I’m going to start this video off by saying something that you’ve likely heard a million times
already: my playthrough of Elden Ring was without doubt one of my favourite gaming experiences of
all time. It has been at LEAST a couple of years since I was so captivated with a game,
although the reasons behind that captivation do tend to land more on the narrative side of things,
than the combat. For those who aren’t aware, I’m someone who plays games primarily for
a combination of experiencing their stories and being immersed in their worlds. I enjoy
gameplay for sure, but it isn’t the main reason I play most of the time.
I say this because I will be talking here about what I took away most from the experience,
and that is the integration of lore, story details and the setting at large. I had tons
of fun fighting the bosses and they definitely contributed a lot to the experience, but I’ll
abstain and leave the combat discussion to folks more educated in and better at gameplay than me
and instead just sum things up by saying that my experiences with Soulsborne bosses are so unique
and unbelievable that it’s difficult to articulate what feelings they evoke in me. Similar to how
I feel about Berserk, fighting these behemoths is like living out the abstract dreams I had of
dark fantasy as a kid. It’s stunning, and it’s like FromSoft reached into my mind and plucked
out monsters I had always dreamt about but never knew exactly what they looked like until now when
designing these surreal, horrifying, fantastical things. And that continues with Elden Ring.
But for some reason, I found myself more engaged with the themes, backstories and
lore associated with a lot of these bosses more with Elden Ring than I have been with
any other game from the series - apart from maaaybe Bloodborne. From the way the pattern
of the music for the Godrick battle changes and fights within itself to reflect the rough,
inferior complex-fueled grafts that he would apply onto himself to grasp royalty,
to the almost therapeutic fight with the Regal Ancestor Spirit that made me feel as if I was
putting something deeply sacred to rest, I couldn’t stop myself from gazing in wide eyed
wonder at everything here in the midst of all of my deaths. And that applied basically everywhere.
Is there a lot of recycling and reuse of enemies? Undoubtedly. Are there flaws throughout the game?
Sure. But personally, I couldn’t care less. They rarely bothered me and when they did,
the negatives they posed were dwarfed by the overwhelming positives everywhere else.
With a world in the Lands Between that is unparalleled in scope, with a supreme
beauty in the aesthetics, integrative details and interconnectedness, and with a general immersion,
tone and creativity in the setting only approached by the likes of Xenoblade Chronicles,
Final Fantasy IX, Breath of the Wild and Witcher 3, it’s insane. Sometimes these landscapes are so
gorgeous in their raw imperfect vast beauty that you just have to sit back and take it all in. And
from there, the details of how this all came to be become seeping through. More than anything else,
Soulsborne games capture my soul through their exploration, worlds and stories and what they
evoke in me. The way that From software games tell their stories is understandably divisive. They’re
vague, cryptic and so subtle that you can play through the entire game without having much more
than an inkling about what the plot is about. To understand these stories, you have to look deeply
for them, make connections and inferences based on item descriptions, details in the world and script
that are intentionally minimalistic. Either that or you have to look up lore videos on Youtube.
And that isn’t for everyone. But personally I adore this and have always had so much fun
with this sort of storytelling, having devoted countless hours to making conclusions through the
subtext in other Souls games, in Zelda, and even in Pokemon - all of which, in my opinion, share
stylistic similarities in narrative presentation, believe it or not. Maybe check out my Zelda
videos or my Pokemon setting series if you’re interested in learning what I’m talking about.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I love traditionally told stories that tend to be simpler and up front with
what they’re conveying. But this style just scratches an itch for the story lover in me
that loves to try and put details together. And it’s not like this is a homework assignment or
anything - it’s always done out of my own volition and drive to learn, as the game
coaxes you into wanting to understand it. Of course, there are the bombastic fights and the
epic lines from the bosses that you want to learn more about to provide more impact and context to
their character, and that alone is enough. But for me, the biggest hook is how well the games,
and most pertinently for this topic, Elden Ring, conveys tone. The opening cinematic lays
foundations that provide context, but the in game experience hooks you into wanting to learn more.
As I found myself gazing up at the erd tree, slowly travelling across the
beautiful landscape of Limgrave, strewn with bits of rubble fallen down from Farum Azula,
I felt.. sad and somewhat lonely. I listened to the low strings of the music that seemed to cry
and lament the state of this setting and deeply pondered as to what lead to this sorrowful yet
hushed land. And that was enough for me to desire to learn all about what happened here. Just an
integration of very simple, but very effective storytelling beats. The visuals, the music,
the overall tone, the bits of dialogue and the scattered nature of civilization in this place.
It made me instantly wonder what on earth went down, why it looked like the remnants
of a setting rather than a thriving one, what had caused this place to experience calamity.
Of course, as we know, this is a land without death due to Marika forcibly removing it from the
Elden Ring and hiding it, and with this detail we can place the formerly unplaceable feeling
that pervades so many sections of the game. No one properly dies here - they come back after
returning to the Erd Tree or resurrect shortly after dying in the case of the companions of
death and undead. And this leads to this constant feel of murky decay. Particularly in Caelid but
throughout the whole world, The Lands Between feel like a place that, while hushed, cannot
know peace or rest. And this leads to this tone of rot, appropriately. On top of the cliffs, gazing
across Liurnia towards the Erdtree, or looking to the great beyond in any number of locations,
the world feels so crisp and beautiful and fresh that you feel you can do anything. But eventually,
it all returns back to that decay. Whether it be in one of the dungeons or castles headed by the
corrupt, whether you find yourself navigating the strewn remnants of a mire of death, or whether we
encounter a boss that is lamentable in one way or another - Ascents are always followed by descents,
and we’re never given license to forget that this is a broken, fragmented, sad world.
And yet, as I alluded to in referring to the scale, there is nonetheless immense beauty to lose
ourselves in amidst the cruelty. The murky lows are low, but the ascents and stretches where we
can lose ourselves in this world are so high and those contrasts are so effective in getting across
what this land is like. High fantasy highlands, snowy mountains, horrifically quiet hilltops
full of the frozen husks of giants, misty marshes containing the remnants of an old town, rich lush
forests, remnants of civilizations past, relics of architecture making you wonder. Echoes of Martin’s
Old Valyria through seeing the suspended dragon in the levelled capital of Leyndell.
An ancient city seemingly stopped in time, surrounded by soaring dragons. A land of corpses,
fire and blood, a feast for crows, scavenging the earth, armies of the dead dragging themselves all
over the place. There is so much variability in the geography and mood - and yet, they all pull
of that very same effect I’ve been talking about, with the specifics of the story being pulled back
so you can just wonder - What happened? There was clearly some sort of big battle, but are
these armies of the dead cursed here? Are they all soldiers or citizenry? What happened to this
sunken town, and why was the academy closed off? What caused the giants to be decimated like this?
The imagination takes the fore until you put the pieces together,
and with remnants as rich and evocative as this, half the fun is in the imagining. But
what stands clear above all else regardless of context is that there is profound serenity here,
and we see it throughout. But war has ravaged it, and undercut it, such that there is less
than there should be. And even just describing it in these flashes is enough to get the idea across.
The shattered elden ring, a land torn asunder. The remnants of this war of the shattering,
caelid overtaken by Malenia’s rot. Miquella, stolen from the Haligtree’s roots by his
demented half-brother after trying to no avail to cure his and his sister’s curses.
Godrick, the runt of the litter, hamfistedly trying to become strong through addition of
flesh to no avail. Morgott, cursed but dedicated to the golden order. Rykkard, so possessed by his
blasphemy he’s become inhuman and adorned his mountain with corpses. Radahn, unrelenting in
his madness, holding back the stars, almost begging to be put to the sword. Rennala,
broken, cradling her egg and failing to reproduce the daughter she so misses. Godwyn, his body
morphed beyond recognition to become the Prince of Death while Fortissax tragically fights without
end to save its beloved companion to the point of corruption. Radagon, arguably the character that
makes one wonder the most. Marika, whose wrath and desire is the progenitor of all. The golden order,
possibly just as vile. And.. Ranni, refusing to submit and play a role in this farce.
Miyazaki talks about how important it is to have human dignity in his bosses and antagonists,
and in my opinion that is key for establishing this wonder and intrigue and investment.
With the dust settled, the stalemates established and these demigods having taken up their places,
this war-torn land is lonely and angry and mourning, as shown by the tragic and lamentable
song of the bats, as they mourn the loss of their home and how the Golden Order has forsaken them.
The common folk, which essentially amount to the non-gods, are left to pick up the pieces
and fend for themselves. Transformed internally or externally due to fear, vengeance or any number of
fantastical conditions. It’s all horrifying and deeply lamentable. And the things I describe here
are again, classic FromSoft fare - to provide bits and have us make connection for ourselves.
But the scope has never been this vast before, it’s never felt quite this political and grand.
This Game of Thrones-esque fillial story of half sibling gods fighting one another, this
world whose very nature can be altered at a whim, leaving the denizens left behind and forgotten.
From the sweeping to the miniscule, this game had me by the scruff of the neck.
I have rarely been as awed on something as I was when I saw the Erdtree for the first time.
I’ve never been as disturbed by a setting as I was by Caelid. I’ve never felt quite what I
felt when I was transported to crumbling Farum Azula and set eyes on the ravaged ancient city,
wondering how the hell this was going to play into the story. I’d look around at the tiniest aspects,
like the design of a classroom in the academy, or a barracks in a castle, to try and infer details
there because i know that thought went into every nook and cranny of the environmental storytelling
of this place - and just to promote immersion. The weight and sadness as the round table hold slowly
emptied out and finally, burnt to the ground as Hewg resolves to die, memory lost, in the place
he resolved to stay for his queen, comforted by the one soul who offered him solace, the one that
he himself saved. The agony of Blaidd, furious and confused and pained beyond belief at the idea that
he could ever possibly do what was programmed onto him. I could go on forever just naming characters
or locations or little moments that made me feel, but I won’t bore you more than i already have.
Not that it really matters, but at this very moment, I could not tell you whether i prefer
Bloodborne or Elden Ring. I think Bloodborne is so unique in its progression and lore,
and I think the mix of gothic and cosmic horror elements as we make our way through the game
is something totally unique and unmatched. But there is a draw to the familial politics
and unbelievable scale of Elden Ring that just feels so grand in the amalgamation of
integrative stories and ideas throughout its land that I can’t really say that
I prefer one over the other right now. Elden Ring was a phenomenal experience,
and while I would never argue that it’s perfect, at the end of the day it did all that I was hoping
it would do for my experience and more, and I have no doubt that I will be spending tons of time
pouring over more details and learning more about the lore so I can soak as much as I
can out of this story. I can only hope you feel similarly to me. Many thanks for watching.