1997]

@@music79075 yes! This is the way

[@ArthaxtaDaVince777]

People are so used to being spoon fed information, Soulsborne literally broke their brains and quoting one douche "makes it 100% awful." So Elden Ring had to be like every other western fantasy, Witcher 3, Assassin's Creed, etc... Give me a break. Soulsborne story telling is actually refreshing in a sea of dogshit fantasy RPGs. And in the end, once it's all pieced together, Elden Ring will have a MUCH deeper, much more detailed story, which would produce dozens of Vattividya videos.

[@theMindwalker]

Well said, about entering these games at the end of the story. I was going to reply with something similar, but you nailed it.

[@ms6534]

To follow your analogy? The game doesn't even tell you that you're looking for dinosaur bones. It doesn't tell you it's a dig site. It doesn't tell you that you're an archeologist. You don't get any motivation for the story. It's just beat the boss, because it's there to beat. You explore the world to find the things that will let you get stronger to beat the next boss.

[@DeffinetlyNotMcMaywen]

shad apparently never talked much to Ofnir the all knowing in the round table hold as he tells you about Rennalas backstory as well as the other shard barrers and their general locations.

[@jornavyr2459]

I have the feeling that Shad doesn't interact with the NPCs much at all.

[@deadrot990]

His FIRST playthrough ended after the first dungeon (ie tutorial area). His SECOND too, after he got the spready thingy magic and was done. I pray NO ONE takes his opinion seriously, because this is an advertisement for the segment sponsor.

[@None-lx8kj]

@@deadrot990 If no one cares about his opinion, why are you so unbelievably visibly butthurt over it?

[@joseteves1457]

@@None-lx8kj where is the butthurt, he pointed out how shad just stopped playing

[@Matt-dn5jc]

@@None-lx8kj Now why would someone be mad about an ignorant opinion but also say people shouldn't take said opinion seriously? Quite the conundrum.

[@ThomasHermJr]

The way i like to describe From Soft games is that they don't have -stories-, they have deep lore. Stories are actively played / told. Lore is background knowledge. From Soft isnt a story based dev by my definition; they're a lore based one.

[@Edemynag]

The only story of any of these games is basically the adventure of your character. What did you do and see and experience. You are the story. And sometimes you read everything and meet characters and do things with them. Sometimes you don't. The story is different every time. And through those experiences, the world is colored differently depending on what you choose to do.

[@Leonhart_93]

Sure, sure. But that lore is not even complete. Even if detective players put together all the pieces of information there are still deep holes in it. It's actually annoying not knowing for sure what happened.

[@Edemynag]

@@Leonhart_93 just like actual history. We can never know the full story because we weren't there. And different characters have different takes on events. And in terms of actual history the narrative is constructed from primary and secondary sources, often with historians bickering about events and details. This is something GRRM does in the ASOIAF novels because each chapter is from the perspective of a specific character, so you only get a piece of what is happening and you have to figure out what really happened when you have differing accounts of the same events. It's done in all these games intentionally so we can speculate and share our theories based on things we find in the games. It's not given entirely because it's supposed to be a mystery to be uncovered by us sharing our thoughts with each other. In the original Dark Souls, you upgraded your weapons with titanite. In the images of each type of titanite, runes (like Nordic runes) were inscribed on them. Someone just recently figured out that when pieced together, each different piece of titanite spelled out an actual message when put together. The game is over ten years old. That being said, and in light of patches coming out putting content back into the game, you may be right that some of it is missing. It is more likely that it simply needs to be discovered. Either way I prefer it this way. It's like piecing together remnants of a lost civilization, trying to see if Atlantis or Troy really existed. When it's all spelled out there is nothing to really think about if it's known for certain. That's just me though, and regarding these games specifically. I do enjoy traditional narratives, but after years of the same old same old, I really enjoy immersing myself in the unknown and trying to figure it out myself. Sorry for the rant.

[@sirrealism7300]

@@Leonhart_93 this must be your first souls game lol.

[@willothewisp4939]

There are stories in the npcs and in the tales you hear of eg: Alva the Wayfarer, Solaire, Hawkwood the Deserter

[@jubuli2440]

Shad, it’s literally stated in the intro how the elden ring shattering effects the world. The great runes from the ring were taken by the demigods, who had a massive war of succession over how gets to keep all the ring’s great runes. It’s LITERALLY stated in the intro cinematic, right after the elden ring was shattered, this is bare minimum storytelling.

[@chadnorris8257]

This kind of reminds me of the Metroid Prime trilogy. There's all kinds of lore that you can find and read, if you care about the story, but it's also easy to ignore if you just want to play the game and shoot everything that moves.

[@Kspice9000]

Good comparison.

[@corruptedmichael]

This is the exact reason I love the souls series, metroid and subnautica, great world building, atmosphere and lore that YOU discover. It's so refreshing compared to modern hand holding games. Oh Tunic is also like this if not more elusive in its lore

[@YadraVoat]

_Timespinner_ is like that as well. ^_^

[@thejack5952]

That is YOUR type of playstyle. Not everyone is YOU. Not being rude, but making a point.

[@beircheartaghaistin2332]

@@thejack5952 He didn't actually state 'his play style', you're kind of just assuming it. As you said, not being rude, just making a point.

[@pluviasalutor1290]

I can say that Rennala's story can be learned by finding an npc in a location called the Church of Vows, in Liurnia. He tells you almost everything. I'm not that far in the story so I can't say anything for other lore bits. I found it by exploring the entire Liurnia area before heading inside the Academy.

[@r3dp9]

Talked to the dog. Something something tried to bring back a dead someone, something something went crazy. Then I killed her in a boss fight (twice? Was it the same person both times? Idk) and now she's my friend. Uhm. I'm still confused.

[@AlessFD]

I found the church after beating rennala...

[@michaelhuit]

@@r3dp9 The dog goes into more detail about her and the previous Elden Lord.

[@Dennis-ux8hd]

@@r3dp9 I love you guys for using dog as the name of it😂

[@johntaviuslong699]

If actually progress through her story and find the miniature doll that she leaves behind you have to pick it up and when you visit a grace it'll have an option to talk to her doll. If you continue to talk to her doll she'll go more in depth about her backstory that's how I learned about it

[@legofreak9746]

In regards to the naming of the "Elden Ring", it may be interesting to know that the game was originally supposed to be called "Great Rune". The Golden Order in contrast to the Elden Ring or the Greater Will is something like an "Interpretation" of the Runes in the Elden Ring. As in you have these different runes, letters, but you can still combine them in different ways and read them in a different way.

[@shadiversity]

Interesting, I guess it makes sense that I don't conceptualise the complete rune as a ring. The Elden Rune would have made more sense but perhaps they really did want The Lord of the Rings similarities to be more evident.

[@patriciusvunkempen102]

i think ELdenring sounds like something that that sells better it is essentualx mixing ELDERscrolls, with lord of the RINGs

[@joebailey8294]

“Elden” also translates to “from the hand” in Turkish. Might explain some of the hand/finger imagery

[@robertminnie782]

@@shadiversity Might also just be that "Elden Ring" sounds cooler than "Ye Big Olde Rune" lol.

[@zelex55]

@@shadiversity this may sound dumb, but i think its like bubbles. they exist in natural detergent because its a molecule that bonds to both fat and water. so the most efficient way of doing it ends up forming a sphere/bubble/ring. Maybe i havnt gotten far enough in but the elden ring doesn't seem to be a strictly physical thing but conceptual. also its Elden because as far as i'm aware it existed before the current era.

[@ryuuronin9852]

Ironically, yes there are some scenes with Melina explaining some lore. It's usually about Marika specifically and not a ton on the other bosses. But the rough part is, you only get that at certain sites of Grace (usually the churches), and it's an option on it's menu, so it's very easy to miss. Gideon and the occasional item description was mostly how I kept up with the characters and what their deal was.

[@takashi-lee3943]

I think this really comes through in the side stories Like if you don’t follow a tutorial good luck finding where Millicent goes for her quest Like after she leaves Calid good luck finding her on a random hill, she’s also not that easy too see there either And after she goes to the tree there’s a good chance you won’t even see her summon sign because you have to reload the area after if you kill the worm thing

[@Chronuz]

Spot on. The places where she is found can't be naturally inferred by the player. Most NPC quests were like this which really annoyed me trying to play blind without looking stuff up. In the end I just said fuck this I'm looking it up.

[@erlm595]

I dont like questmarkers, but a questlog with good location descriptions so you can find out those spots by yourself with the map, or asking npcs you meet on the way or something, or some other fun elements would also work, like a clear description on the location that is near a main story path so you can easyly find it when you see it...

[@LarryJ602]

I'm probably wrong with this, but this is how I've interpreted EVERY From Software game. It's all POV, you're the character and you've been reincarnated from the dead. But upon being reincarnated you are cursed with an unrelenting desire to accomplish a task, to achieve a goal. You don't know what's driving you, or what's causing you to have this desire. So you have 2 choices. 1 is to dig into everything you encounter and reveal why you have this need to do something you don't understand. 2 Just say to hell with it and get to the thing that drives you. Be it tarnished, ashen one, hunter, or whatever else. You've been awakened from death and NEED to accomplish something. It's all you can think about, it's what you need to be complete. No amount of deaths, obstacles, or lack of knowledge can stop you. You just have to determine if you want or need to know why. I'm not saying that's good storytelling, I'm not saying it's bad storytelling. I'm saying it's an interesting way to not make it a "story," but a way to put a player in a POV that makes the experience as to how you want it as if it really happened to you. It's not a "story" it's a POV experience.

[@An.Unsought.Thought]

I agree with this. I think most people who enjoy how these games are right now, are not even remotely hung up on "storytelling"; they don't see the game as telling you a story. Just that the story is baked into the world and you can choose whether or not you want to learn more about the world. Much like an archeologist chooses to learn more about our world and the history that came before us.

[@piketheknight2581]

damm boy your comment is underrated

[@TheThigh]

To be fair, the game starts with an exposition cutscene. All of the games do except Bloodborne. A commenter below said the game relies on you to be invested in the world, but each souls game had a hook that invested you in the world and therefore its lore. In Demon souls you were bound to the nexus and tasked by the monumental. In Dark souls Oscar asks you to ring the bell of awakening with his dying breath. In Bloodborne you are thrown into the turmoil of the night of the hunt. In Sekiro you’re driven to find Kuro once he’s taken. In Elden ring there’s nothing. That draw to exploration is powerful, but it only lasts so long, and it doesn’t help when you’re pulled in so many directions by the open world. Personally, i only became invested in the world when i started Ranni’s questline; my character was given a purpose and companions that shared it. That was 30 hours in. Why not have Renna initiate a covenant with the player at the church of Elleh and urge the player to make their way to Ranni’s tower by marking it on the map? Why not have a handful of interactions like that? The map is criminally underused in npc questlines in the game, even with patch 1.03.

[@ArvelDreth]

You're actually spot on.

[@carlosanthony4972]

This is wrong in each of the games in the starting cutscene you are given you a reason for wanting to accomplished the final goal of the game. For instance in Dark Souls 1 the initial cutscene establishes that you are an undead who has been imprisoned and then Oscar gives you a key to help you escape. While you're trying to escape Oscar gets mortally injured and asks you to ring the two bells of Awakening. Now if you choose to ignore every other aspect of the story that is the motivation that will get you through to the final boss. Bloodborne opening cutscene establishes that you are an outsider in the city of Yharnam looking for pale blood. Elden Rings opening cinematic establishes that the Elden ring has been shattered and that the demigods have each taken a piece of it and that you're on a quest to put it back together and become the Eldon Lord.

[@Writh811]

I feel like the problem here is a difference of expectation. Fromsoft isn't telling you the story of Elden Ring, you are playing your character's story. That means you only know what they know, and as you gain new things you learn new things. You don't need to know what the Elden Ring truly is at the start because you have to learn what it is. You are experiencing the story from your own perspective in Fromsoft games, which is why there is little to no response from you character in conversations. Basically, when you "talk" to an NPC it is up to your imagination to fill your side of the conversation. In one of my playthroughs I went for a specific ending involving a certain yellow fire. To complete that ending you have to give an NPC an item that when you read what it is, it should really have you asking yourself why your character gave them such a thing. And then why did they do it 3 more times. In my case, my head cannon was that my character was a mad man, prone to acts of sadism and cruelty. That he gave this person this thing without them realizing what it was and he was just quietly laughing at them the whole time over emoting in front of them and making obscene gestures as this blind person bears their soul. Mad Jack (My character) is also compelled by voices which is what guides him more than the grace and what leads him to his true master. My first character was just a warrior who did as he was told following the two fingers. He was lost and confused but opted to maintain his loyalties to the old status quo that had rejected, perhaps in hopes of being a part of it once things had blown over. Even as he happened upon dangerous knowledge and at time mistakenly aided those who would take advantage of his naïve nature, he stayed the course. In the end he was a great warrior but no true Lord just a dog being lead on a leash. And a Lord who can only be lead will not have the power to unify a broken world. Fromsoft gave me the world, I had to make these characters. Each time I learn something new I can have a character that starts with a bit more specific information in their backgrounds. But not everything that is going on in Elden Ring is relevant to their stories. And some of the things you feel are a given to the "ELDEN RING STORY" is actually esoteric knowledge to the greater population in world, you shouldn't know and should have to search for it if you want it to be part of YOUR character's story. For those who aren't use to Fromsoft games this can be jarring but their intention is that each playthrough is a unique story and they are just giving you the setting. The weapons and magic and allies you use along with the lore you've collected create your character's identity and story. My next playthrough I focused more on a Grim Reaper style character and he started out knowing quite a few esoteric things as it was crucial to making his character make sense given his magic. But he was blissfully unaware of the greater workings of the Frenzied Flame. This is a method of storytelling that can only really be executed in video games so it will clash with Book/Theater/Film based storytelling logic that has been established for so long.

[@DoctorProph3t]

Sure that works for my character, what about me? In Fallout New Vegas, the lore dumps are a choice. The dialogue options tend to be of a vaguely confused or ignorant nature, but this isn’t the default state. It’s players choice. Your character can be already knowledgeable on the goings on in the Mojave and ignore asking those questions, or they can be a foreigner, or even suffer amnesia from the two bullet shots, and then their curiosity or ignorance is natural. Bonus; not all NPC lore dumps are the same. Every one has a differing opinion on the state of things, without being vastly different to the point of contradiction, which to me at least compels me to ask other NPCs what their take is, and that is one way to splice worldbuilding with storytelling in a game. Dynamic dialogue.

[@janisir4529]

If that were truly true, every NPC should have a dialog option where your character asks "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ON ABOUT" and the NPCs should keep trying to explain it in more and more simple terms, until they get annoyed and attack you.

[@Writh811]

@@DoctorProph3t Look man I don't know what to tell you. This has literally been their story design philosophy this whole time. Miyazaki and From have explained as much when talking about Dark Souls story in the past. You can say "But this game did it this way" all day but the truth is when I walk into a place people don't great me with their life story and deeper motivations and that is how From games treat it. People are secretive and guarded. Information is horded and often most folks are looking to manipulate us so why would they give us the whole story. For all the "the story is hidden" it is in your inventory. You wanna know about everything in Raya Lucaria, go there fight them pick up their armor, weapons, and spells. Read the text you so dearly want in your inventory between personal adventures. Vaati, Ziostorm, Lorehunter and all the rest aren't doing magic to find this info. It isn't like you have to know some code. Play the game and read item descriptions. It is all the game, even the stuff Shad has bemoaned is only in tweets. That info is there just worded differently, rather than the tweet saying Margit's birth was a fell omen his name says it. Items talk about Omens and what they are. You don't NEED to know what the physical form of the Elden Ring is, it changes nothing you will still go there and still do the thing you are going to do. Knowing about Radagon is meant to be a surprise twist, a twist he says was unforeshadowed but if you talk to the Turtle Pope in the Church of Vows they give you a heads up about it (look an NPC even said the words to you). I'm not sure if either reply to my comment is a Dark Souls player and I can only assume not given the discussion but if you are. Imagine if you know the Link of fire was a sham off the top. If you knew "they fate of the undead" right away. If you knew the root of the curse. There would be nothing to discover and the aetherial lore that draw a lot of extra fans in after the initial release would not exist. It would be a real straight forward dull experience because From fans know a big part of these games is trying to find out "what the heck is going on" Like a detective or archeologist.

[@Writh811]

@@janisir4529 How many NPC's in Elden Ring have you met that knew hidden info and were actually straight with you or demonstrated an honest form of respect towards you. The nice and forthcoming NPC's don't know much beyond themselves and there are plenty that smile in our face and later die by our hand. Elden Ring is not Skyrim or Fallout, it doesn't have charm or charisma for chatting people up. When you play any From ARPG part of the game is actually figuring out what is going on and being in a position of a social pariah. You are either new to the area that doesn't like strangers or recently come home after too long and are usually not just at the bottom of the social totem pole, you are often treated more of a free roaming slave caste or an ex-con that nobody has forgiven in these games. So the people in the game only talk to you when it is useful to them.

[@janisir4529]

​@@Writh811 Ye, well, it'd be really useful for the NPC, if they gave instructions on what they expect the player to do in a manner where they can understand it without looking it up on KZbin. Screwing over someone and screwing over someone in a way that hurts your own interests too are not the same.

[@Zaney_]

About the whole renala story, the pope turtle literally explains everything you need to know about her in the church of vows in liurnia. I know its a big place but if you at least visit all the interesting looking architectures that are present on the map, you'll not miss it. the night of the black knives and that whole story is connected to an npc questline. There are info/lore dump characters, the story trailer tells you important lore. I'm sure the eventual dlcs will also provide a lot more insight. I'll give a few examples, the obvious is sir gidion offnir who tells us the story about all the demigods. But at sites of grace you can talk to melina your companion(the lady who gives you the ability to level up) she tells you the what happened in the past as the words of queen marika's still linger. its not all at once but you do get giving a good amount of the story as you progress the game and find generally major sites of grace, especially in churches of maria which have her statue(they're visible on the map so you can't say you missed them if you know what they look like) about said spoilers about discovering. You can buy an incantation called law of regression and if you talked to the pope turtle he tells you something about the statue of radagon in the capital and there's a message in front of the statue that gives you a hint. I was able to put it together, i can see that not everyone will be able to if they don't find the npc or just don't ever talk to it. And you find out about the whole nature of queen marika when you fight the final boss!. You also learn from npcs that marika is imprisoned in the tree because she shattered the elden ring. that's the big reveal and all the dots start connecting in your head then you do a second playthrough and you start seeing more and more revelations and realizations. That's the feeling what i love about from soft games. To the actual crux of the whole video, the way i look at it is the same way our world's history is, we don't know everything. Us humans pieced it together and i think that's the same intent is you go out and you become an archeologist of sorts and learn the history of the world. Like if you the individual was thrown into the world of elden ring and told to go on a massive quest and being told and sent off on this misleading quest to fix the elden ring and all the details are withheld from you because you're a tarnish, you're to do what you're told without asking and you should feel honored for being able to experience the guidance of grace. I hope i'm making sense here. I felt like i understood a lot of the game's lore when i revisited it for a second playthrough and learning to appreciate everything again after getting the full picture. This is all how i enjoyed playing their game but i know its not how everyone enjoys it. Also also, They have a character literally named morgott like morgoth. The Lord of rings is everywhere if you know what you're looking for lol

[@toughfff712]

I agree, the main storyline is very hidden. I think I have been paying attention, but I am not even sure why I am trying to become an Elden Lord. As far as I can tell, I woke up, someone said to do something, and decided to kill everyone.

[@dakwonju]

People are biased. They love a game and they will find ways to defend it and then develop biases so that they can justify why a game is designed a certain way. It's super lopsided and the critical viewpoint is missing. They have a hard time taking a step back and having a more objective birdseye view. This game clearly could have revealed the story in a more compelling and natural way through a playthrough, while at the same time still giving bits of lore through further investigation that enriches it, but it doesn't. I couldnt give a crap about why I was fighting all these bosses.

[@freewyvern707]

The flame of your ambition. There really isn't a grand reason in Elden Ring. You are taking advantage of a power gap, and with the help of Melina and Torrent, you are seeking that power. Those two have their own reasons, but yours begins pretty much with give the ambition of power. The player, however, has a lot of power to expand itm

[@NanashiSaru]

The story is so badly communicated I just think I'm Travis Touchdown trying to be number 1 killing all bosses. From Soft is so pretentious in their storytelling

[@evacody1249]

@Nanashi fromsoft fans are like fans of Event Horizon. They play in the case of Event Horizon watch it and think they are smarter than any one else. I mean Event Horizon is not good horror or Sci fi.

[@TheTinyTimmyTimTim]

This hidden way of story telling works in some of their properties like Bloodborne where the game is essentially a cosmic horror mystery. It doesn’t work in elden ring because there is 0 reason for any character in this world to be as secretive and withholding as they are.

[@YetiCoolBrother]

I have not watched a single lore video on Elden Ring, currently in the final area and I feel very confident I could explain what has happen in the story up to now starting from The Night of Black Knives. Granted, my story through the game will be different from yours because it depends on the path you took, who you spoke to, who you killed, etc. but it is definitely there.

[@ArdalanKian]

And that’s beautiful! It really hits the nail on the head when it comes to immersion because the story you experienced will be very different from another adventurer

[@zeening]

exactly, he 100000% didn't explore at all probably beelined through the game trying to rush Oz or something stupid and obviously got impatient and wanted the lore NOW and just went and watched a vaati vid and then made an hour long video bitching about making that choice.... like WTF does he think vaatividya is getting his info from? uhhhhhhh THE GAME... the same place shad is saying there's no info, which is weird because you, me, and lots of others can understand it well enough to have the wiki INCREDIBLY well filled out

[@denisbarry4178]

@@zeening agreed!!!

[@connergroft1218]

@@zeening I think the main point it that he's trying to make is that a lot of the essential lore is hidden through those alternate paths and hidden items ect. So you should be able to rush the main story and still understand the general story. And all the detailed lore should be in those hidden items, and alternate areas. Don't get me wrong I live fromsofts games ever since demon souls and their lore, but it just seems like u missed the main point he was trying to make.

[@HH-hd7nd]

@@zeening While I don't necessarily share all of Shads conclusions he's right in one aspect: A character coming from the world of Elden Ring would know a little bit more about the mythological background - what the Elden Ring was etc. So a little bit more of info at the start of the game wouldn't hurt in any way shape or form - on the contrary. And it would still leave enough space for individual storylines and events to figure out on your own. Let's have a look at a few other franchises: The Witcher, Mass Effect and Dragon Age all give you enough info at the start to understand where you're coming from. However in all these franchises there's tons and tons of lore you can only learn about by exploring and actually looking into things ingame (or reading the wiki). What Shad says is that he wants a bit more world background at the start - and that also makes sense from an ingame perspective as I said before because a character originating from the Elden Ring world WOULD actually know these things, just like we know about important events in our own history like for example World War 2. Imagine someone from another world who knows absolutely nothing about our world. What Elden Ring does is the equivalent of telling this person "there was a war called WW2" and then assume that's the same degree of knowledge someone from reality has about WW2 even though even people without any particular interest in history know a lot more than that. To use Matt Easton's favoured word: We're missing a bit of context.

[@kardunked5098]

I personally enjoy this kind of storytelling, but its very understandable why people find it tedious/annoying

[@shadiversity]

I still feel you can have this kind of storytelling and give enough of the story so people know the bare minimum to care to see the ending.

[@miecraftandmoregames]

@@shadiversity Sekiro does it best in that regard.

[@zzodysseuszz]

@@miecraftandmoregames yeah definitely. Ds2 kinda does it but story can easily be missed by obscure side characters you can easily never see or meet who are not mandatory to meet.

[@zodiark93]

@@miecraftandmoregames Sekiro does the exact opposite, because Sekiro's narrative is soooo focused on japanese culture and traditions that you can't understand it if you don't know them well. And the problem is that Sekiro has a GIANT, monstrous problem with the english adaptation, which lost tons of info and referements to japanese culture, so it's even more difficult to get it clear.

[@buttmunchmcnugget328]

@@shadiversity People will replay this game multiple times, piecing together things as they go. Idk if you beat it yet but if this is how you feel already then this is not your kind of story. You are so wrong here its sad. Searching for the "ooozing detail" is part of the game. Yes some people do like reading to find the connections and as you said, you dont like it. Thats it, does not make it bad. They do not have to please everyone, and you not being happy doesnt seem to matter much as they have done this in near every soulsborne game and we love it. Find a historical weapons hill to die on please, this isnt why im subbed to you.

[@JonaD757]

Perhaps it is just me, but I was able to figure out almost all the stuff that Shad is talking about just by playing the game or watching the trailers. I don't tend to read the items much, but you can get a ton of information just by talking to NPCs, watching cutscenes, or paying attention to the environment. There's some small stuff I've picked up later from watching one or two people, but been avoiding most due to spoilers. It is unfortunte that the style that FromSoft uses doesn't appeal to Shad, but I personally really enjoy it. Sometimes I'm in the mood for heavy story focus, where it is more akin to a film or tons of dialogue like KOTOR or Mass Effect, but with Dark Souls and Elden Ring I prefer how nebulous it is. It results in people discussing the story and lore for years to come. There are different understandings and interpretations of characters, lore, endings, etc. till this day for DS1. Perhaps Shad should try out Sekiro, since it is the most direct in its storytelling compared to the rest of FromSoft's work.

[@jordiw913]

Well you played the game past godrick ie the tutorial he didn’t he gave up and started whining

[@user-ue6iv2rd1n]

@@jordiw913 The game is about boss fights the story is irreverent , I've completed it and I don't even know what the Elden ring is.

[@miguelzavaleta1911]

@@jordiw913 That part was baffling to me. This dude literally made an hour long critique when he couldn't even be bothered to play through ~5% of the game? Wtf.

[@Philtopy]

You need to understand that Shad is not criticising the story itself or that it can be found. He is criticising that the game takes too long to tell the player what is going on enough to make him care. We all play the first 50 hours of this game to "see whats ahead" and to see what kind of difficult fight is around the corner. But these 50 hours of the game do not expose the player with enough story to make the story itself become the motivator for wanting to complete the game. The moment you grow bored of the fights, there is nothing holding you. And especially new players to soulslike games have a huge issue here, because to really defeat The fell Omen and Godrick, they need to get more used to the gameplay and become stronger, so they eventually all get repelled by these bosses and start to explore the starting area. and this exploration takes 5-20+ hours. Now the player has invested 20+ hours of the game, killed 5-10 bigger and smaller bosses, has seen ~20 mystical places and still knows jack shit about what is going on, who he has killed or what the places were he has been to. And I can totally understand that this is a huge turnoff for some. I only continued the game here because my friends pushed me to it. It gets better. but thats not because of the story exposition, but because the bossfights are fun to me. And some say its "just 5% of the game" so git gud scrub. How am I supposed to know how far I am in the story when I already invested 30 hours into exploration to get wtf is going on? we do not want that the story needs to change. we just want a little more exposition at the beginning of the game, so the story becomes a driving factor to motivate us.

[@guywithknife]

@@Philtopy you, the player, is given the information that you, the tarnished, has. You learn more as the characters (eg Gideon) learn to trust you more. Personally, I like that it didn't tell me a bunch of stuff from the start and it actually made me MORE invested in it, because it drove me to want to learn more and discover more. It made me want to explore. To each their own, but what you find is too slow in exposition really made the experience so much more rewarding for me. "How am I supposed to know how far I am in the story when I already invested 30 hours into exploration to get wtf is going on? " because the map keeps expanding as you push up against its edges (and the chest traps and teleports that send you to distant areas give you a glimpse of what's to come) and because you see structures or land in the distance, which you will eventually get to explore.

[@ianking7511]

There's a huge amount to unpack here, so I hope I can organise my thoughts into something vaguely coherent. I came here via Ziostorm's video, which turned up for me randomly, since I've not watched anything of his before. I recognised your name and had to come see what this was about. I would be able to believe that you really want to know the game's lore if, after 100 hours, you were able to remember any of the names of the people or the places. I would question anyone making pronouncements on Tolkien's worldbuilding if they were unable to correctly reference the Shire, Rivendell, Lothlorien etc. This may seem like nitpicking, but I think it speaks to the level of actual investment in the game and its stories. If you don't care enough to pay attention to the things the game is telling you, that's fine, but I don't think you can then complain that it's being obtuse. Further, I think your understanding of the nature of Elden Ring as a game, and as a story, is overly simplistic. You state several times that the shattering was 'bad', despite that never being explicit anywhere in the game. It's perfectly possible to understand the Golden Order as a prison created by the 'Greater Will' to restrict the actions of those confined by the Elden Ring. From this perspective, the shattering was one huge prison break, which is still incomplete during the events of the game itself. In this case, the restoration of the Ring rebuilds the prison walls, enclosing the player and the world again whereas alternately the dissolution of all Order grants total freedom of will. If you are going to approach ER from a viewpoint of good/evil, right and wrong moral binaries you are going to miss one of the fundamental aspects of From soft's worldbuilding and game design. I'm sure you're familiar with Rashomon and the concept of an unreliable narrator. These games rarely if ever present a single, coherent, simple narrative, whereby the bad guys do bad things and you, the good guy, have to stop them. Instead, your experience of the game and your perspective on and understanding of its narrative is limited to whichever fragments you come across, and how you personally arrange those fragments into your own, individual understanding. When someone like Vaati makes a video 'explaining' the lore of Elden Ring, what they are doing is presenting artefacts from the game itself, and using them to weave their own personal narrative explanation. There is no canonical truth, and its absence provides a space in which many different possibilities can be explored and discussed. For the game to provide a single canonical narrative in the form of cutscenes or something similar would carve the heart out of what From try to do with the narrative of their games. One of the central themes of From soft games has always been 'community', and I think that the way the narratives of the game are delivered produces extrinsic conversations between players about the game and their partially shared, fragmented understanding of it. Those conversations are one of the main goals of the game's narrative. If it were, instead, a single clear, coherent and prescriptive story, you would lose a huge amount of what makes it so powerful. These games are never meant to be played in isolation. They are in many way a rallying cry against isolation and for connection and community.

[@royalnickle]

Give this comment the likes it deserved lul

[@RephaimVolkihar]

This

[@sol9059]

i'm sorry bro, but players discussing the game isn't a narrative, is a fan theory, and i don't belive the game not telling the story inside the game makes it more powerful.

[@ianking7511]

@@sol9059 Fan theories are narratives, by definition. Every narrative has broadly, three stages. A) The story inside the author's mind, B) The material as presented and C) The story as interpreted by the audience. In most major game releases the objective of B) is to make A) resemble C), and more importantly to ensure similarity between all versions of C). From make a deliberate decision to avoid that paradigm, and I believe they do so for several reasons. It will not make A) more powerful, or more significant, but it's important to understand that A) is irrelevant to the audience. Your personal experience of C) will be rendered more significant to you by the simple fact that it doesn't necessarily resemble your friend's, or anyone else's.

[@MrLyR-cc1rs]

@@ianking7511 You go tell em Haha😩 (Thanks for the info)

[@TheTrogolizer]

I managed to stumble upon The Great Lore Turtle, in the east of Liurnia, on my first playthrough. So I got some massive context dumps that poor Shad, and likely many others, seemed to miss.

[@SpaceRanger37]

Likely dog

[@tyr_4941]

Watching the video, I get the feeling he missed a many npcs that dump a lot of lore on you.

[@HolyDeviant1]

@@tyr_4941 Miriel, Rogier, Ranni, Radahn's last general, D, Gideon, it's kinda absurd how many NPCs just lore dump. I'm surprised he seemed to miss so, so many. It seems to be designed explicitly so you run into SOMEONE who clears up some of the plot.

[@sr71silver]

@@tyr_4941 Well we know for a fact that he murdered Patches after he surrendered and was begging for mercy. So maybe he killed some of them.

[@iota-09]

@@sr71silver wow. I... I don't know how to feel about that. You don't even need to wait more than a couple seconds to wait for the patches encounter to end... Brutal.

[@zacadam4129]

“I went around farming and stopped playing when i got some items” Ofc you missed the plot if you played like this. I kept myself incredibly blind to the plot before playing this game and all of the essebtial information was made very available to me, But not because i ran around without talking to npcs, exploring the world, or reading item descriptions. I took my time, enjoyed the lore. It isnt for everyone, but the plot is very much accessible if you just play the game like an art piece rather than a tech demo

[@Sapphire_Jack]

No there isn't, Stop defending a bad company, Why did Makira turn onto a dude? Why did Marika's first husband un-alive his pet when he found out he was married to a dude? Why did the tree turn into a Space Benis Alien when it got burned? (Final boss) And what does an alien have to do with 2 or 3 fingers? And why are 2 and 3 fingers worshiped when 12 fingers are monsters? The game explains NOTHING

[@buttmunchmcnugget328]

@@Sapphire_Jack written like someone who ran through not talking to npcs or reading descriptions/ paying attention.

[@Sapphire_Jack]

@@buttmunchmcnugget328 Hard to talk to npc's when the quest system is total ass, I didn't even meet Ranni in the church, had to buy the bell from an Npc in roundtable! People need to stop tolerating bad game design, this is worse then EA for crying out loud

[@deadassbeats1925]

@@Sapphire_Jack people that have never played souls games just wont understand, sorry this isnt an ubisoft clusterfuck like you're used to

[@snazzyjovialwyrm3314]

@@Sapphire_Jack I smell a lot of bullshit. I don't believe for a second that you actually played the game, and just haphazardly looked at videos and blogposts of it. Go back to those bland, hand-holdy games that devs like Ubisoft and make. Fromsoft's games aren't for mindless consumers who just want to play a game and be spoonfed everything in it.

[@KingDerek58]

All these lore videos you are referencing as outside sources got all of their information from inside the game. That is how the stories in the souls series are told, item descriptions, NPCs, weapon descriptions, the lore videos just do the leg work for you. You can find all of this information yourself in the game world.

[@theobell2002]

If you have to do "leg work" to figure out a story then it's kinda bad. Those lore channels compile a lot of in-game lore from dialog, items, etc. (which are easily missable) and then try to connect the dots and EVEN THEN it is just their own interpretations of it all and there's still plenty of unexplained things in Elden Ring.

[@KingDerek58]

@@theobell2002 it's not "kinda bad". It's there way of presenting the story,if it's not your cup of tea then it's not for you, but it's not by accident that the stories and lore of these games are talked about more than any other game, it's by design.

[@theobell2002]

@@KingDerek58 Okay, maybe it's not "bad" but it could be a lot better. To pretend there is nothing wrong with the fact that the majority doesn't understand a thing until Vaati explains everything is simply disingenuous.

[@krugerofcause9048]

@@theobell2002 There is nothing wrong with it. It's simply a different way to tell a story. Do you want every little detail spoon-fed to you, or do you want to actually discover the story and feel like a part of the world? Both are equally valid.

[@theobell2002]

@@krugerofcause9048 Ok, let me ask you something. Did you understand anything in your first playthrough?

[@KarpetBurn]

Souls games always have this extremely vague narrative... I can understand why you guys are defending it, because it's a really good game, but the only way you'll truly learn about the story is if you actively seek it out. Rather then having the story and gameplay go side by side, you gotta run around like some sort of detective to figure out what's happening. But I guarantee most people invested in the game will just look up a video of someone straight up explaining the lore and such, and then everyone ends up using that person's take on the story instead of coming up with your own narrative, like how you're supposed to I guess.

[@jinn-tonik]

Elden Ring gives you a perfect perspective from a point of view of a character in a setting where there is no truly reliable source of information, except for tidbits ingrained within 200-year-old artefacts. Every talking person you luck upon tries to manipulate you, tells you what they consider is “just enough” for you to go forth and kill something big for runes and loot. In a world where all information is either concentrated in secluded libraries or is passed down in a cryptic “world of mouth, but everyone is a wizard” way the story NEEDS to be pieced by you, the lowly maidenless grunt of whom the greater powers expect nothing, as many your betters have failed on the same quest. Otherwise you are told a necessary minimum. You are not the Chosen One, you are gimped murderhobo with a pointy stick, promised great destiny after you complete impossible trials through “getting good”. People talking to you either assume you already know basic stuff, or do not care that you don’t. So - yeah - to piece together the lore and plot you need to be an actual medieval scholar, looking for forbidden knowledge by inspecting divine underpants of mad god-kings. And you don’t even need to do that, as the game is DESIGNED to be dissected by the communal player mind for its secrets. Cause it’s fun to be a fantasy archaeologist.

[@Zabrixis1919]

Thank you

[@K.A.TaylorWoodworking]

Completely agree thank you!

[@adroitws1367]

but that cryptic piece of story still need to be in game not in some external media

[@onuadhain7399]

@@adroitws1367 Yeah, the fact that I as a fantasy archaeologist need to whip out my android or iphone and go on God's twitter to "dissect" information...

[@TotinosOtherBoy]

I love the description of "a gimped murderhobo with a pointy stick" bc thats basically every dark souls game player character as well

[@Reverendshot777]

Sounds like a lot of the criticisms, not all, would have been solved by going back to the Roundtable and speaking to Gideon fairly regularly.

[@Edemynag]

I think he missed some side quests and NPC interactions that explain more. Melina can be spoken to at several sites of grace, but you need to pay attention and select this choice from the list of actions at the grace. He says at the end that every new area should have a cut scene with Melina but you can choose to do this at key points. It's not intuitive for gamers who have never played games like this before, and though it's not perfect I find it refreshing that I don't have to sit through hours of cutscenes instead of playing and that ultimately the story we get is up to us finding it.

[@ott6428]

You're overestimating some people's tolerance to revisit every room in the hold every time they get back. He didn't appear straight away for me, not sure what triggers him to appear.

[@Reverendshot777]

@@ott6428 I understand that. Devil's advocate though, the opening calls him Gideon the All-Knowing. He appears once you beat the first boss and is clrealy a font of knowledge. All it takes is chatting to him once to understand he would be a good person to speak to every time you progress the world.

[@ott6428]

@@Reverendshot777 The opening mentions him among several other characters who we won't meet for hours, so it kind of all blurs together. The only useful info I remember him giving was the location of the medallion pieces, which I just ended up stumbling onto when I reached that area anyway. No I never felt rewarded for going to him for info.

[@Acesahn]

@@Edemynag Yes cuz missing NPC side quests isn't something that a vast majority of people not constantly checking a guide do or anything...

[@VinnieMac]

Didn't play enough of the game, proceeds to complain that the game didn't tell them what they didn't spend the time to go find... Ugh

[@MrVeps1]

I think it's kind of funny that in any other game, the developers telling the story through random voice logs is seen as lazy and low effort, even though the voice logs can actually have really good acting and tell a fantastic story in conjunction with environmental storytelling, but when you literally have to read the descriptions of items, that by all right you shouldn't know anything about, to get even an incomplete story out of the game, people praise it for its "subtle genius" that "demands a closer look" and really activates the almonds. I really like Shad's book, and I think it's a great story, but if I paid for the book and Shad proceeded to visit my home town and scatter the torn pages throughout the houses of the citizens and the nests and burrows of wild animals, I would rightly judge the presentation of the story to be absolutely terrible, and I wouldn't want to gather all the pages, I would wait until the rest of the buyers collectively gathered enough pages to allow me to read the complete work.

[@NanashiSaru]

Exactly this is what annoys me of this kind of fromsoft "storytelling", you put it perfectly into words

[@poppag8281]

@@NanashiSaru what about thoes that like that storytelling?

[@tranngockha6562]

@@poppag8281 they're good 👍

[@arlaghdoth4434]

Perfectly put.

[@evacody1249]

@Poppa G then read a game story book in which you have to flip from one page to another. Problem solved. It's still poor story telling to put the story on items.

[@Pelagion98]

I'm sorry that you had this experience, but I have just finished the game and, I learned vast majority of these things within the game itself, by reading, talking to NPC's and so on. Like, Rennala, I knew about her from reading the items, and before you go to her fight, there is a portal nearby that takes you to the Church of Vows, there you learn a lot more about her and Radagon from a first hand witness. So when I went to her fight, I knew who I was dealing with.

[@theashentiefling4883]

A lot of the points Shad makes in this video can be solved just by talking to the npc there. Watching this video I couldn't help but think that neither of them found and talked to him.

[@kamikeserpentail3778]

That's the thing about their story telling style, and even their gameplay style. It's ok to accidentally kill that one character and miss that item, miss that bit of story. Usually you're some nobody in a pretty wrecked world. You have to play archeologist and dig for clues and accept you still might not get the full picture.

[@r3dp9]

I did all those things, and was still lost. I didn't even know if the different phases of the boss were the same person or not. I STILL don't know. I also don't know why she turns peaceful after the fight (and whether or not that's the same person as the beginning of the fight.)

[@AlbertoMartinez765]

He absolutely Correct in that a lot of the story Is NOT in the GAME PERIOD. He makes that Point several times that Major story beats are in Dev Tweets not from any NPC or anywhere within the game. This is a FROM SOFTWARE Problem it exists in ALL The Souls games.

[@MachePatate3000]

@@AlbertoMartinez765 you didn’t paid attention then. I’ve understood the story pretty easily

[@tragadocious-6357]

Over a hundred hours in, and I still haven't finished my first playthrough. A decent portion of that time has been spent on reading item descriptions and exploring. I love this shit. I can see how it can be annoying for people who just want a story laid out in front of them, and it sucks I guess. I personally feel like this is easily the best game to come out in the past ten years.

[@miguelzurita3216]

After talking to a turtle I understand Renala's story

[@tragadocious-6357]

Exactly, people miss a lot of stuff if they don't explore

[@tragadocious-6357]

Plus, the turtle is a true homie

[@brianng9765]

i love the pope turtle as well

[@9SMTM6]

You can do both y'know. There is that other AAA game that came out slightly before Elden Ring. It itself is very good, for me probably better than Elden Ring, but it's predecessor... Damn I loved that one, and it archived both a satisfaction for players exploring extended lore AND did a good job at explaining the universe for others just along for the fun. You could slowly build up understanding and predict the big reveal, and you also had some lore bits that predict some of the stuff that's happening in its recent sequel, and probably in its finalizing 3rd entry. Btw. Just to clear things up: Horizon Forbidden West is a much better game than Horizon Zero Dawn in terms of Gameplay, obviously graphics, and also in the way it brings the world to life. It's specifically the lore, and maybe the emotional impact of the main story, where I think it's predecessor did a better job. Not that it would've been easy to follow that up.

[@pencilbender]

The npcs tell at least a bunch of this stuff. Elden ring has a very "realistic" storytelling method: the information is scattered and you know nothing yet. Just like in real life you read and talk to people. Those who take their time to read see more of the story than those who just smack through enemies and call it a day. The story is a reward.

[@pencilbender]

Sometimes you need to slow down to enjoy something in stead of consuming it as fast as you can

[@wojszach4443]

ah yes mushroom treatment

[@Shinkai1984]

Yeah, not being able to talk with basically anyone and everyone being hostile on spot is very realistic. Fighting Malenia even if you could tell her where Miquella is, because there is no option to talk is very realistic.

[@wojszach4443]

@@Shinkai1984 realisticly you should die and not ressurect, you would need an army of npc to win

[@themightymcb7310]

​@@Shinkai1984you'd be cranky too if everybody randomly stopped dying and then after 1000 years of wasting away, God just disappears.

[@syndicalist-0]

As an old...old souls fan I can understand this. I love souls/bourn/ring. I love the stories and elements of discovery. I love they mystery and exploration of the lore. The huge gaps that let you fill in the blanks between major events...but I do think the storytelling changed from DS1 to Elden Ring. I totally understand the frustration with how these games tell stories, or sometimes dont.

[@viorp5267]

3:10 The Game literally says that in the entrance cinematic. The Elden Ring is basically the law of the Universe. It's a set of rules which governs how the universe functions, then the Elden Lord is the one wielding the Elden Ring and thus is able to interpret or twist how those rules manifest. Ergo Demigods having been immortal until the rune of Death was stolen it being then able to be used to kill Gods. The Ring being shattered means that the rules governing the universe are falling apart, this chiefly manifested in the Undead existing.

[@connordorman117]

Thank you! In my opinion his most egregious take and people seem to be sleeping on it. They criticise other parts of the video, fairly mind you, but this in my opinion is his worse offence.

[@THEMIGHTYQBAG]

Reliant of precognitive knowledge just as Orleanna's narrative from the Poisonwood Bible. A lack of connotation prevents internalization

[@CtisGaming]

You mean the text wall comprised purely of undefined keywords and jargon followed by angrily yelling boss names? Very unhelpful placement.

[@morelstrike]

​@@CtisGaming Those aren't even bosses, those are other Tarnished.

[@MrWazeemo]

@@CtisGaming undefined if you have the attention span of a new born, sounds about right yeah

[@cheesypoohalo]

I think I agree with your point, without any context for the lore you discover the plot can seem non-existant for a lot of people. This is especially strange when you consider you play as a character whose motivations you aren't aware of, most players are just killing bosses for the sake of it.

[@TheOldMan-75]

The character himself isn't even aware of what he is doing or why he is doing it because he never bothered to ask. Finding additional and slightly hidden information is always fun in any medium but having a main character who has absolutely no motivation to be even on this quests, besides some anime girl with tiddies telling him to do so, is objectively bad storytelling.

[@evacody1249]

@The Old Man girl with big tiddies told me go on quest most listen and not ask why. Meanwhile in Kingdoms of Amalur

[@vergil_6707]

@@TheOldMan-75 what anime girl? The fuck kind of graphics settings you got bro💀

[@Rannos22]

I really love how Elden ring does it's lore because it's really like being dropped into another world You pick up a lot through item descriptions which is kinda meta knowledge but you also pick up a lot from implications in the dialogue too If they just outright said a lot of this stuff, like the finger speaker at the roundtable hold does for a few bits of it, I would be much less interested

[@AnotherDuck]

If they cut out the item descriptions and put it in the actual world it'd be a lot better. Meta knowledge like that is about one step away from being as immersive as reading a wiki or looking up a lore video.

[@crisschan2463]

ofnir actually does that

[@mohammadalirashed3103]

Yeah, I love it when stories are told through an item description in an in-game menu. It's the best way a story can possibly be told. /s

[@nicolaslabra2225]

@@mohammadalirashed3103 lol fromsoft fans are a bit too defensive about the story telling, like its interesting but it is a lazy way to transfer information to the player, because the character actually never finds out about anything, we do, not our character, unless the ability to read objects and read their past and meaning and everything is part of the lore wich i dont think it is or has been stated ever, we are not asking fromsoft to take the naughty dog approach or anything, but look at sekiro, go in that direction more, pretty please with sugar on top

[@pontipsulibup]

@@AnotherDuck People refuse to talk to NPCs (Sir Gideon, Ranni, Finger Readers, etc) and then will say the game has no story. The item descriptions give clues but they don't tell the story alone, TALK TO NPCS

[@ghoulofthebeat4946]

One of the main NPCs literally gives most of the information that you thought would be essential. Here’s a tip everyone: Talk to all NPCs after making any major story progression in a from soft game.

[@ostrogodo]

*all the time. right? if you just talk to them once they don't call you back. keep hitting them. like... life

[@endless3cho]

Right? Don't assume because you spoke to them once or twice that they should just be ignored for the rest of the game.

[@ArthaxtaDaVince777]

Don't take what this clown says seriously, apparently the game was incredibly fun and so was the world, but he stopped played barely 15% into the game because he didn't understand the story... Stupid. Imagine paying $60 and enjoying a game but only completing a fraction of it and giving up on it... Dude the living embodiment of the casual gamer.

[@unfinishedspacemarin]

It's still bad storytelling to out information that is essential to understanding your story away in a sideroom and offered to the audience only once they 'prove themselves'.

[@unfinishedspacemarin]

@@ArthaxtaDaVince777 Yeah, clearly someone truly smart would be dazzled by the pretty light and the mechancial button pushing, and would demand nothing else!

[@RyanSiggaard]

About Renala, if you wanted to know about it, there's plenty of information scattered about the world. Biggest example is the turtle pope to the east of Raya Lucaria. As a player, you're not some omnipotent being with unexplained knowledge of the universe. You're exactly who you are when you start. A worthless tarnished, who, with enough hard work and death, becomes the strongest in the lands between, the Elden Lord. (I love the game if you. Couldn't tell)

[@RyanSiggaard]

Also there's literally a portal to the turtle pope right before the boss fight against Renala.

[@iota-09]

And if you're wondering "but why don't i even know things my character would?" In the character creator screen the game tells you lots of thinhs about the more superficial stuff through class, race and starting item descriptions, with that, i was able to make "A noble who studied in a great academy (not necessarily raya lucaria, but most likely it) learning the basics of glintstone magic, incantations and of swordplay, all of which she had an interest in due to their arcane nature; her sister, for reasons i'm not going to divulge, escaped from home, and in this character's attempts to find her, she got imprisoned for a series of undisclosed reasons related to her lineage and the fact she too like all tarnished used to be a warrior, eventually she died outside the fog, in that prison, and now that she got resurrected and arrived in the lands between, her goal remains the same: find her sister and become the elden lord with her to fix this damned world that had her sister run away and have her die in a jail for unfair reasons... Or become one to find her sister in the first place, after all, who can find her if not a god?" The sister part is obviously something i added myself, but everything else you get from just the game's intro and character creator descriptions, no need for more than that.

[@r3dp9]

But why are tarnished worthless, and what is a tarnished? I kinda need the bare minimum. At least in DS1 I knew what I was (hollow undead), and that according to the story I was on a time limit until I went insane in the pursuit of my quest.

[@bitsamui5104]

@@iota-09 "Race" There are no races in Elden Ring. Wow. A FromSImp defending the game without even playing it.

[@linkkicksu]

@@bitsamui5104 There literally are. What the fuck are you talking about. They're entirely cosmetic but they all have bits of lore attached to them. Make a new character and 'choose base template'. There are a few different humans, but then there's Northerner, Draconian, Nightfolk and Numen, all of which are described with non-human properties.

[@LethalDragon1]

Sauron's ring was the second ring made in imitation of the first. It sounds like Elden Ring was going for more of a Morgoth's Ring feel which makes it even cooler.

[@arrilocknewmoon9620]

I think that its so vague to promote the community aspects that you see surrounding the soulsborne genre in general. You got the ingame aspects of the community elements, like the messages, bloodstains, and ofc summons, but then the story being so vague inspires you to seek out other people who have also played the game to discuss theories and share lore bits that you've discovered. I know that I have had several large discussions about lore with my friends at the very least.

[@theyhaventfedmesince]

Shad's first time in fromsoft lore. Btw just being clear, they're not hidden. It's just not explicitly told, so that different people can have different interpretation on what the lore has. I mean Solaire has been rumoured to be Gwyn's firstborn until new evidence says otherwise

[@Whippenberg]

the nameless king is Gwyn's firstborn, but that rumor was indeed there from DS1 through to the nameless king's lore-connotations.

[@theyhaventfedmesince]

@@Whippenberg yes. That what I was talking about.

[@kiooo9]

I don't think you've listened to his argument. His argument is due to them not making sure that there's just enough to hook people who haven't played the other games. And don't know that they're getting into this kind of ridiculous stupid lazy storytelling. The type of Storytelling that can only be told through one hour long KZbin videos because somebody had to read the description of a talisman. That's a negative and a bad thing. You have to do some serious mental gymnastics to think otherwise. And if you are thinking that it's a great story well-written and doesn't need to be improved. You're living in a fantasy world

[@theyhaventfedmesince]

@@kiooo9 yeah. That's also a miss interpretation by shad too. Because fromsoft has different approach to hook their players. You have to remember that fromsoft literally hid a whole area that's very significant in lore perspective behind illusionary walls that you can play the whole game without knowing it existed in the first place. And yet people still got hooked on it. Not just "in spite of that" but also because of that approach They didn't do what they did just for the sake of it, they did it specifically because that's the thing that the target audience would want.

[@hismajestylordsmenkhare5878]

@@Whippenberg are you sure, I kinda thought the nameless king was Ornstein, though Solaire and Gwyn I have never made up my mind regarding that

[@holokom3330]

I actually have to disagree... while i didnt get a thing about Darksouls, in Eldenring the Intro Cinematic actually explains the entire Story. First there was "God Queen Marika" and everything was fine. Then Marika was upset and shattered this super powerful magic Eldenring (dunno why exactly but its good enough for now) and some strange evil Assasins came and killed a God. . Then "a war followed from wich no Lord arose". Easy enough: Appearantly a lot of other people where now trying to become next God Queen/King but nobody could really win. While doing that they collected pieces of this magical Artifact (Eldenring) to become more powerful. Now we are somehow ressurrected along with some old Heros (Fia, Dungeater, Gideon etc.) to somehow do what these Gods coudnt do: Collect all the pieces of this magical Artifact from all the Gods that coudnt kill each other, and become the new "Godking" yourself, to bring back order somehow. And if you wanna know who exactly is the Assasin that killed the God Guy that caused all this, my money is on Ranni "The Witch", if you wanna know why Marika shattered the Ring i got no clue, but i dont feel like i need to know that part to understand the rest.

[@EmberBright2077]

I'm confused about how you didn't get anything in Dark Souls. The cutscenes are pretty clear. The opening is incredibly clear on telling you that: this is the world's beginning and the central object of concern in the game, these are the major players and what they did, this is the state of the world currently, etc.

[@111kino]

Ranni orchestrated everything from giving the Black Knives their death blade, to giving Rykard a relic of the shard of death to fight against Maliketh. She even lost her body because of it, while Godwyn lost his soul. Its basically the moon vs the tree and no one realizes it while most are used by either party to further their own agenda. The Elden Ring isn't the manifestation of physical law and order, its just the current lord of it. There was life and order well before the Erdtree and Elden Ring, they just took charge after warring with literally everything else. The dragons had dominion before the Erdtree, for example. And the rune of death being stolen didn't cause the undead, half killing Godwyn did(he lost his soul but his body survived same as Ranni losing her body but her soul surviving). The rune of death has actually been suppressed the entire time prior to it being stolen because Marika had such an aversion to death that she tricked her half brother, Maliketh, into taking it and keeping it from everything else; which in turn created an Age where nothing died. Not undeath, just things didn't expire. Also explains why she loses her shit and breaks the Ring when her children start dying one by one. And Godwyn introduces undeath to the world by being buried at the root of the Erdtree(for reasons likely stupid and sentimental). A corpse marked by death being buried at the root of a world tree is sure to cause problems, as is seen by the deathroots creating scores of undead and the tree spirits being corrupted. All of this is told in-game through item description or npc or cutscene btw. The only thing I've seen that wasn't explained in game but in a tweet is that everyone blessed by grace has golden glowing eyes. My game is bugged and some invasions don't spawn that should(Vyke in particular) so I'm not even sure how much I'm missing out on as the wiki doesn't provide accurate info for a lot of stuff. Might be the case or even worse for others and they don't know it cuz they're trying to do blind runs.

[@Kyle-uo5bg]

@@111kino excellent explanation

[@for_the_lore5567]

I find it funny that Shad's source for what got him to really find the story, was a theory video regarding a trailer, an supported by discoveries from the network test and tidbits thrown out by the devs during development. Everything in that video could turn out to be complete bunk, considering it came out before the game's release, and Shad would only be able to know its validity if he delves into the game and discovers the truth for himself. Something which he seems adverse to do.

[@cullenhutchison6528]

Maybe you could make a video on non-essential storytelling? Like optional things, hints in the world, rewards for people seeking the story, etc.

[@primisto7530]

11:40 Rennala being used as an example here is... not doing well for your point? I understand what you're trying to say but it's all laid out to you in the game through the item descriptions and NPCs. Hell, you don't even NEED item descriptions for this one in particular. There is SPECIFICALLY a teleport shortly before her boss room that leads you to an NPC giving you rather detailed elements about her story, as well as that of another character. It sounds like to me (at this current timestamp) that you just didn't explore enough.

[@santiagovidelaleiva]

While this is true i do think Liurna is the place where's is the most easy to miss information. After Godrick, it's extreamly easy to go to the next big castle get blocked by the gate, find the map to the key, get the key and enter the academy. In all that journey you don't encounter any npcs nor significant lore. Most of it, is on the sides of the lake. The only time that time that the main path gives you some lore about the place is trough that teleport, but here's the thing and one of my only complains against the game, the teleports suck. I wouldn't mind them that much of they were two ways teleports but most of them are one way, they also activate by random things and the distance they cover is also pretty random. I think it would be a lot better if they were more like gates that you can activate and always two ways. So, at least for me, when i see a teleport i refuse to go until finishing exploring the current area that i am, because in most cases i know i won't be coming back in long time.

[@TheRockhound119]

Santiago, with a little exploring inside that castle there is a portalthat leads right to the lore turtle.

[@santiagovidelaleiva]

@@TheRockhound119 i specifically mentioned that teleport in my comment, but as i said, because of gameplay mechanics, at least for me, im discouraged to use teleporters until i finish the area that i am in.

[@Hologuard]

@@santiagovidelaleiva ...you know you can teleport to graces right? Just pop back to the red wolf boss room and you're back to the teleporter in like a 30 second walk.

[@TheRockhound119]

@@santiagovidelaleiva Hmm... I was always jumping into pirtals as soon as I could, as if it is something aweful due to game mechanics, I'll be able to tp out. They are different from traps.

[@varundattoo9512]

I like the fact that it's a mystery that unfolds the more time you get invested with it. I love novels and gaming. Novels: for the direct way they present all the world building and characters which allows healthy hypothesizing and speculation. Gaming: for the mostly interactive experience of being able to witness the story as it happens due to your choreographed actions (premise that it's all the illusion of choice). There are tons of subtleties, nuance and idiosyncrasies associated with both granted; but it's that very difference of experience is why they have an appeal.

[@TheJeevo92]

Exactly. The longer you play and progress through the main bosses you meet characters that give you the main story. It's pretty easy to find. The deeper stuff is what really requires exploration and sleuthing. Not exactly sure of Shad's complaints with this. I get it, yet I don't... 🤷‍♂️

[@liquid8419]

@@TheJeevo92 I dont know what game you played, but the storytelling is next to nothing in this game. It is clear the devs don't give 2 rips about it. Most of the souls/borne games have none anyway, the main pull to these games is hard fights, lose, get better, and win. Simple formula, they don't stray from it in ER either.

[@curious2882]

@@liquid8419 If you talk to ANY NPC in the game many of them staright up dump literal paragraphs of lore on you about the bosses you will be facing, how they got to that point, and other shit. Not to mention the item descriptions of items relating to these bosses and areas also describes things about their history. I found some things confusing in the story, but to say so much is hidden is just a joke take said by people who bumrushed the game, didn't talk to NPCs, didn't read items, and then whined that the story wasn't spelled out for them. The NPCs that lore dump you the most aren't even hidden away they are in key locations or other large landmarks you're practically guaranteed to visit.

[@seakingtamerkaito4099]

@@liquid8419 I honestly don't know what you're talking about man like there is item descriptions, literal monuments, and characters that are going to tell you things about certain characters, items, and places so I really don't know what you're talking about

[@Matt-dn5jc]

@@liquid8419 Someone didn't listen to Varre, Melina or the opening cutscene.

[@ethakis]

I made it all the way to Malenia, and I still have no idea what the significance of the Haligtree is. I've been fairly active reading item descriptions, and I still know so little. Because of how they communicate information to players, it feels like the world is underdeveloped, but I know for a fact that the world is developed because I can go read some wikis or watch lore videos to learn a lot more. But I don't want to do that because I don't want spoilers for as long as I'm on my first playthrough.

[@burning_mat5307]

the Haligtree is basically a refugee for the ones opressed in The Lands Between, which is why you see Misbegotten and Aubenaurics in it.

[@Acesahn]

In my humble opinion Elden Ring lore is < Dark Souls 1 lore and worse, its very similar... so its also unoriginal. All the same issues I had with DS exist here... how death works, why I'm the only one coming back to life. and worst of all, why the God who would want me to save the world the most is also the end boss actively barring me from doing what he/it wants...

[@Knoloaify]

I think you want to play Sekiro. It's the one FromSoft game that gives more of the essential points while keeping the mystery to be figured out, so you'd like it way more than Elden Ring's story if you still haven't played it yet. And yeah Miyazaki's storytelling is definitely something that not everyone will like or understand, and that's fine. As baffling as it may seem, it's what's intended. So it's perfectly fine to not like it. Also, the Elden Ring isn't the Golden Order, the Golden Order is the Order created with the power of the Elden Ring. It's technically possible to use the Elden Ring to create a different Order, which is one of the plot points.

[@A_Black_Sheep94]

From just got a little too big for their britches and released and unfinished game before they were ready they released the game with unfinished and completely missing NPCs and resolutions to NPC questlines that are still missing after the last patch. The item descriptions are much more vague or entirely devoid of lore whatsoever until a new patch. They got ahead of themselves and planned a release date twice they couldn't manage to fit everything they wanted to in the game. Personally I feel they should have delayed the game for atleast a few more months if not more for tightening and cleaning up but whatever we'll get more with more updates and patches.

[@bitsamui5104]

@@A_Black_Sheep94 Don't worry. FromSoft's FromSimps are on the case to defend their honor and prevent any criticism from reaching the ears of other FromSimps.

[@Knoloaify]

​@@A_Black_Sheep94 If it was only about FromSoft, you can be sure that the game would have been released later, especially since Elden Ring is Miyazaki's baby and Miyazaki is the CEO. There's no way he'd rush his own game's release. The release issues are most likely more on Bamco's side, they probably refused to give FromSoft any more time. Still, Fromsoft did fuck up with the rushed release, and thankfully they're pretty quick with the fixes. I personally haven't had too many issues with missing content though. But I guess what was missing will be more clear on a second playthrough.

[@EmberBright2077]

@@bitsamui5104 Because any defence against potentially unfair criticism is simping

[@pauloazuela8488]

@@A_Black_Sheep94 I think it's more of a publishers issue than devs issue for rushing the release date 🤔.

[@Sindraelyn]

A few random comments. I think I remember from an old Vaati video (ironically) that mentioned the writing style for FromSoftware games comes sort of from Miyazaki's experience as a child learning about fantasy that was written in a language he was not wholly familiar with. So the whole discovery aspect comes from finding these key snippets helps build the overall understanding by filling in the gaps as you expect them. This would create your own patchwork of a story if you find certain parts but not others. Sort of part of the first part, is Elden ring FromSoft's take on Norse Mythology? Dark Souls feel like medieval fantasy. Bloodborne is Victorian/Lovecraftian fantasy(?). Sekiro would be Japanese fantasy? Armored Core is mecha fantasy?

[@Pokefeos]

Wow, thats a lot you almost missed. For me it was mainly "here's a sword, go kill" and just went my first game run until the end then focused on the story and yet I mainly play games for the story, bit of the gameplay but mainly the Story.

[@voratittchunharuckchot9711]

I agree with Shad's opinion. Elden Ring's lore and story are so fascinating but they are so obscure to the players and the only way to truly understand them is by spend hours digging. I think Sekiro, which is also developed by From Software, did better in term of communicate the fundamental core story and lore to players, and if anyone want a deeper lore they can research on their own. Maybe because Sekiro's lore is not as rich as Elden Ring's. I also lost interest in Elden Ring after a few hours. I feel like I just running around aimlessly and kill anything that attack me. The game didn't give me that starting spark to grab my interest to start explore the lore. I first experiencing the same thing with Sekiro, but the story and lore of Sekiro are not as complex as Elden Ring's, and they are provided to the players during the mission. So now that I understand the essential part of the story, the game have my interest and I began to want to explore more. Elden Ring didn't give me that same feeling of wanting to explore. Which is a shame, they spent so much time creating the world and I lost interest because I don't even know what to look for. I am a mushroom in the dark, without flashlight, and no objective.

[@knight_forgot2838]

Hey shad I just want to suggest you ask Gideon Ofnir the guy at round table hold about the bosses he’s mean’t to help you find the bosses and give you a bit of context including a bit of the rentals backstory

[@crisschan2463]

well its funny his name is the all-knowing but apprently you wouldnt know that unless you specifically speak to everyone for every second you are moving

[@felipeguidolin1055]

@@crisschan2463 it's said in the opening cutscene

[@crisschan2463]

@@felipeguidolin1055 yeah lol, ive watched the opening trailer again after some time and just realized who are those people the narrator talking about lol (kinda forgot who they were in the beginning because of their names)

[@felipeguidolin1055]

@@crisschan2463 i don't blame you. At first I thought they were the bosses, because From always puts the bosses on the intro cutscene

[@Levigumba]

@@felipeguidolin1055 at some point they kinda are

[@logan_sunday]

I really enjoy this style of story telling. I like how it feels like a community effort to figure out. The same way it's a community effort to solve puzzles, find secrets etc.

[@blooperman1997]

If by community effort you mean just looking it up on a wiki after someones edits it, then sure. The community around this game is trash along with all four of their jokes. Wish I could turn the messages off while keeping it online.

[@Animalace3]

@@blooperman1997 Some parts of the community are utter garbage, yes. But don't put down the entire fanbase. By saying the community is trash, you're saying Shadiversity is trash, that VattiVidya is trash, that everyone who enjoys the game is trash. As you say you've played Elden Ring, your saying you yourself are trash! I personally have run into very few of the "all four of their jokes" that you speak of. Most messages I've read have been rather helpful or rather funny (like the message saying "Give head" with the emote of bowing that's right in front of the guy that gives Comet Azur). And to put down the wiki articles... Do you know how much love and care the guys and gals over at FextraLife put into the wiki? It is the community itself that created that wiki articles. So yes, it is a community effort when you look up a wiki page because countless people tested and confirmed the info that is on the wiki.

[@starfuryduck3446]

@@blooperman1997 you can it's an option in the settings. If you want to only read friends messages, you can apply a group password to read only messages from friends in a circle made from runes around the message. If you hate the community so much, that's quite unfortunate. There are some great people in there, as part of the community I will apologise for any ill will we've put upon your gaming experience.

[@whatsmyname100]

@@Animalace3 obviously he is saying none of those things, and believes in none of those statements, and you know it. you are just being obtuse.

[@wendigo1619]

@@Animalace3 i don't want it laid out in my face, but i don't want to need to look at the description of a random piece of trash in the game to get the most out of the story either

[@laser8389]

A video game universe with a fantastic balance of shown, told, and hidden lore (in my opinion, of course) is Fable. I remember playing the first game years back and being very satisfied with the world as presented, and then recently I somehow got into the rabbit hole of background… there is sooo much! Whole empires rising and falling, immortals and their mortal puppets… it’s a blast. Also, look into the concept of Morgoth’s Ring if you want an even deeper connection between Elden Ring and Middle Earth.

[@LtColShingSides]

So I do agree that the storytelling is a bit of a hassle. I always look forward to the next Vaati lore video. The thing I think you miss is that FromSoft isn't making this game for you, or me, or anyone specifically. They're making the game they want to make. That's what they've always done and it's what they'll always do. I think it's very incorrect to say they SHOULD do this, or they FAILED in doing that, they got this WRONG, etc. When it comes to their story telling. FromSoft's method of storytelling has pretty much been this way since the beginning. This is how they do it. They don't owe us anything other than a fully functioning game. In most of your coverage of the game you use very absolutist wording and phrases. I don't think that's fair or warranted. You're welcome to have your own opinion but it's incorrect to state it as the RIGHT opinion.

[@arlaghdoth4434]

Objectivity exists, and in storytelling the subjective doesn't matter.

[@Squeaky245]

Oh boy, a whole new generation of players getting filtered by both the gameplay and plot of FromSoft. It's like 2011 all over again.

[@JustiniZHere]

It really is wholesome getting to watch this again, for a second time.

[@corneliusquincydavenportic1913]

@@JustiniZHere it feels like the lore of Dark Souls. Endless cycles of enjoying the game because of its strange methods and hating the game because of its strange methods. And endless cycle of Light and Dark

[@starfuryduck3446]

@@corneliusquincydavenportic1913 heat and cold, Life and death and ofcourse light... And dark.... Damn still gives me the chills.

[@yois6349]

I thought the bare minimum story to get me interested was already told to me from the start: elden ring shattered; this is bad, world destroyed; go fix elden ring and become elden lord to fix world. fairly basic premise but then i started to come across npcs who doubted this and thought the two fingers are lying, which really got me hooked.

[@BackwardsPancake]

Same. I felt it was mostly sufficient. The part I sort of hate though is that it doesn't really ramp up and go anywhere conclusive in the end. Much like in all the previous games, you can dredge through all the fragments of lore, but in the end it's still sort of impossible to say with certainty who was in the right for what reasons, or what the various endings truly, fully imply. From's great at building vibe and mythology, but I think it would provide some nice counterbalance if they just made a few explicit statements now and then, so we can have at least a few core tenets to work with.

[@TheKingsPride]

@@BackwardsPancake I think the point there is that nobody’s in the right because there is no “right”. It’s not a morality play, everyone has a different side to the story. You have to choose for yourself who was right.

[@BackwardsPancake]

@@TheKingsPride Fair, but I think I made a poor choice of words. I meant it more in the sense of "Who was right about what happened/how the metaphysics of the world functions" - Because there are certain important events where we never get real confirmation what happened or what the motivations of the characters were, and because we never get an unambiguous breakdown of how the elden ring/golden order works, we can't really discern the full implications of actions which were taken with regards to it.

[@sr71silver]

@@BackwardsPancake Do you know what any of your actions truly, fully imply? What the consequences of them will be months or years down the line? We do not make decisions because we KNOW that they will result in the best outcome. We make decisions because we hope and believe that they will result in the best outcome. An we can and will be wrong sometimes. The endings to FromSoft games are the same way.

[@BackwardsPancake]

@@sr71silver Well no, but I generally have at least a broad strokes vision for the goals. What I take issue with is that a lot of the ending sequences in ER are so broad you can interpret almost anything from them. To the point where it's kind of hard to identify with my character and understand why we're making these choices (other than "this was the button I liked best so I pressed it"). As another point, while it's true I can't foresee the full implications for present actions, I can absolutely trace and discern them retrospectively for past actions. Making that also possible in a story is just establishing internal cohesion, which is never a bad thing.

[@thedankswordsmantm]

Where do the external sources get the story from? The game. It's all there, you have to find it and deduce.

[@MetalCaffeine56]

I think what messes with a lot of new players is that in pretty all of these games, the story already happened long before the player even arrives. You basically just show up to the epilogue of said story and have to try to piece it all together to figure out what happened.

[@noahnights4587]

Shad, the thing that you said about Melina telling you something about the areas is already in the game. If you talk to SIR GIDEON OFNIR, THE ALL-KNOWING, he tells you a little bit of lore of every single boss you have to kill, in fact he gives you HUGE amount of information for a Souls game.I would tell everyone to speak with him as much as you can, he truly knows a lot.

[@FarawayTundra]

Talking to him literally highlights a hitlist for your character, their history and sometimes a hint at their weaknesses

[@GuthixLives]

Some could suggest he is.... all... knowing...

[@Benji.O]

This is obviously asking far too much from the player!!! Kidding. After all of the Souls games I honestly was a little surprised at how straightforward and accessible of an info dump talking to a single NPC in the hub area was, and of all FromSoft games I think Elden Ring has one of the most generously told stories of them all. The guy who made this video didn’t get it, didn’t have the wherewithal or curiosity or patience to find it. Not everything is for everyone.

[@ju3tind94]

The problem is you're looking for the complete story and FromSoft has already confirmed that this is NOT the complete story of Elden Ring, its only a small part of it. The rest of the story is likely to unfold through dlc and such. The same way that many books have multiple successors to tell a whole story.

[@ralcogaming7674]

*cough cough* A song of ice and fire.

[@esincorporated6123]

Precisely, but I think it's mainly because of From's methods of *soft* story telling. Unlike most games DS, BB ect prefer to fully immerse the player in the world by giving very little details and leaving it up to the player to come up with their ways to interpret the story and understand the world better, where as most games these days are almost like watching a movie and deliver story through a lot of exposition and detailed cutscenes. No don't get me wrong stories that deliver the lore through cutscenes and E xposition aren't bad video games, but the fact that most video games are more like a movie that an actual engaging and immersive world. This is the main reason why in From's titles (not including Sekiro ShadowsDie Twice) your character is mute and has no established lore or great importance. Your character in these games if purely meant to be a medium for you as the player to experience the world and interpret it the way you see fit.

[@tylontaylor357]

Best real life response to Shad. Out of all the history comments none of them address what he is saying.

[@kuro_neko5863]

Speaking of your book, when do you think the next one will be out?

[@Traiden]

There is a character who lets you know a bit about each Great Rune holder and where they might be found. Gideon the old man at the round table hold. Once you collect your first rune at the prodding of all the NPCs of the first area you can talk with him more about the things within the world. He gives a good enough rundown of the areas to get your started on the path to knowing as well.

[@magpipe146]

I love the fact that to understand this story you gotta read between the lines and discover it yourself, your dropped into a world that’s been moving without you and now your back and then learn bits about the greater picture and your role in it and it makes it that much more rewarding discovering it yourself and making your choice from that

[@Michael_peanut]

@Surfyun sounds like you're lacking braincells if you can't deduce the story in elden ring which is by far the most accessible lore in fromsofts games

[@micklane7306]

@Surfyun nope he's spot on. Unfortunately a lot of people find it hard to use critical thinking.

[@julianadams3710]

@Surfyun Sounds like you’re making excuses for not being able to read and use context clues.

[@julianadams3710]

@Surfyun The plot in fromsoft games has never been told like that so go off. I also enjoy games where it is, like God of War or Assassins Creed. Which are basically playable movies. Theirs different ways to tell a story and Froms way isn’t bad, it’s just too hard for you to figure out.

[@TripleS-034]

@Surfyun Go back to reading Shad's novel where he spoon feeds you everything as if you don't have a brain & can't figure things out without having massive exposition dumps every couple of pages.

[@snazzyjovialwyrm3314]

I'm sorry to say this, Shad, but I disagree about the game's story hardly being there. You said that it doesn't give a bare minimum to function, but it does. The cutscenes, character dialogue, and even the environment itself tells the story and its offshoot side stories well enough. Heck, Ofnir and the Finger Readers literally give heaps of lore dumps to help tell the game's story once you've obtained your first great rune. It's a massive RPG world, and this disjointed, "find the pieces and put them together" form of story telling helps to supplement it.

[@shadiversity]

Perfectly fine to disagree, and it seem you understand my argument much better than many other commenters defending the game's story telling, but I continue to believe that the game's story does not give a bare minimum to function, by the fact so many people still don't understand the story after playing the game, and don't care enough about it to find out, which is truly a shame because a story and world as great as the one they have made, deserves to be seen, and the bare minimum at least more easily discovered in the game.

[@jellydamgood]

Yea, for one it's a very different style of storytelling. If you just want gameplay, you can just ignore all the story, but if you want story there's heaps to discover.

[@iota-09]

@@shadiversity to be completely honest i believe it's just a matter of taste, miyazaki has always done storytelling this way and this tome it actually was CLEARER because martin wrote the foundational lore, and he's always been praised to no end within not just the ds but the soulslike community as a whole for this, people who played and loved dark souls or Bloodborne generally love digging into item descriptions, quests, diagetic details, etc etc to piece together the story of a world and consequently of the game itself. Now, if what is given by simply beating bosses and reading mandatory dialogues isn't enough for you: that's fine, but many people are of a different opinion there. So Uh Yeah, there's really not much to say, i doubt miyazaki is gonna do anything to change his storytelling, especially as he is aware of this for when you watch the trailers or interviews with him, you'll notice he gives MASSIVE lore and story spoilers, because je knows many of the non-hardcore fans won't figure out these things... But he still does it, because he likes it this way. So yeah. He also has a tendency to do games in cycling order (assuming the translations keep the story clear of course, which wasn't the case with ds1-3): clearly told game-> abstract game -> clear game ->abstruse game -> etc So seeing how Elden ring is a love letter to long-time fans which push everything they know about these games to 11(more poison swamps than ever, more vertical design and pseudo-platforming than ever, more illusory walls than ever, etc) including "finding out lore with notes and by looking at statues in the game", then perhaps his next title may be more up your alley in terms of storytelling, though rumor is such title is armored core, so i dunno if you'll like that...

[@bitsamui5104]

@@shadiversity Shad, you're one of the few fans of the game who aren't just blind fanboys of FromSoft. I hope you don't lose you sanity dealing with all of the out-right simpery that is going to be coming your way now that you dared say something negative about a FromSoft game, let alone the "materpiece" and "greatest game ever" Elden Ring.

[@marcuskorson8]

@@iota-09 The only thing this game lacks is mimics :(

[@cardassa]

I have to agree. The first few Dark Souls games I beat, I never had a good picture of why I am doing the things I am doing and its just my pride keeping me from outright quitting this game. The beating you get at hands of a boss was just enough for me to stick with the game to beat it so I can reclaim some of my pride. The world building is actually pretty detailed but I just don't like how obscurely its all hidden. Its one of the reason I got exhausted with these type of games since the plot is just pushed to side to a level that you never shake the whole lost feeling throughout the entire game. Good of War is more my style I guess...

[@NickoTyn]

If I wanted a game where the story just pours over me I would play any other RPG that ever existed, from Elder Scrolls to Witcher 3. I love it that in this sea of story games there are the FromSoftware games that tell the story in a very different way that involves detective work from the player. I really don't see the need for any FromSoftware game's to change how they tell the story. Not every game has to be accessible for everyone.

[@Windowsprodukt]

It would be nice to at least know *why* we'd want to fix the ring, like we get in the intro to Dark Souls 1. That game left people confused and yet it was way more informative than Elden Ring.

[@paulogaspar8295]

That's it not the point. The many lore and references are not even in the game. Others are so subjective you lose the core of it. It's ok to leave some subjectivity to the player so you can spectulate, but if you leave too much for imagination people end up conluding nothing of just skipping most of the story. Which is what happends. Even the most hardcore players doing hundreads of hours of investigation work will not know everything, and that's a shame. It's not about "not being accesible to everyone" it's about not doing well exposition even for the hardcore players. You can put any of the mysteries, great "nuggets" for harcore players that take decades to decypher, you can at the same time explain a core lore inside all of those mysteries.

[@RevyaAeinsett]

@@paulogaspar8295 They _are_ in the game, you knob. Shad literally lied about some of the lore only being available from sources outside the game. There is nothing on Twitter that isn't in the game. Every single bit of information the devs wanted you to know is in the game. You just have to look for it instead of crying and shitting your pants because it's not being shoved in your face.

[@sunbro148]

@@paulogaspar8295 Honestly, most of the ones opting for having lore being mostly subjective just sounds like they want their own fanfiction than concrete lore, which basicly goes againsg the argument of FROMs story telling being "deep". Headcanon and fanfiction is the farthest thing from deep.

[@mechamahou8467]

@@paulogaspar8295 what lore is *not* In game? Literally all lore theory videos are extrapolated from item descriptions. Tell me a single thing not in the game, because I don't think you actually know and are just parroting an opinion you heard because you *personally* didn't read shit.

[@omnishambles4477]

When you cut to the clip of a dragons dogma, all I could think was "thank god Elden Ring doesn't have lore drops like this". I'd much rather find out about the history of the world by reading about it, and have the characters speak to you like real people.

[@ncpolley]

In real life, people also tell you history and who you are. You just take it for granted.

[@threemeters1425]

@@ncpolley In real life, having someone teach me history bores me to death whereas I am much more invested when I actively seek out about periods of history I’m interested in. A simple sentence going ‘This was a religious war in the 16th Century” will entice me to read about a topic rather than someone, without my prompting, reciting the damn Silmarillion to my face.

[@ncpolley]

@@threemeters1425 You really do take the work people put in for your education for granted.

[@threemeters1425]

@@ncpolley God forbid someone goes out of their way to read about something rather than be forced to listen about it, such bad manners!

[@bitsamui5104]

@@threemeters1425 God forbid you actually talk to and learn from other human beings instead of pretending you'll actually put in the effort yourself to learn it (you won't). I bet you watch vaati like every other Soulsbourne person does, anyway, invalidating the entire point lmao.

[@Archontasil]

Mystery and wonder are the gravity that attracts the whole soulsborne community to know the lore of whole story. It's a very famous story: when miyazaki was a kid he couldn't really read english,but he likes a lot of fantasy novel, but since he didn't understand alot of the words, he just makes up whatever story based on the words he knows. It's an active way of storytelling, where the writers and the audiences both creates their story together, and everyones story is different because of their perspective. It's alot more interesting than your traditional narrative, andit can only happened in the videogame medium

[@rydz656]

Who gives a shit? The game sucks ass.

[@iota-09]

The videogame and the ttrpg medium, of which miyazaki actually mentioned in relation to his collaboration which martin, which i doubt is just a mere coincidence.

[@Loppoz56]

@@rydz656 wait really ? the game looks pretty fun to me tho lol

[@raskbell]

Vague story telling that can drive many interpretations is by no means specific to a video game medium.

[@Archontasil]

Ah yes, i meant the environmental clues and exploration storytelling. Videogame allows you to explore their world and you can put some story in the environment. Movies can do that too but since you can't explore the world,there is so little story you can put in there.

[@Otokage007]

the game is made to be enjoyed without knowing most of the story. You still know the basics: Marika's heir was killed, queen Marika is defeated, her children are at war, the elden ring shattered. The Erdtree has chosen a tarnished to recover the elden ring and become the new lord of the world, guided by Marika's misterious daughter. But the rest of the story is made to experience it as an archeologist, that means no one is going to tell you the story, YOU have to tell others (and yourself) from your discoveries. It makes, btw, complete sense, since the world is at ruins and the events happened a long ago, so there's barely anybody alive from that time that could tell you anything reliable. But don't say "i got nothing from the game" or "the game doesn't tell you", because Vaati and others did not rely on anything but the game to gather the story, so everything is there. PS: the Golden Order is the new set of natural laws designed by Marika when she stripped the rune of death from the ring. I'm quite sure someone (or some item lol) states this quite literaly.

[@matthewcarter7309]

Just feel like this needs saying: Elden Ring is not a 'story game'. It doesn't exist to tell a story. It primarily exists to be a game, and an understanding of the story beneath it is not required to enjoy the gameplay. Therefore the story is by design hidden, enigmatic - you don't need it unless you want to look for it.

[@RyanSiggaard]

The reason that From Software's games we're niche we're because of it's style of storytelling, if it made everyone content with a "normal" storytelling framework, then it wouldn't be seen as such a difficult game. It's not a difficult game just for the gameplay. It's difficult for it's storytelling, for it's in-game decisions, and it's gameplay. And the reward for getting past all those hurdles is an engrossing story with an amazing world, and complex characters. The reason people replay the games is to experience this story, over and over again. Meeting Solaire again after seeing him fall from grace and die to your own hands, with the determination to save him, no matter what. That's why Dark Souls all the way through Elden Ring is so loved, people love the challenge it gives, and the skill they develop. They love the story and it's many unknowns, so that you can fill in the blanks like you're actually there, like you play a part in this story. That's why it's an RPG. The different endings that you could directly influence and change the world, for the bad, slightly less bad, or good. If you want to know everything in a story and world, you can read a book or play a different game with that type of storytelling, because your not gonna get that with a From Software game.

[@Zach-fo6ri]

I definitely understand not appreciating the style of narrative that From Software has in Elden Ring. I do fundamentally disagree that the game does not give you enough information, however. It might not be enough for you, but for many people who play the game for the story, it's engaging and the mystery alone serves as a major driving force of exploring the map and finding NPCs. I believe it was toward the beginning of your video that you mention not having a hint about Rennala to entice you to go find her. I think the opening cinematic is enough of a hint to go find her. If you don't feel enticed to go find all the bosses and NPCs from the out-set of the game, then I believe the gaps in the story are your own making. I understand you appreciate the mystery as well, just not really the set up. Not every story is for everyone, and not every style will mesh with how you like to consume a story. In the end, the story and gameplay make up the experience that From Software intentionally crafted to be this way. And I don't think your suggestions would improve it at all; in fact, it would detract from the experience for me, and the magic of these games would fade. I think you are skilled and knowledgeable in a lot of things, Shad, but I do not think your vision of the story delivery would be an improvement. Of course, it's entirely subjective and to each their own. Cheers!

[@xTheReapersSpawn]

They could have both, the main story needs more fleshing out directly imo. I think a little criticism on the story front is warranted. Anyone getting overly defensive is just holding on to the fact we haven't had a really good game like Elden Ring in a good 5 years or so.

[@xstreampunk7662]

I love souls games, what I hate about it is it doesn't answer a simple question, "Why are we doing this?", Only DS2 and sekiro answered it properly, the rest are basically "cause we say so" premise that it basically drags down the whole story for me But the world building is great, the more you do the more you will know stuff, it does expand the whole story of the world, but the story is what our character follows, and it's mostly cause someone told us to do it The players motivation to move forward is more about gameplay and lore than progressing the story that we are presently doing.

[@FunnyMonkey781]

@@xstreampunk7662 I mean in DS3 you are a chosen undead, awoken to rekindle the flames by gathering the lords of cinder.

[@r3dp9]

@@xstreampunk7662 Literally all the other souls games give a better why, not just DS2 and Sekiro (though Sekiro does it better) Demons Souls: You're trapped! We're all trapped, and we're all gonna get eaten by demons if we don't do something about it! DS1: You're THE chosen one! Probably. Go save the world from being trapped in a crazy, undead state for eternity. DS2: See DS1, except you have a background... that you forgot. You kinda need to complete your quest before you completely lose your identity and sanity. DS3: See DS1, but for real this time. Bloodborne: You're trapped! We're all trapped, and you're gonna get eaten for an eternity until you do something about it! Sekiro: Your BFF is being kidnapped by cultists who want to abuse his immortality powers, which btw are turning the world sick and insane (see DS1) Elden Ring: Birds are chirping, rollalopes are rolling, the local lords are crazy but all the adjacent lands are still alive and intact (as far as the most recent exiles from those lands know). Nobody seems to be going insane, except for the people who were already insane anyways. You are free to explore wherever, nothing is keeping you anywhere. Also, you're a tarnished, but nobody will tell you what that means or why they look down on you for it. Sure, the Elden Ring apparently needs to get reforged eventually, but there's no rush. Take your time. Sniff the roses. At least in DS1 we knew what hollowing was.

[@xstreampunk7662]

@@r3dp9 DS1 tho, chosen undead are those who can do the FALSE PROPHESY, more so that it was entrusted to us by a random guy who we don't even know if him freeing us is intentional or not. Even if we believe that the prophecy is true, half of it was only given and after o&s we learn on what to do and what can happend, basically we are doing it blindly cause we were told that we have to DS3: we are revived to do what the 4 lords won't, they are way more wiser than majority of the undead, why should we go against their wishes other than selfish desire? Countless accounts of the cycle too so why keep the cycle going when it would just prolong the doomed world. In the end, both falls down to "cause they told us to do it", DS1 is to continue the Knights quest for some reason and DS3 is to follow the command of the first flame. Can't say any about demon souls but it's a bit fine for it and BB, tho on BB, why are we there in the first place and why did we partake on the hunt without second guessing than try to leave yharnam? Here's an individual questions DS1: why continue a dying man's quest and not question anything after? DS3: why continue the cycle when it gets worse every iteration? BB: why join the hunt and solve this issue and not try to escape it?

[@k-p116]

There's another game which is quite annoying with how many parts of its history is incomplete and missing, and people have to be detectives to find the truth. It's called Earth.

[@SerLoinSteak]

All of the Renalla lore is told to you by an NPC at the Church of Vows. Clearly Shad didn't speak to Pope Turtle

[@somusircar4124]

The thing is Shad, the point of fromsoftware games from my POV after being a fan all these years is that they kinda want to encapsulate how it would actually feel to be the protagonist "realistically" in a crapsack world. Just imagine that you are a tarnished in an era where knowledge is sort of hidden by various factions, you have only heard of the demigods through legends and the only thing you know is that by getting all the shards of elden ring, you'll become the elden lord. You would be absolutely clueless and that's the thing that from wants to encapsulate. As for knowing about elden ring, why would a lowly tarnished have an in depth knowledge about the fundamental cosmic force of reality? That too, one that probably involves an outer god. Nobody actually seems to know exactly what the elden ring is. As for the hidden questlines, I don't think anything can be more immersive than knowing that you cannot solve and discover everything on your own. Most of the discoveries in our world were done by sheer accidents and they were piece out by multiple generations to create stuff that we have today. Lastly, the huge difference between a game and novel is that you don't need to have a very complicated story to have a masterpeice of a game. Elden ring is oftentimes compared to many zelda titles that were masterpieces in their own right. None of them have a complicated story (most of them can be boiled down to "defeat Ganon for the 54th time"). It needs to have a masterful gameplay and world which elden ring definitely has and a basic story, at least which is given to you from the get go- the cosmic force (elden ring) is broken, gather its pieces by defeating the shardbearers and become the elden lord.

[@fumeister0992]

Wonderfully said! The complete lack of the sort of exposition that Shad wants at the start of each area would absolutely shattered immersion, because why would you know that? Also, you would have to vastly rewrite melina's character for it to be even vaguely believable for her to be that knowledgeable.

[@shadiversity]

I totally disagree, because a real protagonist would interact with the world more than killing every monster, they would ask questions and get involved with the story. You literally have a companion you basically never talk to that would be a wealth of knowledge. It's very likely a lowly tarnished would know what the very keystone of it's world's law and power is, it's literally woven into the primary religion. As to hidden questlines, are you seriously thinking I said to never have that type of thing? Please watch the video before commenting because if you did you would know that statement is meaningless to my argument. I never said they have to tell us everything, I said there's a bare minimum needed for a story to function (watch the video to know what that bare minimum is), and after that, they can have as much mystery and hidden lore as they want. Your last paragraph is very lost. First, Elden Rings story and law is NOT basic, it's deep, complex and incredible, that THAT is why their type of story telling is so bad, because they're not letting the audience know, enjoy or appreciate that incredible story. You're right that games don't need complicated story, gameplay is key, but great story can enhance a game tremendously but Elden Ring fails at that not because there's not story to use, they actually chose to hide the incredible story they had, which is what annoys me so much.

[@benjaminrosiek5007]

honestly the worst part of the game is the ease of which you can screw up the questlines. and thusly miss a lot of context.

[@masshysteria3549]

@@benjaminrosiek5007 I like that fact. I don't know all of the moving parts so ever action has a reaction somewhere in the world. I often play threw souls games multiple times. Each time I connect something to another getting a better understanding of the faction of the world. I understand why doing something lock me out of a quest.

[@benjaminrosiek5007]

@@masshysteria3549 not what i mean, you can go into fail states by exploring the map a little too far. not necessarily any action other than that. ya is a guy says "me like the bears" it makes sense he'd be angry if you go and slay runebears. it makes less sense when you fail a quest because you moved too far north east.

[@BarokaiRein]

The game has been out for couple of weeks,if people weren't still trying to figure out the story I'd be fucking alarmed as a long time fan. Like Elden Ring took me 5 times as long to finish as Dark Souls 3 did and people kept finding new things to talk about in terms of story and hidden lore that gave you more context for the overall story for MONTHS before any of the DLC even came out for that one. That's exactly what I like about the way these games tell their stories by basically just not telling it to you directly. I feel like an archaeologist piecing things together based on environmental storytelling, item descriptions and game mechanics revolving around items,spells and such. What something does isn't random either,the effects of these things also tell part of the story. By the way I know that you understand that,I have indeed watched the video,but the thing is that people who love this shit prefer it when *everything* is a mystery, we don't consider anything to be ''bare minimum needed to get invested in the story''. I'm sure that having it your way with both an easy to understand story and then some hidden stuff wouldn't ruin the game,it would certainly make it more accessible but at least from my POV that just means less things to learn myself. Nobody else tells a story the way Miyazaki does and I feel like it's better to just let him do his unique thing instead of trying to make these games more like everything else that's already out there.

[@lelis8366]

Beautifully said!

[@atomic747]

I just don't bother.

[@jmarra07]

That's too much effort for Shadiversity. He'd rather read the developer's tweets about the story. Apparently lol

[@atomic747]

@@jmarra07 I mean I take what I can get. Because oh wow apparently this statue that seems mundane also has lore. I don't know I sometimes feel miyazaki kind of just put a thing and just nods at the first guess.

[@sekiro_the_one-armed_wolf]

@@atomic747 based miyazaki

[@joxerthemighty9148]

where is the link to the main story video you keep referencing ?

[@MarvinMonroe]

I'm a From Software fan and enjoy their style of world building and storytelling. I definitely know it's not for everyone. The thing is that no one likes being told that the things they enjoy are "flaws" and "objectively bad game design". When you say that you are basically calling us idiots for liking something that is so "flawed'

[@MHkaserz]

His take is subjective, if he admits that, everyone would be ok with it The problem for me stems from the apparent entitlement in his take… “I think this is bad because I couldn’t get invested in it and hence it must be bad” smh

[@raphaeldias5502]

People have opinions. And opinions are not the same. He gave his. And that's that.

[@MarvinMonroe]

@@raphaeldias5502 the point is when you say something is "objectively bad" then you are explicitly saying it's not your opinion. You are saying it's an unarguable fact. You totally have missed the point. He specifically said this isn't his opinion. He's says it's fact

[@arlaghdoth4434]

Because it is not good storytelling. It is objectively bad because storytelling implies a set of specific rules that have to be followed and can be deemed good and bad in an objective sense. The word you're looking for to describe Elden Ring's presentation is something I don't even think has a name. It's some kind of "Reverse Chronology" but with gameplay being essential to its merit as a form of "narrative". It's kind of like reading an encyclopedia in an abandoned library, but add some gameplay (fun and hard combat) to reading that encyclopedia. That's a souls game right there. It's too different to the point where it does not fit the standards of "Storytelling". I understand how one could like it, but from a storytelling perspective it is in fact objectively bad, as it has no pace, and the narrative hides itself from you. If I was to give write a book, and then when you bought my book I took it from you, ripped out every page and hid it across your whole town, I don't think you'd call me a "great storyteller", however interesting the contents of my book may be. (And if you would be insane enough to find the pages I spread, and they happened to have written on them a really good "fictional encyclopedia" that really hooked you, that wouldn't be good storytelling either, it would just mean you really found the lore of my fictional encyclopedia to be great, and as a piece of "Lore-Encyclopedic" work, it would be great, which is the case with this game. Great lore, hidden behind bad storytelling. But still a great work.)

[@rashidabdul3215]

Shad: Elden Ring lacks in narrative direction and the lore must be told through item descriptions and hidden dialouge! Vaatividya: So... First time?

[@corneliusquincydavenportic1913]

Exactly what I was thinking. "You must be new around here."

[@shadiversity]

@@corneliusquincydavenportic1913 That doesn't make the story telling adequate or my points invalid.

[@BackwardsPancake]

I mean, true, but the criticism is still valid. Just because it's an interesting and unique way to relay the story doesn't mean it's perfect, or beyond improvement.

[@100_JAB]

@@shadiversity Think they're just mememing shad

[@friendhaus1858]

@@shadiversity it kinda does, you don't understand eastern storytelling.

[@aberrantart88]

There are definitely disadvantages to this type of story telling. It can be ambiguous, or even lost on players not paying attention to details. There are also advantages. This method of storytelling creates a believable world that is completely indifferent towards you. It treats you as a Tarnished with no renown rather than a gamer. After about 50 hours into the game, I had learned about most of the demigods through meeting them, hearing about them, reading item descriptions, and studying their followers and environments. I decided to document the family tree of the demigod lineages as I continued through the game. Creating this family tree was totally unnecessary to my completion of the game, but was also very satisfying to do the detective work and figure out for myself. It may seem flawed to you, but I guarantee that telling the story this way was a conscious decision. The developer knows that they'll lose some players along the way, and they're happy to pay that price for those of us who enjoy their storytelling.

[@r3dp9]

This "unknown tarnished" has slain 4 demigods, yet no-one will spare 10 seconds to tell him what a tarnished is, or what reforging the Elden Ring will fix about the world.

[@aberrantart88]

@@r3dp9 The intro of each game says "Ye Tarnished, Ye dead who yet live." After this line you see a still hand and a tiny particle of golden light touch it, then the hand moves and you wake up. This bit of info tells you at the beginning that you were raised back to life. Why? That's for you to figure out, if you care to know. You are a pawn in this world, and there are many different factions in the game that are pushing for their own agenda. As for what fixing the Elden Ring will do, maybe it won't change the world for the better. Maybe it should stay shattered.

[@Acesahn]

@@aberrantart88 That explains almost nothing. I'm immortal... yea I got that when I couldn't die lol.

[@tylercalamari3846]

@@Acesahn it explains that you’re raised from the dead by a mysterious golden light. The golden grace of the erdtree. No one is going to outright tell you that they’re using you or that the elden ring is good or bad. Just like the real world; for example, if you’re in a toxic relationship your significant other is not just going to tell you that they’re manipulating you. That is for you to figure out. Is the elden ring really good? Maybe we can fix it or is it beyond fixing? Everyone has an agenda, you must decide who’s is worth siding with.

[@Acesahn]

@@tylercalamari3846 It doesn't say anything about the Erdtree in the beginning.

[@mattk.6835]

What editions of the King Killer Chronicles are those?

[@scottkalkouli2242]

I love fromsoft. I love dark souls, and elden ring has hands down taken my #1 spot for games. I don't mind the way they tell story. But I will admit, if it was a little more in your face I'd enjoy it the slightest bit more

[@Ora_]

58:00 But there was stuff about the academy. The old man in round table hold tells you stuff if I remember it correctly. And then there was that guy at the start of the lake area in the church. If you dont rush trough the game there is some story that they give you. But yeah you can miss stuff like that easily.

[@MIOrko]

yeah he did. He also described other bosses and gave their location such as Rykard, Morgott, Radahn etc. There is also that big turtle who gave some backstory of Ranala and Radagon while also hinting Radagon's weakness in some statue. I havent found that statue yet, dont even know it it exists.

[@zero1343]

@@MIOrko its not a weakness, more of a secret about him. But even if you don't find that statue the secret will be revealed by the end.

[@jordiw913]

No you can’t talk to the npcs regularly explore their quests and you will know more than the essentials a lot more also it should be noted a play through is 100 hours plus so he not only just played to stormveil which is the fucking tutorial but he expected the story to be outlined from there he’s was probably sub ten hours into the game expecting to know everything I’m 110 hours into my first play through I’ve discovered every main piece of lore all of the main side quests and there is still so much random lore like so fucking much it’s insane and now I’m choosing my ending and I’m having such a hard time ha use I have all of the information the endings carry weight behind them just don’t be lazy or entitled be humble and be willing to learn and you’ll be rewarded with the richest most decadent lore bar none no other game in the last five years has had this much lore and story he’s just being uncharitable and honestly doing us and the games image a dishonest disservice true ignorance being spouted throughout this video

[@Ora_]

@@jordiw913 Ever heard of punctuation?

[@Jaegulhi]

It sounds like you didn't explore the world very much. Because the story is very much complete and it is all there, but it comes from talking to NPCs, reading the items you pick up, and so on. This is the type of story telling that pretty much all of FromSoftware games have had. Your point about Raya Lucaria for example, can be explained by Throp, directly left of the first Liurnia grace, and partially by Sellen, in Limgrave. Also, you are able to talk to Melina any time you're at a church I believe, and she does give you area and story information. Maybe give it another chance and take the time to actually explore the world, because it's story is told by those who live there. This isn't your typical spoon-fed story. Edit: Shad's pinned comment that goes into more depth doesn't really help the argument. The fact that he couldn't get a taste of the story is because he didn't bother to look around and talk to NPCs. The content isn't obscured or hidden by the developers, it's quite literally everywhere. It's almost hard to miss the story and the hook with how packed the world is.

[@risbeak6334]

I did a completely blind run and while I missed several npc storylines, I was able to get a pretty full picture of the story without any outside assistance. A few minor details still elude me but I'll work those out in later playthroughs sometime. There's plenty of story in there, no doubt about it! Just have to look. This game made me feel like a warrior historian and it was an awesome experience.

[@buttmunchmcnugget328]

Totally agree, its hard to want to explore and not spam through text when you have such a glorious new souls game at your finger tips. But when you do those things and rush through without stopping to take it all in, you are going to be left with Shads outlook, but it will not be the games fault...

[@hyperonmonster]

In the video he said he has 100 hours into the game mostly just exploring limgrave and liurnia and hasn't fought any caelid bosses yet because he wants to explore everything and take his time.

[@Jaegulhi]

@@hyperonmonster That's just it though. If he had explored like he claimed, he would have come across the things he needed. For example, turtle pope's waygate is two rooms in from of Rennala. Yet he claimed that Rennala's story wasn't there or had to be found by going out of your way. But in reality, it was right next to her. His argument is just strange because it has so many holes that are easily filled by the counter points.

[@hyperonmonster]

Isn't turtle pope in the church? I don't know what you mean by a waygate

[@rogthepirate4593]

I do understand your point and can see how that could potentially be frustrating. It does take effort to piece together much of the story and not everybody is into that. However - I don't necessarily agree that they could add much more exposition than what they already do and still achieve the same effect. Think about it: you actually know everything you absolutely need to know. Tarnished - the dead who yet live. How you became one isn't important, that's up to your imagination really. What the Elden Ring even is is the central mystery of the game, explaining that kinda defeats the point. It's some powerful thing that was shattered, go pick up the pieces and try to fix it. Your character is thrust into this without much foreknowledge, if any. Why should you have any more? By putting you on the same level of understanding, or lack thereof, it actually creates immersion when you let it happen, commit to it. The story is whatever path your journey takes, and you and your character slowly gain understanding as your journey progresses. What I really love about this style of storytelling is that it mirrors the game. The game doesn't hold your hand gameplay-wise, every achievement, every bit of progress you make, you fought for. You earned. The same way, the game isn't forthcoming with the story. It shows you the basics, you experience what actually happens, but beyond that, if you want to know, it's on you to find out. You earn that understanding, just as you earn mechanical progress. It makes the world feel mysterious. Dense. You know that there is so much you don't understand, so much that the game doesn't outright tell you, you're as clueless as your character would be. You see the world through the same eyes. If the game would explain the important story beats to you (instead of just showing them, which it does, and leaving the interpretation to you) while still leaving much to be discovered, some of that denseness, that mystery, would inevitably be lost. Personally I'd think that to be a shame, but I understand you may feel differently. Now, granted, my opinion might differ from yours because I'm used to this style of storytelling for over a decade now, and I've grown very comfortable (and attentive) with it.

[@aura6958]

Yeah I finish the game and still dont know what the story is about lol you literally has to go read items gears for more lores and it's only a bit and you have to make a timeline of what and what happened. One thing annoying in soul series is the side quest like wft am I suppose to go next no pinpoint you just wonder around.

[@mechamahou8467]

Go back to skyrim if you need waypoints and markers for everything lmao. God forbid you find something yourself eh?

[@nananina982]

@@mechamahou8467 seethe that someone dared spit on your fromsoftware game

[@edwarddavis7858]

I don't really mean to be "that guy" but.... I've found out almost all of this on my own, in game. Like let me do a rough breakdown of my initial discovery of the lore as I play through. SPOILER WARNING for anyone who doesn't know yet. "Game opens and you're told you are tarnished and the Elden Ring is shattered": alright, this sounds interesting, fairly straight forward if still ominously lacking in detail. I'm excited to figure this out. "You are maindenless, but a woman takes on the role of your maiden, and you're told to follow the Grace": Ok cool, I'm given direction, and a bit of plot. IDK who the maidens are, or why I need them, but apparently I'm unique in not having one. "You are met with a overly powerful boss that seeks to specifically stop Tarnished like me from my goal": Ok things get interesting. Who is this old dude, and why does he want to stop me from my goal, that even my character doesn't even fully realize yet? "Get sent to the roundtable, meet people talking about the religion of Two Fingers, and such.": Ok so there's this whole organization dedicated to the Tarnished and their goals, whatever they may be, and that most tarnished lose the guiding Grace and begin to wander aimlessly. "In castle find big hat wizard man who's friendly.": I like this NPC I'm going to interact with them specifically (Important for later) "Eventually fight Godrick the Grafted. Fight is hard as steel, but eventually I win. I get/see his rune": This was the eye opener. I realized he had a Great Rune and it was in fact a part of the logo of Elden Ring. THAT was the Elden ring. That thing was shattered! By who and why tho??? "Go see the Two Fingers, scared as hell of it, but talk to the old lady, who tells me not only is there a Greater Will, so a God of some sort, Revealing that the Tarnished are led by the Greater Will in order to fix the Elden ring": I'm now given a direct goal and reason for my character existing, especially given I know what I am now. I'm also told to get at least a second. The list goes on and on, but the main thing was this below; I find Rogier the kind mage and see he's crippled. Lucky for me, his build/class was the one I happened to choose from the start (Melee/magic dex build) and by his instructions go fight the rot monster under the castle. This leads him to wanting a shard of death (or whatever it was called) which I just so happened to have. This led him to point towards Ranni, the girl who gave you the Ash bell, and sent me down her storyline, which in turn led me to parts of the other NPC's storylines. I became invested in the story, by paying attention to the story as I played it. I didn't even read descriptions until about hour 40 (I couldn't figure out how lol, I use mouse and keyboard to play and the buttons are.... dumb), and have ACTIVELY avoided lore videos till THIS point. I did look up clues how to do and find stuff tho. And after this, got me into reading the plot in the items on the wiki and such. So I get your point, Shad.... I just cannot bring myself to agree with your conclusion. I was very much so invested in the story very quickly into the game, because it gave me just enough for me to question what was going on, and answered just a tiny bit of those questions.

[@Artaxerxes.]

He wants more cutscenes with some great voice acting. Thats what this is. The game could use more cutscenes and cinematics but its not like FS to tell the story directly. As a tarnished, its makes more sense for you the player to not know much and eventually find out pieces of information rather than conveniently have an NPC tell you the entire story so far

[@ott6428]

This is a very fancy way of saying 'follow the yellow lights, kill all the bosses'. All they really tell you is to get all the mgcuffins from the bosses so you can get the big mcguffin at the end. I loved this game, masterpiece and I finished everything, found most of the lore and story in-game etc. But Shad's complaints are 100% spot on. I've played a few From games and kind of know what to expect with the story, so I'm really not blown away by this. I found the 'big reveal' in the lore somewhat naturally (a transforming statue and note) and I was like 'huh, why does that even matter?'. It's all just fluff imo. It's fine, but there's so much they could have done to improve it.

[@kain6996]

@@ott6428 1 literally any game in the world can be summarized like that by anyone who just wants to dismiss the story 2 you’re the one that said fromsoft should take lessons from endie action devs F off we like fromsoft because they don’t hold your hand for combat or story

[@edwarddavis7858]

@@ott6428 well that's every game then. What made this special was how well it was done. Shad is not spot on at all, because as I laid out, the thing he's complaining about (not having a driving force to compel you towards the story) is right there from the opening cinematic and becomes so much more real as you play the game. Like no game really needs to hold your hand and tell you directly what the story is. Especially not a Fromsoft game. What it does do it very clearly give you a goal, and enough pieces to hook you in

[@ott6428]

@@edwarddavis7858 You realize that the vast majority of players also do not find anything that hooks them enough to learn enough about the story to know what's going on. I was ok with 'go fetch the elden ring, become elden lord' and I knew enough that I wanted to fix the Rune of Death and pretty much let the world die, sticking with From's usual themes. I enjoy it for the high grade pulp that it is. It's just a bit stale at this point and I can think of several ways they could have hooked the player into their style of storytelling. Nobody I know who plays this irl got hooked by the story. All the moments we share are the 'wtf moments' that we never explain, and how the story just is there somewhere. I hate this idea that you either have to repeat the same cryptic shit from 10+ years ago or spoonfeed the player. There are so many things in between. Outer Wilds nails this.

[@VIPE268]

One of the things why I like Sekiro so much is that you really can understand the story without reading bunch of item descriptions or googling ths story. Imo it has really good balance in telling the story to you vs. you finding lore and story by yourself.

[@claytonmccandless593]

I think I can understand that different players see things differently. I saw the world as a massive question that I wanted to answer through exploration; you wanted a world that was a half-finished sentence that you needed to complete through exploration. Is that right?

[@Darkhartx1]

Also you have to look at it from the perspective of the character that you're playing. You're from the land beyond The mist. Somewhere across the sea. You don't know what's going on in this world. You extrapolate the story through experiencing it via the character.

[@jonathanferguson7791]

That requires listening, and remembering, and maybe even using your brain though.... oof, apparently you shouldn't have to.

[@TheRallyPrius]

Tell me more about the Land Beyond The Mist? Is it afflicted by the same problems as the continent the game play takes place? Who was the player character back in the Land Beyond The Mist? Was the PC born and grow up on this planet/plane, or did they spontaneously come into existence and have this urge to follow the lights('grace')? I have so many questions! 😅

[@jonathanferguson7791]

@@TheRallyPrius some of those questions are intentionally open ended which is a device actually used in many franchises for the player to insert themselves. Some of these questions, are literally, actually said to the PC.

[@mryupjup2203]

When you actually knew about the golden egg before you fought them simply because of the all knowing guy alone telling you about it but no the game doesnt tell you 😂

[@shadiversity]

Never said a lot of the story isn't there if you looked, I said most players won't find them, especially the essentials stuff quick enough to care to see how the game ends, which is an objective flaw to its storytelling no matter how butt hurt you are with that truth.

[@mryupjup2203]

@@shadiversity No such thing as an objective flaw in art. Especially because it isnt telling a story. It allows you to find story. If you want to ignore the story you can, if you want it told for you go watch a cutscene game. Btw not caring about the story or not looking for the story are valid ways to experience the game. You will play the part of pawn in the story. This will be lost if its simply told. It doesnt make it "objectively" bad. It adds layers to it, the same as going out of your way to feel rewarded for efford you otherwise wouldnt take the agency in. Similair as with purpose of the difficulty in the game. You haven't spend enough time on the internet if you think people sneering at you are butthurt, they just know you will be. Or maybe you call me butthurt because you lack the self reflection to engage into dialogue besides acting as the judge in simply a type of story telling youre wholly inexperienced in.

[@scavkiller3054]

@@mryupjup2203 I think you killed him bro.

[@the_boar_king8990]

@@mryupjup2203 No, art absolutely can objectively suck. There are plenty of things that I would say aren't particularly 'good' that I enjoy. Just because people are able to find enjoyment in something doesn't automatically absolve it of criticism. Shad is right that FromSoft's method of storytelling leaves a lot to be desired in terms of telling a cohesive story. You can argue that they aren't trying to tell a story, but that doesn't change the fact that they are doing so anyway. Now, rather than saying "Art can't be flawed" say that "Sometimes, the flaw is what makes it art, and not all art is for everyone."

[@mryupjup2203]

@@the_boar_king8990 Nice strawmans bro. And no art cant objectively suck, but if it makes you feel any better then lets pretent it can. That doesnt mean that Shads reasoning is valid, as he and by extention you do not seem to realise what is good and bad about the game's story telling. What Shads looking for wouldnt only defeat the point or lessen the impact of the unique experience the game is looking for, he didnt even try to experience the story the way it was meant. He didnt even complete the game and is already in critiguing mindset calling it "objectively bad". Any souls fan knows you have to atleast play the game before you start understanding and vibing with the unique appeal and quality of souls. Sometimes even more. And youre defending this behavior 😂 And if youre going to judge a souls games story by how "cohesive" it is then you massively missed the point.

[@KhaosDCrab]

All the story elements youve talked about needing to learn outside of the game is knowledge I already have playing exclusively blind, I really dont know how little time you put into the game

[@shadiversity]

Not my argument mate, pay attention next time. I said the game needs to offer the bare minimum near the beginning to invest the player to want to see how the story concludes. Because you said you found some of these essential things well into your playthrough only proves my point that the game did not provide them where it needed to.

[@NabsterHax]

@@shadiversity Why does the game *need* to provide motivation via the lore and storyline? Were you not inherently curious about the characters you'd already met so far? Melina, Ranni the witch, and those in the roundtable hold? You obviously were very curious about Rennala and her backstory, simply because you fought her and she said a bunch of stuff you couldn't understand but wanted to know. The problem is, you didn't trust the game enough to provide sufficient explanations and backstory for these characters, and you didn't explore to find the information yourself (which IS in the game, by the way). Much like Dark Souls, the "critical path" is generally one of ignorance. The game tells you you're supposed to become Elden Lord but of course you're naturally asking why? What does that mean? Do I actually want to be Elden Lord? How does this world work, and is blindly following the guidance of grace even a good idea? You might not like it much personally, but it's pretty well-known that this is precisely the style of storytelling Miyazaki is known for and aims to provide. The feeling of reading LOTR with English as a second language and not quite understanding it all as you go, but prompting your imagination to fill in the gaps. And the fact that the community comes together to pool information and snippets of lore they've found in order to piece together a more complete picture of the lore is a feature, not a bug.

[@jungleambience5355]

The storytelling in their games are the worst on the market.

[@burstyourbubble3500]

@@jungleambience5355 they're far from being the worst on the market, but they are overrated

[@jonathanferguson7791]

@@shadiversity It does dude. A mysterious force that grants god like power was shattered and a great war ensued. Your character is an exile of no reknown called back to rise up and become the elden lord (Bare minimum extrapolation: you need to get power and fix the shattered elden ring) Its- its all there. Its alllll there. It's like... is everyone a centipad? No matter how much you try they just wont read? Or even listen? I mean the opening trailer is basically all stills you just sit and read and listen. You're an author I'd assume your comprehension would be above average.

[@crisschan2463]

this is also my gripe about the game, theres too many jumping jacks too piece every information unimmersively just to understand what the heck am i doing

[@deez6112]

This video is basically this dude saying "the game didn't tell me EXACTLY what's happening at al times with cutscenes so its bad"

[@jacobhyde1415]

It's explained in the opening cutscene that when the Elden Ring was shattered, it split into six Great Runes, which the demigods then went to war over. And once you get your hands on a Great Rune it's easy to understand why; they’re incredibly powerful and that power can be harnessed to strengthen their owner. That alone was enough to convince me, as a player, to get my hands on all of them and find out what happens.

[@Curlsbk]

Exactly, you spitting my boy

[@shadiversity]

The story points of that cutscene was some of the most generic plot points in all of fantasy. Bad thing happened, which made the world bad and now you have to fix it. It's an insult to how awesome the worldbuilding and story really is to have it represented so generically. It might have been enough for you but if any story was submitted like that to a literary agent or publisher it would get thrown out with contempt. My problem is that the story is AWESOME, but done such poor service with how it was presented.

[@bubbleburster2813]

@@shadiversity That's the thing about Fromsoft, they aren't scared of you missing great things. They hide entire levels behind illusory walls/secrets. They are not afraid of the player missing out on good things they make. Personally, I wouldn't have been as invested in the story if it was part of the required experience. It takes me falling in love with the gameplay first for me to become invested in the story. From there it relies on my curiosity to find it out. Fromsoft didn't become big by following norms and trends, they became popular by being confident that a certain number of players would enjoy their unique style. It would be a shame if that unique style was lost.

[@Erox006]

the more replies he gives , the more proof we find that he is new to souls / Miyazaki games .

[@Shadeius]

​@@shadiversity Because it's fitting for your character to know only that much. Your character has only heard the legends of the demigods that came long before them and they are now guided by the Grace to seek the Elden Ring to become an Elden Lord. It's like trying to research Nordic Mythology in real world. Yes, you have written accounts of the legends but there are no first hand written accounts thanks to Christianity and Nords not writing stuff down so many legends are lost and what we have of them aren't in their original telling. Anyway it's utterly pointless to try compare games to books because they are completely different mediums to tell a story. In game you need to consider player agency so you can tell different type of story; far more interactive story than in a book. FromSoft style is one thing that wouldn't work on a book but it does work on game because it's up to you to seek out answers like an archaeologist.

[@t3rr0talabode52]

Having watched a bunch of anime, it seems that the Japanese writers tend to have a fascination with other mythologies (heck, the whole Fate series is that taken up to 11), especially Norse. Maybe it's just me, but I sorta think it's cool how one culture can take another and modify and expand it in ways the other didn't think to.

[@cyberdrace]

No, how dare you, it's disgusting and evil cultural appropriation! Lucky for those japanese that they're not westerners, otherwise they could never get away with it

[@Artaxerxes.]

Why even bring anime into this ? This game is completely high fantasy. I don't see any references to the real world and mythologies. Reusing mythologies in stories like Fate and Assassins creed is fucking lazy and shit. Elden ring is good because its original. Not the same old zeus, odin, jupiter, kratos bullshit

[@t3rr0talabode52]

@@Artaxerxes. Because it's the limited experience I have with Japanese culture. The developers are Japanese. See the connection? No it's not a PhD in Japanese culture (in fact sometimes it's culture just limited to the medium, hard to differentiate), but it's what I got. Why is it a freakin' crime to bring up (admittedly limited) personal experience with another medium (generally) from the same country? Also, did you watch the video? Yes Elden Ring is good and unique, but it DOES borrow from MANY sources. That's literally a running sub-point in the video. World tree(s), runic circles (google image search "runic circles" if you don't believe me), academy (possible Harry Potter, referenced in video), etc. I literally did a google search and found articles talking about mythological references. Yes, the characters and mythos are unique, but they have other elements they borrow from. That's actually one of the sub-points of this video. How exactly did you miss that? And as for borrowing being crap, 1) the author(s) literally said (in interviews) to being inspired by Lord of the Rings and Tabletop. It is no less "lazy" to borrow from one source over another, it's just a matter of something being "new and shiny" compared to something else. There's a whole literature argument that "there is no original idea," which you accidentally just lended credence to by stating that Elden Ring is "original" when the author's explicitly state that they were inspired by other High Fantasy. Borrowing from a less known genre is not "lazy", it's just less unique. You've got more competition, and people already might have had their fill of said content (like apparently you are). Execution/adaption is another matter, that I'll agree. If you want me to argue that anime does it better than Elden Ring, I'm not going to make that argument. deity

[@ott6428]

Yeah and I think it's the same reason Japanese people really loved Ghosts of Tsushima. Sometimes a foreigner can romanticize your culture in a way you never could. Makes you appreciate it more.

[@richardduska1558]

Considering that Souls games pieced tugeater the story from idem descriptions and vague hints I wouldn't say that it's not in the game. But again I haven't red all the item descriptions

[@Rawrshuga]

Shad, I generally agree with you about the storytelling (or lack thereof) though I do want to add-on to that. I think that story obfuscation is fine, depending on the story. For example, knowing nothing at the beginning of a survival horror like say Amnesia is great. Where I think Elden Ring could have done better is to inform the player on the perspective from the view of the Tarnished and their mission, and then left the other parts of the Lore up to the player to discover. Simply knowing that you were once part of the great army sent into exile with the first Elden Lord with the mission to return once again when the time is right could have created more personal incentive to discover what happened to the world while you were in exile. The game only very vaguely outlines this to the player, but I think having full knowledge of just that tiny sliver of lore could have created a clearer sense of one's ultimate purpose.

[@spookzer16]

I don't think YOU were apart of the army sent into exile. I believe you are their descendants. Though I'm not a huge lore buff so I could very well be wrong.

[@Rawrshuga]

@@spookzer16 Seeing as your character gets resurrected at the beginning of the game I think the distinction is unnecessary. Being a descendant would only apply if the timeline were important, but it's not. The Tarnished were doomed to wage war and die outside the game world, only to return when Grace is given back to them and that's why I see it as a member of the original army rather than a descendant.

[@wojszach4443]

tbh obfuscated story and finding out lets say why you should pick other endings, like lets say game tells you a story which is told, not scattered between dagger, dung pile and some random flower from which you have to write fanfic to explain how things work, and then you get sidequests and interpretations to pick better ending or even realize main one is wong, but no, its like going to art gallery with all paintings hidden

[@nopurposeposting1548]

Shaad your ending suggestion is basically what melina already done in the game, at some point in the game progress you can talk to melina through resting in the grace.

[@hoonshiming99]

The problem is talking to her is an option not a must. If players choose to avoid it and proceed to the ending, they’ll miss bits of lore and background that ties the story. I think Shad probably didn’t notice a dialogue option when resting a grace or simply too busy grinding to even care.

[@187Wretched]

@@hoonshiming99 He didn’t beat Godrick which is essentially when we’re given more exposition with Sir Gideon Ofnir. It’s really hard to take his opinion on this seriously. I mean who plays a character to level 30 and stops because they feel like they’ve done everything with that build, obviously someone who doesn’t care about the game itself. Of course he wasn’t going to know how to talk to Melina

[@jaden2758]

@@hoonshiming99 it shouldn't be a must especially when the option is that easy you have no one to blame but yourself if you dont talk to npcs

[@nopurposeposting1548]

@@hoonshiming99 perhaps but from what he said it seems to me he just reached the liurna of lakes region so there is a chance he havent trigger melina dialogue often.

[@nathanpierce2541]

Seemed like most churches of Marika