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.
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.