The story in Elden Ring is terrible and ruins the game

A reader is frustrated with FromSoftware’s approach to storytelling and explains why he’s not playing the new version of Shadow Of The Erdtree.

Shadow Of The Erdtree comes out this week and I’m really not sure if I’ll get to it. It got amazing reviews and I definitely enjoyed the Elden Ring parts, but I was also extremely irritated by the other parts, specifically the story telling. I have no idea what was going on in the game and from talking to others it’s clear I’m not the only one. It’s so bad it puts me off playing any other From game and DLC.

For those who don’t know, there are very few cut scenes or plot in Elden Ring. There’s an intro, which is basically a fantasy word salad, and some character dialogue, but none of it has any context and you have to figure out what’s going on by reading the item descriptions.

It’s still not clear though, and after reading how the fan community is involved, I started reading the wiki and watching YouTube videos. As interesting as it was, there’s still no real consensus on what’s going on, with everything being described as “maybe it means this” or “maybe it means that.”

The thing that gets me is that it’s not even really clear what the Elden Ring is. Not only that, but it’s not even presented as a secret or some amazing revelation, it’s just this ambiguous magical item that can do… things.

It’s never explained why you want to be an Elden Lord, who you are, it’s not even made clear what the taint is. I find it frustrating, but what’s worse is that this is all the information the character you’re playing would know. It’s not a mystery to them, only to you, the player. Other things in the game are a mystery, sure, but not the basics of what’s going on and what your mission is.

Things get even worse when you’re trying to do some of the side quests where you might as well make up your own story, despite the difference it makes. I’ve re-read the supposed explanations and I’m both none the wiser and have no idea how they make some of their deductions.

Of course, it doesn’t affect the gameplay, and I’m not someone who requires complex stories in all my games. If it’s a straight action game, I don’t want to keep stopping for 10 minute cutscenes. But the Elden Ring is not like that. There’s some really complex lore, but the game doesn’t explain any of it, and it’s all so jumbled up that I’m not convinced it even makes sense to the developers.

I beat Elden Ring, but as I imagined, the ending didn’t explain anything, and any pride I felt for defeating the final boss was quickly diminished by not knowing what the hell I’d just done or why.

From what I can see the DLC is about a character that is barely in the first game and maybe a prequel? And it looks like it’s going to change things up by adding even more characters? I’m not really sure, and to be honest, I’m not sure I really care.

I don’t want to spend another 60 hours beating the game only to understand less about what’s going on than when I started. No one wants to be spoon fed information like a dummy, but take it too far in the opposite direction and it all becomes pointless nonsense in my opinion.

From reader Gadfly

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