I have played all soulslike games except the original Demon Souls and completed all of them except the first Dark Souls. I was familiar with how the lore is laid out in these games but I never found the lore compelling enough.
I think compared to Dark Souls, Elden Ring’s lore is much much more interesting. I say this as someone who never took interest in high fantasy settings like LotR, Game of Thrones, etc. But I really enjoy Elden Ring’s. Don’t know why. I feel it is mostly because of the plot is convoluted yet coherent. There is a sense of mystique because much of the world’s ontology is written rather than shown so it feels like reading a book or being told a story orally. It’s a really unique way of experiencing high fantasy fiction.
I had heard of VaatiVidya and watched all his Elden Ring videos. Then I stumbled upon some guys called Tarnished Archeologist and SmoughTown who I find much better. I have some tens of hours of their video in my backlog and I really enjoy watching them when I have time to unwind.
GRRM poured his heart out on it instead of working on Game of Thrones so that might be why it’s so good.
It’s not clear how much work on the lore was done by Martin vs. the folks at From Software. The only concrete words about this are from one Miyazaki interview where he says something like Martin writing the lore of the times that preceded our PC’s story which sounds like 90% of the lore. On the other hand, it could be a mistranslation because all the important characters look very much like From Software creations. On the other hand, the instances of vague incest sound like straight up Martin’s wheelhouse.
One month before Elden Ring was released, Miyazaki spoke with Game Informer and claimed he had a lot of fun turning all the heroes that Martin created and “breaking them” in order to turn them into “misshapen, grotesque monsters.” Miyazaki loved twisting these characters into boss creatures and trying to fill the gaps that explained how they fell from grace. “I think [Martin] might be a bit shocked,” stated Miyazaki.
Unclear, for sure, but it seems like GRRM’s role in the story and lore may have been very minor.
Me, I see a lot of Martin DNA in the interplay between the god and demigod characters, and all the backstabbing and plotting going on, while stuff like the Elden Ring itself, and the Erdtree and all the mysticism of the world reads very FromSoft.
So it seems like GRRM had a substantial role in how it all turned out.
Welcome to the club.
I also find Elden Ring’s lore to be more engaging than FromSoft’s prior stuff, although to be fair, the only prior title I’ve played for myself is Dark Souls. I think it’s because a lot more of Elden Ring lore centers around characters and character drama. Or maybe just a much wider array of significant characters, a lot more of whom are still around in the present. It strikes such a great balance between modern characters and historical characters and mysticism and eldritch figures…
If you’re interested in live content, there’s a creator I like who’s working right now on “lorethroughs” of all the FromSoft games", in celebration of the Elden Ring DLC coming up this summer. She streams on both YouTube and Twitch.
Will check her out. Thanks.
Elden ring lore is interesting, but an intricate and complicated story like it doesn’t mesh well with the traditional open ended and cryptic way they tell the story. Dark souls story works because the main themes are simple to understand and follow regardless of wether you are reading every item’s description and npc dialogue.
The story is not really open ended. You can have a variety of endings but all those paths are linear. At the end you choose which ending you want and you can potentially have all the options open to you at this point. The ending is also a really small part of the story. They are interesting because they help you make sense of the premise more than anything else.
