Preface Open worlds present many more possibilities for environmental storytelling, both on a micro and macro level. Every tiny detail peppered across the vast map can build cohesive narratives on such a grander scale, you can really appreciate the history being conveyed while remaining subtle enough for players miss. Yes, picking up on the patterns […]
Preface When first compiling my, very lengthy, analysis for Godfrey, I was amazed to discover just how much I kept coming back to characters and events largely unrelated to him. Despite him and Marika defining the world order, the Elden Lord’s rise and subsequent reign were very much informed by what came before. If not […]
Preface FromSoftware is no stranger to magic kingdoms, or queendoms for that matter. However, these countries tend to have a simple, relatively bloodless history. “Simple” might still describe the Carian regime, with its one queen. Yet the tale of an organized Liurnian state is fraught with intrigue and power politics, the sorcery aspect almost superfluous. […]
Preface Rarely are “the good times” the most interesting part of a story, and Elden Ring is no different. Much of this period in the setting’s backstory is simply stacking the building blocks to be knocked down by subsequent events. What little conflict can be mined is narratively flaccid, with hardly many tantalizing secrets to […]
Personal prejudices aside, war between the Erdtree kingdom and the fire giants was inevitable. The description for Fire’s Deadly Sin explains how burning the Erdtree is, naturally, the first cardinal sin — what greater sin is there than to destroy the divinity which your kingdom was built around? For Godfrey and Marika, there couldn’t be […]
Preface I often joke about needing another decade before finishing an exhaustive analysis of Elden Ring. For a world as broad as in this game, getting a grasp on everything is a trying task. There is so much history, so much cosmology, that sifting through it can feel like a never-ending abyss. It is just […]
