I like that the DLC is more about a current story. It lends itself to greater urgency and tension. Miquella is making his move, so the true last battle of the shattering is happening now, and one of the factions is us.
This is something that really strikes me about the world building too. No matter what you accomplish in the game it feels like you are insignificant. Like you are showing up late to a party that's already been broken up.
i mean, you kind of are the shattering happened a while ago radahn already got infected siege of lyendel failed godwyn is dead vyke is imprisoned all the exciting stuff already happened
This is actually a very old school approach to storytelling in games. Many titles back in the 80s/90s/early00s were naturally limited in how they could present the story, so a heavy focus on minimal and enviromental storytellling was a pretty much an obligation if you wanted any sort of stronger narrative without forcing the player to read walls of text. You can see it in many classic shooters or dungeon crawlers from that period - as well as modern games that follow those principles of course. On that note, souls games have their roots on King's Field, which just happen to be dungeon crawlers from back then. In a way, its From's own flavored evolution of the genre that still sticks to some of the aspects that work well. If you want too see some other modern games with similar approaches, try the new System Shock Remake or AMID EVIL.
@@sashagurnov5080 Thanks for the recs. I do really love environmental storytelling and I think it's interesting that old limitations can influence whole modern subgenres. Definitely worth exploring.
My favorite part of this game especially is that it understands history, anthropology and archaeology better than maybe any other game ever. There are MUCH more questions than answers, many stories left untold and merely hinted at, and details in the environment are layered with the tectonic effects of time. You can SEE the civilizations built up and lost to war, genocide and distant memory. You can feel the anguish and the melancholy all around you. Most importantly there are NO concrete interpretations, just raw causality and deep cosmic discomfort. It has a true mystery and unsettling horror that most fantasy and science fiction really don't come close to capturing that matches our own world and universe, and none of It feels contrived. Even the sparser areas say more with less in my opinion, by giving you a tiny glimpse at what may have been tremendous or otherworldly but is now ancient and unknown.
@@HotdogFontaine agreed. One of my favorite speculative fiction stories, Roadside Picnic, is to me the greatest first contact story ever, because it largely ignores the who, how and why and grounds you in the sociology and psychology of an Earth visited by aliens who have nothing to say or share. They show up, they leave, and we are forever changed with such a tiny interaction to them that is monumental for us
I heard the reason he did it this way was because he would read lord of the rings and other fantasy books untranslated. So he is given us the experience he had reading those stories with just an understanding of a few phrases and world lore off hand understanding. So it makes sense. How it's told to us.
That would be the case if it weren't for those item descriptions that reveal info it shouldn't reveal. Like, it's fine if you get a journal and the item description has secret knowledge that was written in the book. It's also fine if you get a weapon and the item description says what these people do, whom they serve. (Basically general info anyone from that universe would know) What I don't like is when you get an gear/item from an important character and the item description gives away a previously unknown info like, "people think he did this, but in reality he did that." Like how did the description writer come to this conclusion? It sure wasn't written on the item.
@@sharif47 The descriptions are written not for the character we are playing but for the players themselves. Since they are written for the player, they don't have to be in-universe sources of information, they have no reason to only reveal something people in the world already know, that's the job of NPCs. The items are supposed to reveal the long forgotten or never known stories to the player. Even then, are there that many items that contain information they could not contain? Most of the information on some unknown secrets comes from things like incantations, spells, remembrances - things that are supposed to store information. There are also wapons, shields and things like that, but I can't remember off the bat shen did they contain obscure information.
@@Hollow__Heart that's the thing. People think FromSoft has this organic story telling when in reality, the lore relies heavily on item description, which itself is the opposite of organic. If we go by OP's example, player grabs the clothes of the crime victim. Item description says, "This is a suit of a highly reputable brand that the owner's wife gifted him on their 10th anniversary. It appears the victim is going somewhere important." Then you find his apartment key and the item description says, "This is the key to the apartment on the 5th floor of 110A Acre Street. There is a spare key somewhere near the entrance." Now, such an example I can think of now would be related to the one of the first trailers of Elden Ring. Before her scarlet aeonia, Malenia seems to be telling something. How do we know what she said? Item description (from the final DLC boss). Similarly, not item description, but still inorganic storytelling... How do we get in-depth to Miquella's intentions? Some random shiny object (memory) hovering in the arena after defeating the boss. Even with all these, we can make a good guess, but still not confirm. Bonus: examples where I think their organic storytelling fails. Inside the Shaman village, there is a small golden tree with an important object in front of it. You pick it up and the description says that this is a illusiory tree for healing and Marika bathed her village in gold, knowing full well there was no one to heal. Except, the tree doesn't heal player when nearby. Item description also calls it secret incantation of Marika, but as always description seems to tell a lot about it despite it being secret.
@@sharif47 good examples, thank you. By the end of my comment I realized, I don't think I quite understand what would be organic storytelling. Is it that the sources we get in-game should be immersive, shouldn't contain information they can't logically contain? If you could explain this, I'd be thankful. Still, at least in ER, there is a lot of environmental storytelling, stuff you could guess without descriptions. Like Godrick's soldires fighting beastmen in Limgrave; ruined campsites of Leyndell's army in Mt. Gelmir; a dead minor Erdtree near Volcano Manor; impaled giants in the Mountaintops. We could argue and theory craft about Marika's tree to explain this, it would be beside the point. So it's not like you get the lore exclusively from item descriptions. Overall, I think scavenging for snippets of lore in these descriptions combined with environmental details is much better than getting a 3-page in-universe text document to read. I don't think it breaks or takes away from immersion. The storytelling may not be organic but it is still great.
World building is different than narrative building. It's about creating a world that exist with all of its history, characters, and elements, but leaves you to understand it on your own terms without telling you what to look at, or what to focus on. In a sense, it's like the real world. There is no *one* narrative to follow. The choice is entirely up to you what you want to learn about. The way some people online can piece together a rich tapestry of knowledge from this made-up world, like historians do with the real world is evidence of how rich the world building in these games are.
keep it up, but i really want to see a deeper analysis of this. details of the world that go against conventional world building in other medium and much more. This is a very deep topic that warrant much deeper analysis. good work, im counting on you
Thank you! I feel like there is more to explore in a future video. I have some other things in the pipeline but you may have given me the spark to circle back to more on this. Thanks for watching!
Holy crap I went to your channel to watch other videos of yours and realized you only had 39 subs like you def deserve more, especially since the way you made and structured the video made me think it was coming from someone with like 10k subs at least.
Ever since I was little Ive wanted stories from the perfective of characters who werent the main players. I so loved the idea of an epic world ending event like we see in so many fantasy stories, but told from the perspective of an average person. Because of this I gravitate towards post apocalyptic stories more than traditional fantasy, but I love fantasy. No wonder I love FromSofts work so much. I did not make the conscious realization though that all of their games are set after the main events, though. Thanks for pointing that out! Fascinating. I've been wanting to tell an epic tale where the POV character was not a main player, but I've been struggling with the "how." Im going to try setting the story "after the ending" like you shared. Thanks!
I've likened playing Miyazaki's game to being an archeologist. Delving through of ancient, abandoned ruins for artifacts and trying to piece together how it all came to this.
The only problem with Elden Ring lore, is that even NOW people can't agree on a basic timeline of major events, or how basic fundamental things in the world even work. They went a bit too far with the vagueness, unless they do another DLC that clears some things up. Otherwise it's a blast to dive into it and theorize. But when a basic timeline can't even be agreed upon, it feels like you're just throwing shit at a wall sometimes.
well that how it be in solving mysteries sometimes. new information will come in so sometimes you either gotta start over from the ground up again or put it to the side to work your way back.
@@miscielrossvillegas6307 but the base story shouldn't be a mystery. I mean even the NPCs talk to us as if we know what the hell they're talking about. the base story shouldn't be locked behind item descriptions. the greater lore is fine but not the base story
This is why they went to George RR Martin. Obviously, being a bookseries, A Song of Ice and Fire does have a current plot you're following but a massive bulk of worldbuilding is done in this style. Tha History of tha world is told in little details and not everyone agrees on it, even a lot of tha events that happen during tha story are told through rumors and we don't always hear one narrative about what happened. And FromSoft has been using this subtle method for a long time too, combine their powers and we get one of tha most intriguing worlds in all fiction.
I feel like this method is based on an understanding of why people who read a book NEVER think tha movie is as good. It's because when they read tha book, they got tha version crafted in their imagination. With this method you essentially push that effect onto tha story itself, tha reader/player/viewer crafts their own version of tha story in their imagination.
I like the immersion aspect of gathering information. You dont feel like the main character. You get different perspectives. Nothing is straightforward as clear. It is like a good murder mystery. Where the details are cloudy because its the past. We are left to form our own opinions and debate. Vs straightforward story telling that can be fun but this lends it self to lore videos, debating ect better
Yes, I really like how in such games you as a character are not making history (like in some many RPGs from othe big developers) you are wandering around after that history was made. You are going through the aftermath of it all and it keeps you wondering just how it all came to this. Only somewhat related but I watched Frieren recently and although it's a lot more lighthearted and has a lot less unique world than anything Fromsoft made, it felt similar to me in the way that the most important event of recent history has already happened and you just follow a character that journeys through places and see how people's lives have changed after that, what other problems arise. But as I said it's only somewhat similar. Maybe has just a little element in common with souls games in regard to story, still this one left an impression on me so I needed to put to words my thoughts.
I think the movie of Elden Ring should be actually about what happened during the actual events that we are piecing together the story, it's not the story of the game but kind of prequel to the current game's plot since the war of the demigods indeed would make more fine movie than a game.
I'm inclined to agree with this. I think from a movie/TV show standpoint we'd need to see more of the interesting stuff and have multiple characters with agency and plans.
Say what you want about Bethesda but a series I think also has an interesting way of presenting its lore is the elder scrolls. It definitely doesn’t fit the “you are not the main character of the world” aspect but all lore is written from in-universe (and therefore biased) perspectives. So everything you don’t personally see happen is up for debate as to whether or not it really was the way you’re told. And there are a similar plethora of channels piecing together the lore and explaining the worldbuilding as if they’re archeologists
Considering the animated War of the Rohirrim film coming out later this year, there might be some merit to an animated Elden Ring film. Or maybe it’s already been done-Berserk anyone?
Nailed it dude, I think you didn't go deep enough on purpose, because the deets you shared are enough to dig deeper. Couldn't reply to the vid so replying here lol
I think that the idea that we play a silent nobody is a bad one. It leads to a bad message. A nameless soldier from long forgotten army is defeating all those legendary heroes. When "undefeated" Malenia falls to that "anyone", what her greatness means? I see building a heroic characters with one goal only - to throw them in the dirt at the feet of a lowly tarnished. It's not a good story to tell unless people are rotten enough to want to see heroes fall.
I agree with some of this, but I will say that none and I mean absolutely none of the characters spawned from marika are good nor heroes. they are all bad
I disagree. We are the mc. We get resuracted to save a world wich is falling and we will stop it. No one can beat us and when we fight radagon our theme plays from the lock screen. We are the one to rule this world. Either as it's saviour or it's doom
You are the main character tho. All that other stuff is world building and backstory to the events you are putting in motion. It goes as far as putting the grace pointing toward you in the Godfrey fight
That's fair, but I still feel that makes you the "player character" not the "main character". I mean the tarnished has a goal, sure. from my view, in two of the endings the tarnished isn't even the most important person in it even though it's present day.
This is a really cool thing fromsoft does, but its far from unique if you take a small step outside like bioware rpgs or whatever. Hollow Knight, Morrowind and Planescape torment are examples of games that does this, and there are too many fantasy/sf books to even begin to mention them all.
Oh I'm sure there's a handful I either missed or haven't played/read. But even among From games I feel Elden Ring really elevates this worldbuilding style.
@@HotdogFontaine I can see that. To me Elden Ring takes another step towards post-history rather than post-legend. In that the things that happened before Elden Ring are more concrete than DeS/DS/BB. There's a lot of this in the fantasy genre as a whole so I recommend keeping an eye out if you enjoy reading.
It's traditional fantasy fiction, every part of it is beat for beat your usual fantasy slop. Even down to all you do is read about the events that would have been a lot cooler if you got to witness or interact with them happening. When you play the game, you are playing through a settled world, all conflict except for what you actively participate in has concluded you get no story other than "and you, as the tarnished, killed a bunch of dudes" the end. You are stopping momentarily occasionally throughout playing a bland game to read a book. Unconventional, yes because it's extremely dumb and unimpressive to do storytelling this way.
I like that the DLC is more about a current story. It lends itself to greater urgency and tension. Miquella is making his move, so the true last battle of the shattering is happening now, and one of the factions is us.
You're right about that! I actually considered including something on that but opted to leave the DLC mostly out of it.
True, but at the same time more answers to the base game questions would have been nice
This is something that really strikes me about the world building too. No matter what you accomplish in the game it feels like you are insignificant. Like you are showing up late to a party that's already been broken up.
Yep. It almost make you feel wistful.
i mean, you kind of are
the shattering happened a while ago
radahn already got infected
siege of lyendel failed
godwyn is dead
vyke is imprisoned
all the exciting stuff already happened
Yeah and when you finish the game the world you inherit always feels empty since more than half the people you meet die, some by your hand.
This is actually a very old school approach to storytelling in games. Many titles back in the 80s/90s/early00s were naturally limited in how they could present the story, so a heavy focus on minimal and enviromental storytellling was a pretty much an obligation if you wanted any sort of stronger narrative without forcing the player to read walls of text. You can see it in many classic shooters or dungeon crawlers from that period - as well as modern games that follow those principles of course.
On that note, souls games have their roots on King's Field, which just happen to be dungeon crawlers from back then. In a way, its From's own flavored evolution of the genre that still sticks to some of the aspects that work well.
If you want too see some other modern games with similar approaches, try the new System Shock Remake or AMID EVIL.
@@sashagurnov5080 Thanks for the recs. I do really love environmental storytelling and I think it's interesting that old limitations can influence whole modern subgenres. Definitely worth exploring.
My favorite part of this game especially is that it understands history, anthropology and archaeology better than maybe any other game ever. There are MUCH more questions than answers, many stories left untold and merely hinted at, and details in the environment are layered with the tectonic effects of time. You can SEE the civilizations built up and lost to war, genocide and distant memory. You can feel the anguish and the melancholy all around you. Most importantly there are NO concrete interpretations, just raw causality and deep cosmic discomfort. It has a true mystery and unsettling horror that most fantasy and science fiction really don't come close to capturing that matches our own world and universe, and none of It feels contrived. Even the sparser areas say more with less in my opinion, by giving you a tiny glimpse at what may have been tremendous or otherworldly but is now ancient and unknown.
Well said. The best fantasy stories, to me, are somehow grounded in reality. This makes the Elden Ring world feel "alive" in that sense.
@@HotdogFontaine agreed. One of my favorite speculative fiction stories, Roadside Picnic, is to me the greatest first contact story ever, because it largely ignores the who, how and why and grounds you in the sociology and psychology of an Earth visited by aliens who have nothing to say or share. They show up, they leave, and we are forever changed with such a tiny interaction to them that is monumental for us
I heard the reason he did it this way was because he would read lord of the rings and other fantasy books untranslated. So he is given us the experience he had reading those stories with just an understanding of a few phrases and world lore off hand understanding.
So it makes sense. How it's told to us.
Wow. I hadn't heard that. If so there's so many layers to that.
Fromsoft storytelling is like showing you a crime scene "here's your story, figure it out"
But not like some games where it's like "the story is up to you!". It's not. They know EXACTLY who did the crime, they're just not saying haha.
That would be the case if it weren't for those item descriptions that reveal info it shouldn't reveal.
Like, it's fine if you get a journal and the item description has secret knowledge that was written in the book.
It's also fine if you get a weapon and the item description says what these people do, whom they serve. (Basically general info anyone from that universe would know)
What I don't like is when you get an gear/item from an important character and the item description gives away a previously unknown info like, "people think he did this, but in reality he did that."
Like how did the description writer come to this conclusion? It sure wasn't written on the item.
@@sharif47 The descriptions are written not for the character we are playing but for the players themselves. Since they are written for the player, they don't have to be in-universe sources of information, they have no reason to only reveal something people in the world already know, that's the job of NPCs. The items are supposed to reveal the long forgotten or never known stories to the player.
Even then, are there that many items that contain information they could not contain? Most of the information on some unknown secrets comes from things like incantations, spells, remembrances - things that are supposed to store information. There are also wapons, shields and things like that, but I can't remember off the bat shen did they contain obscure information.
@@Hollow__Heart that's the thing. People think FromSoft has this organic story telling when in reality, the lore relies heavily on item description, which itself is the opposite of organic.
If we go by OP's example, player grabs the clothes of the crime victim. Item description says, "This is a suit of a highly reputable brand that the owner's wife gifted him on their 10th anniversary. It appears the victim is going somewhere important."
Then you find his apartment key and the item description says, "This is the key to the apartment on the 5th floor of 110A Acre Street. There is a spare key somewhere near the entrance."
Now, such an example I can think of now would be related to the one of the first trailers of Elden Ring.
Before her scarlet aeonia, Malenia seems to be telling something.
How do we know what she said?
Item description (from the final DLC boss).
Similarly, not item description, but still inorganic storytelling...
How do we get in-depth to Miquella's intentions? Some random shiny object (memory) hovering in the arena after defeating the boss.
Even with all these, we can make a good guess, but still not confirm.
Bonus: examples where I think their organic storytelling fails.
Inside the Shaman village, there is a small golden tree with an important object in front of it. You pick it up and the description says that this is a illusiory tree for healing and Marika bathed her village in gold, knowing full well there was no one to heal.
Except, the tree doesn't heal player when nearby.
Item description also calls it secret incantation of Marika, but as always description seems to tell a lot about it despite it being secret.
@@sharif47 good examples, thank you. By the end of my comment I realized, I don't think I quite understand what would be organic storytelling. Is it that the sources we get in-game should be immersive, shouldn't contain information they can't logically contain? If you could explain this, I'd be thankful.
Still, at least in ER, there is a lot of environmental storytelling, stuff you could guess without descriptions. Like Godrick's soldires fighting beastmen in Limgrave; ruined campsites of Leyndell's army in Mt. Gelmir; a dead minor Erdtree near Volcano Manor; impaled giants in the Mountaintops.
We could argue and theory craft about Marika's tree to explain this, it would be beside the point.
So it's not like you get the lore exclusively from item descriptions.
Overall, I think scavenging for snippets of lore in these descriptions combined with environmental details is much better than getting a 3-page in-universe text document to read. I don't think it breaks or takes away from immersion. The storytelling may not be organic but it is still great.
World building is different than narrative building. It's about creating a world that exist with all of its history, characters, and elements, but leaves you to understand it on your own terms without telling you what to look at, or what to focus on. In a sense, it's like the real world. There is no *one* narrative to follow. The choice is entirely up to you what you want to learn about.
The way some people online can piece together a rich tapestry of knowledge from this made-up world, like historians do with the real world is evidence of how rich the world building in these games are.
Very well said.
keep it up, but i really want to see a deeper analysis of this. details of the world that go against conventional world building in other medium and much more. This is a very deep topic that warrant much deeper analysis. good work, im counting on you
Thank you! I feel like there is more to explore in a future video. I have some other things in the pipeline but you may have given me the spark to circle back to more on this. Thanks for watching!
"no one else does this" ds1
Yep I cover that in the video.
Holy crap I went to your channel to watch other videos of yours and realized you only had 39 subs like you def deserve more, especially since the way you made and structured the video made me think it was coming from someone with like 10k subs at least.
I worked really hard on this so I appreciate you saying that. Thank you for watching and checking out the channel. It means the world to me.
Ever since I was little Ive wanted stories from the perfective of characters who werent the main players. I so loved the idea of an epic world ending event like we see in so many fantasy stories, but told from the perspective of an average person. Because of this I gravitate towards post apocalyptic stories more than traditional fantasy, but I love fantasy.
No wonder I love FromSofts work so much. I did not make the conscious realization though that all of their games are set after the main events, though. Thanks for pointing that out! Fascinating. I've been wanting to tell an epic tale where the POV character was not a main player, but I've been struggling with the "how." Im going to try setting the story "after the ending" like you shared. Thanks!
I've likened playing Miyazaki's game to being an archeologist. Delving through of ancient, abandoned ruins for artifacts and trying to piece together how it all came to this.
@@EmeralBookwise great way to put it!
Here let me be the 50th sub tarnished
You have no idea what that means to me. Thank you so much.
The only problem with Elden Ring lore, is that even NOW people can't agree on a basic timeline of major events, or how basic fundamental things in the world even work. They went a bit too far with the vagueness, unless they do another DLC that clears some things up. Otherwise it's a blast to dive into it and theorize. But when a basic timeline can't even be agreed upon, it feels like you're just throwing shit at a wall sometimes.
@@ALaz502 the DLC further complicated the timeline with the new Marika and Greater Will lore.
@@HotdogFontaine agreed. Its a bit frustrating at times ngl. Still having fun with it though.
well that how it be in solving mysteries sometimes. new information will come in so sometimes you either gotta start over from the ground up again or put it to the side to work your way back.
@@miscielrossvillegas6307 but the base story shouldn't be a mystery. I mean even the NPCs talk to us as if we know what the hell they're talking about. the base story shouldn't be locked behind item descriptions. the greater lore is fine but not the base story
Very underrated channel, keep it up!
Thank you so much for saying so.
Thank you Hotdog
Happy to do it.
This is why they went to George RR Martin. Obviously, being a bookseries, A Song of Ice and Fire does have a current plot you're following but a massive bulk of worldbuilding is done in this style. Tha History of tha world is told in little details and not everyone agrees on it, even a lot of tha events that happen during tha story are told through rumors and we don't always hear one narrative about what happened. And FromSoft has been using this subtle method for a long time too, combine their powers and we get one of tha most intriguing worlds in all fiction.
You basically said all this in tha video, I just got excited and commented in tha first minute lol
I feel like this method is based on an understanding of why people who read a book NEVER think tha movie is as good. It's because when they read tha book, they got tha version crafted in their imagination. With this method you essentially push that effect onto tha story itself, tha reader/player/viewer crafts their own version of tha story in their imagination.
Absolutely! It's a compelling part of ASoIaF too.
I like the immersion aspect of gathering information. You dont feel like the main character. You get different perspectives. Nothing is straightforward as clear. It is like a good murder mystery. Where the details are cloudy because its the past. We are left to form our own opinions and debate. Vs straightforward story telling that can be fun but this lends it self to lore videos, debating ect better
good video I love the way you described our playthrough in the lands between keep it up!
Glad you enjoyed! Thanks for the kind words.
Yes, I really like how in such games you as a character are not making history (like in some many RPGs from othe big developers) you are wandering around after that history was made. You are going through the aftermath of it all and it keeps you wondering just how it all came to this.
Only somewhat related but I watched Frieren recently and although it's a lot more lighthearted and has a lot less unique world than anything Fromsoft made, it felt similar to me in the way that the most important event of recent history has already happened and you just follow a character that journeys through places and see how people's lives have changed after that, what other problems arise. But as I said it's only somewhat similar. Maybe has just a little element in common with souls games in regard to story, still this one left an impression on me so I needed to put to words my thoughts.
There are theroies on the tarnished being a descendant of Godfrey or one of the illgenamite children of marika from those moving tombs
this is a very well made video essay, I'm excited to see what you come up with in the future!
@@csauragusta thank you so much. Definitely have more incoming.
1:41 "Unvonventional Approach" 😅
@@silasvidana124 oh noooooooo. I hate I missed that haha.
I think the movie of Elden Ring should be actually about what happened during the actual events that we are piecing together the story, it's not the story of the game but kind of prequel to the current game's plot since the war of the demigods indeed would make more fine movie than a game.
I'm inclined to agree with this. I think from a movie/TV show standpoint we'd need to see more of the interesting stuff and have multiple characters with agency and plans.
if we need a movie or show to explain this, then that means it was poorly put together in the first place
Say what you want about Bethesda but a series I think also has an interesting way of presenting its lore is the elder scrolls. It definitely doesn’t fit the “you are not the main character of the world” aspect but all lore is written from in-universe (and therefore biased) perspectives. So everything you don’t personally see happen is up for debate as to whether or not it really was the way you’re told. And there are a similar plethora of channels piecing together the lore and explaining the worldbuilding as if they’re archeologists
This is a W take. Elder Scrolls for sure has the kind of lore you could major in.
You have to be a bit of a detective to figure out what's going on, but that is exactly what makes it so rewarding when you put things together.
Use of b roll was top tier.
@@tallsoldier thank you!
I feel like you should take a look at Ender Lilies. The did a very good job at storytelling like how fromsoft does it.
@@Nameless_JPN-ENG thanks! I'll check it out.
Considering the animated War of the Rohirrim film coming out later this year, there might be some merit to an animated Elden Ring film. Or maybe it’s already been done-Berserk anyone?
I'm totally open to the idea. I think it could be really good.
I mean this has been the case in all souls games. It's always been you going through a world where everything has already happened.
Yep, that's why I brought up Artorias in the video. Imagine fighting him with his good arm.
Game is currently destroying me
@@Jsanderfordphoto yeah it will definitely do that 🤣.
Nailed it dude, I think you didn't go deep enough on purpose, because the deets you shared are enough to dig deeper. Couldn't reply to the vid so replying here lol
@@johnm.9597 thanks! And yeah I definitely tried to not turn it toooo much into a lore video and focus more of storytelling in general.
how much it hits the performance ? with reshade+textures will i still get 60 fps with 6900xt ?
They do this for the other souls games too, not just Elden Ring.
@@user-ix7es4iw8b Yep! It's what initially drew me to Dark Souls.
I think that the idea that we play a silent nobody is a bad one. It leads to a bad message. A nameless soldier from long forgotten army is defeating all those legendary heroes. When "undefeated" Malenia falls to that "anyone", what her greatness means? I see building a heroic characters with one goal only - to throw them in the dirt at the feet of a lowly tarnished. It's not a good story to tell unless people are rotten enough to want to see heroes fall.
I agree with some of this, but I will say that none and I mean absolutely none of the characters spawned from marika are good nor heroes. they are all bad
I disagree.
We are the mc. We get resuracted to save a world wich is falling and we will stop it. No one can beat us and when we fight radagon our theme plays from the lock screen.
We are the one to rule this world. Either as it's saviour or it's doom
You are the main character tho. All that other stuff is world building and backstory to the events you are putting in motion. It goes as far as putting the grace pointing toward you in the Godfrey fight
That's fair, but I still feel that makes you the "player character" not the "main character". I mean the tarnished has a goal, sure. from my view, in two of the endings the tarnished isn't even the most important person in it even though it's present day.
This is a really cool thing fromsoft does, but its far from unique if you take a small step outside like bioware rpgs or whatever. Hollow Knight, Morrowind and Planescape torment are examples of games that does this, and there are too many fantasy/sf books to even begin to mention them all.
Oh I'm sure there's a handful I either missed or haven't played/read. But even among From games I feel Elden Ring really elevates this worldbuilding style.
@@HotdogFontaine I can see that. To me Elden Ring takes another step towards post-history rather than post-legend. In that the things that happened before Elden Ring are more concrete than DeS/DS/BB. There's a lot of this in the fantasy genre as a whole so I recommend keeping an eye out if you enjoy reading.
"...but what's unique is..." *Describes every soulsborne game*
It's traditional fantasy fiction, every part of it is beat for beat your usual fantasy slop. Even down to all you do is read about the events that would have been a lot cooler if you got to witness or interact with them happening. When you play the game, you are playing through a settled world, all conflict except for what you actively participate in has concluded you get no story other than "and you, as the tarnished, killed a bunch of dudes" the end. You are stopping momentarily occasionally throughout playing a bland game to read a book. Unconventional, yes because it's extremely dumb and unimpressive to do storytelling this way.
You said that like other fromsoft games, it has rich lore but what makes it unique is telling its story through items? I mean, they all do that
0:47 unvonventional... shame
unconventional ... aka ... bad
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