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.
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.