i really loved SotE its one of the best DLC From ever made, but man nothing will EVER match the atmosphere of when the main game dropped, game wise and community wise, those first few months were the entire community felt like they were just playing and enjoying the game together and just how amazing lands between were, it will never be replicated, even now with SotE it feels like discourse over discourse on many things rather than people enjoying the DLC
I think the discussions that came with the DLC are the tip of the iceberg. The majority of action underneath is people playing and enjoying it for countless hours. That's just my impression.
When Elden Ring came out, I had never seen the internet so universally positive about something. It was truly a magical time. Shadow of the Erdtree, while fantastic, didn't substantially improve on what Elden Ring did (not that it really could, honestly). It does some things better, some things worse, but overall there isn't much more to say about it design-wise than what we've been talking about for 2.5 years now.
@@ETBrooD Same - I'm loving it. Could care less what the internet says, really - folks said it was too hard, then they complained that there were items that destroyed bosses. Which is it? Right now, it's so much fun: there are a lot of organic invasions, folks just playing through the levels. You'll still get ganked, but many seem to just be progressing through the areas. And I love what the DLC adds to the lore of the main game - some blanks were filled out in an interesting way. Those are my two cents.
@@THEEVANTHETOON I constantly saw salty dark souls fans that hate elden ring's combat. Lots of criticism was thrown at fromsoft when the game came out, but none of it really mattered because it's their best selling game of all time. Just a lot of noisy people doing what they do best. Complain. What matters is how much WE enjoyed the game and the dlc.
@@MrFRNTIK This point exactly. Joseph Anderson convinced half the fandom that the bosses of ER aren't good with his +3 million view essay and we're out here talking like ER was universally taken like manna from heaven. And none of it mattered because millions of people enjoyed playing the game in the comfort of their homes.
I had a great time with the DLC, but after multiple online discussions where people tried to gaslight me into not liking it, and stumbling on a review and folks talking about how apparently, the music is bad, the graphics are bad, the lore is bad, the gameplay is bad - everything is bad - I decided that I am sick of the community discourse, and have checked out of it entirely as I did with each of the previous games once enough time goes by
Yeah, it's nice to be able to talk to others about art, but other people's reviews can completely change the light you would have viewed something in. It's why I've decided to never listen to day 1 reviews, or read detailed critiques before playing a game, reading a novel or listening to an album. I did not think the DLC was perfect, mostly because I disliked the final boss from a story perspective, but dismissing the whole thing in the manner some people have done seems absurd. But at the end of the day, it's only your own experience that matters. There was a list I found a few years ago on the website Rate Your Music about the 10 commandments, and one of them was "Thou Shalt Not Trust Any Ears but Yours". I think we should all live by that more.
Yeah, I've been banging the drum since the beginning too. The lore is so one-dimensional, and adds very little to what we already knew that it's honestly infuriating to me. And some of the stuff that DOES offer new insight into the base game makes stuff in the base game more confusing.
@@paz1514 spamming this comment everywhere isn't helpful. People like Me who are completely unsatisfied with the dlc lore have consumed more dark souls lore than you ever did probably. And this time it's not the same. SoTE's ending was nowhere near the Ringed city's endings in terms of conclusion or satisfaction, or logic.
@@tomtrees763"watched more lore than you" nah not a chance kiddo. I've been playing since Demon Souls released heck you wanna go farther back ? I played and consumed the lore of kings field all the way back in the day. Get over yourself, secondly once again I can tell this is you're first souls game. Cause you're wrong.
Keep playing & enjoying the new content - I look forward to the inevitable lore dives - even if it wasn't all the lore we wanted. Finger vids, here we come
Was it any of the lore we wanted? I think the only group that got something satisfying was the dragons. And even then no word on Placidusax’s god that fled
@@dylearium i feel like we learned little to nothing about the serpents. Aside from the fact that there is a “base” serpent, that’s where the new lore addition ends, and the game doesn’t explain at all what the base serpent is
I guess that explains why most of the discourse I see online apart from early reviews is so negative. There isn't much to praise that wasn't praised 2 years ago. For me that's not a problem. Playing the DLC has felt just like my first Elden Ring playthrough 2 years ago. But all the online discourse is way too negative, so I try to avoid it for my own sake.
@@Sephirothkingdom782 This statement could be applied to any soulsborne DLC 😭 I think the fact that you fight people you’ve been hearing about all game long in bloodborne probably made it more impactful for you. Honestly me too. Lore wise old hunters takes it
@@Sephirothkingdom782 Lorewise we had a lot of the questions answered like why Marika hates Omens, How fundamentally broken the Order has actually been and for how long, We got the reason as to why Placidusax is so damaged, It also answers questions on the nature of Marika and Radagon through St Trina and Miquella, We also got more info on the Flame of Frenzy. Really it did answer a majority of questions.
I’m wondering what lore answers people are waiting for? Gloam eyed queen or something? I mean, the DLC taught us about Marika’s backstory, expanded the lore on Mohg, Radahn, St. Trina, taught us more about Placidusax, even added tidbits more about Godwyn with the death knight gear and those descriptions, we learn game-changing revelations about the Fingers and the Greater Will, more about frenzied flame, more about the Carian Royal Family, more about the Crucible, and we even learn about how gods actually ascend to godhood, which is a major reoccurring ambition for many of the ER characters. I’m pretty confused about how the lore could be disappointing, unless people went in with super precise expectations.
(Yapping incoming...) I guess something in the DLC that would directly impact something in the base game. In Dark Souls 1, you got an entirely different cutscene with the Sif boss fight. With Bloodborne, the Doll has a few more lines. In Dark Souls 3, Yuria of Londor mentions you meeting her sister, Friede. That was one expectation many had. But there's nothing that happens in Shadow of the Erdtree that affects any part of the base game, not Ranni, not Gideon, not Fia, heck, not even Melina. Most I was hoping for was a full on new ending like in Dark Souls 2. But regarding characters that needed more expansion, the biggest and most glaring culprit was Melina. After all these years, zero mention or expansion on Melina after months of speculation on how Messmer's and Marika's motivations would tie to Melina only to... literally end up with nothing. We got one very, very small mention of her in Messmer's remembrance and then FS patched it out... Like, why? Why are they so afraid to talk about the player's literal companion character in the game? One direction I would've loved to see them go with Melina is revealing her being the Gloam-Eyed Queen reincarnated as Marika's daughter & Messmer's sister who you could fight as a boss if you defeated Midra after inheriting the Flame of Frenzy from the Three Fingers. You get transported back to the Lands Between, covered in ash, realizing you're in the aftermath of the Flame of Frenzy consuming everything including the Erdtree. You explore, find little more than barren ash, very atmospheric... except for Melina who has swore to deliver destined death to you. You defeat her, get her Remembrance, get context on who she is, what she was, and with her Remembrance, either choose a Godslayer version of the Blade of Calling to represent her roots as the Gloam-Eyed Queen or Melina's Minor Erdtree Incantation to represent her roots as Marika's daughter. The other was Godwyn The Golden... we needed much more Godwyn than we got. Sure, we get some knights who follow Godwyn The Prince of Death but it's so bizarre to me that we never once fight Godwyn in any form or know the full details surrounding his death which caused The Shattering. What did Marika have to do with his death? And if Radahn was supposedly Miquella's "Lord Brother" all along, then why had he already built Castle Sol and stationed people to resurrect him before the base game even began, before we even killed Radahn? Why was there a statue of Godwyn embracing a young, scared Malenia and Miquella in the Haligtree? All signs pointed to Miquella intending to resurrect Godwyn through whatever powerful magic exists at the Gate of Divinity that could undo true death of the soul. Oh but... we get Radahn again. I think it was important for the DLC to do more with Melina, Godwyn, Miquella, and give us just a bit more Marika since she was the big focus of the story trailer.
Your last sentence pretty much describes it. People fed on their own expectations and pre-release theories, and then were disappointed when the DLC didn't conform to their completley unsubstantiated expectations.
That's a shame, would've liked seeing your take on the theme of Elden Ring now that the DLC released and arguably talked about it in a more explicit way.
@@HomingAsatoMass I'd say the main theme is "ambition is necessary to affect meaningful change in the world but can corrupt even the most well-intentioned goals". Elden ring is a big game with a lot of themes that interweave with each other. The frenzied flame, for instance, is so thematically rich that you could dedicate an entire game to it alone, but in elden ring it's just one small part of the whole.
I've had fun with some aspects of the game, mainly exploration, visual presentation and brainstorming ideas for build crafting, which is something I personally like. However, I'm torn between that and everything else, I recently completed my second playthrough because I wanted to see all the stuff that I didnt find on my first and I might do a third. But if I'm being honest with myself, most of it comes from me wanting to make sure I'm being fair with the issues I have with the game rather than a desire to replay the game out of an undoubtedly good experience like I had with Sekiro, where once I finished the game my immediate thought was "That was so good, we go again".
Exactly. I felt the same with something like twilight princess too. I got the same feeling with old hunters too. It was a dlc that I was eager to replay because the experience I had with it was mostly great, I unfortunately can't say the same about SOTE and it has nothing to do with difficulty tbh
The DLC has a really big flaw in storytelling imo. The story promised to be about a certain individual but we only get a very small clue once a while, and then when that individual finally shows up the spotlight is not even for them. I hold no grudge against Radahn, just hate that he stole Miquella's grand finale.
I had set my expectations low in regards to answers for questions I had for the lore because it simply wasn't realistic that the dlc was going to just go like "you know these vague questions about the lore you're curious about? Here's an explicit answer to all of them" I think the DLC lore is good. The thing is it's fine on it's own, because when you try to tie it in with the base game lore it gets convoluted, because all in all it doesn't change the problems I have with the base game lore: being too vague about points that shouldn't be vague. Let me exemplify. Being too vague about the nuances and details about why Marika shattered the Elden Ring is fine, being too vague about why she shattered it to begin with is not, because that's literally the main plot point. The dlc was clear enough about the hornsent, what happened to Marika, what Miquella was doing, his objectives and what he did in life. And although I was disappointed in Radahn, I softened up to it, specially now that I see that I thought that Radahn had a full character/story arc in the base game but actually he didn't. With all that information, the suppositions we can make about the overaching lore are still very vague, but we are able to make up something coherent nonetheless. Did Radahn stop the stars because he was trying to stop Miquella or his own fate? If yes, why? He was testing Miquella or just antagonizing him entirely? If the hornsent spoke about Marika actually betraying them, that means she worked for/helped them/was allied with them in some way? That means she might have helped them kill shamans before she had them give her access to the Gate of Divinity, and now that would explain why Numen women killed Godwyn, because they wanted revenge for this? But still, the overall lore is still way too vague and trying to tie it all up is more of an intense effort than it actually needed to be, and before we are able to do that Elden Ring's lore just feels like a jumbled mess of unrelated facts that don't have a coherent storyline. Bloodborne has a just as complex lore and it nowhere as hard to understand. Although I think the dlc lore is interesting, it is kind of a bummer how little it ties up with the main game and tries to explain it's loose ends. Radahn felt completely out of the left field, and that's why it felt disappointing that he was Miquella's main twist and the final boss, but thanks to that now I really do believe that we lived in an illusion of having a very well explained and clear character. We never knew why Radahn conquered the stars or fought Malenia. Now we (kinda) know, lol. And althought the dlc hinted at Melina, which would be a nice tie in, it was waaay too vague. Just makes you wonder if she had anything to do with Marika's ascension, as she, just like Messmer, might have been born before she became a god and might have become "burned and bodiless" for a significant reason.
In regards to the shattering Marika might have realized that Metyr was fundamentally broken and that the Greater Will stopped communicating with her a long time ago. That could have shattered her faith quite hard.
The only problem with the dlc is that the lore doesn't connect well with the base game. It feels like its own thing mostly. The lore we did get I still loved though, and the overall experience was still amazing.
I think it’s like Ashes of Ariendal, which a lot of people seem to skip over for some reason. What I mean by it’s like it is, it is the same story as the base game but it reframes the ideas so we can compare the two and learn more about both
@@James_Rustled I agree with this. There's plenty of stuff it recontextualizes and it even connects with certain aspects of the base game (St Trina, Marika's past, the nature of the Erdtree, Mother of Fingers, the crucible etc). It also adds a lot of really important context to the motivations of the various Demigods. All that stuff is top tier. However It really fumbled with how it handled Radahn. I'm actually ok with Radahn conceptually but having Malenia whisper in Radahn's ear exclusively in the trailer is borderline criminal. It should have been in the game along with more descriptions that hinted at Miquella's plan, we got nothing of the sort. Radahn is the final boss yet we don't really get a lot more info about him apart from the fact that Miquella thought he'd make a good lord. I really would have appreciated a Sif moment with Malenia and Gideon, some changed dialogue even, no one in the base game reacts to anything you did in the dlc. Its a gigantic missed opportunity. Then there's the Gate. I get what they were going for with the Gate being the big unknown at the end but having the dlc end the way it did is a bit baffling. It screams that there is supposed to be more content after this, yet Miyazaki has pretty much ruled it out (unless he's lying again lol).
@@Zoombeanie132 Slightly off topic but I find it funny how a lot of people treat the confirmation of st. Trina being Miquella's other half as not a big reveal when the only reason we knew that was because we datamined the game and looked at stuff we were presumably never intended to see. I do wonder how different the experience of a new player going through Elden Ring years in the future will be from us. I'm sure many of them would share some of the common criticism levied nowadays of course, but it's possible they might be more impressed with what lore the DLC does have than us, who are comparing our experiences with the sum of all information, discussion, and crackhead theory crafting we consumed on the internet in the last 2 years.
2:44 Exactly my point. I expected the mystery & truths to be uncovered brilliantly.. with how great TOH & TRC DLCs were. That Radahn reveal left a bad taste in everyones mouth tbh. Those saying otherwise just might be coping.
I was already banking on how SotE will present more questions than answers because of how the lore of Soulborne games are written intentionally ambiguous. But I was ready for more of it, and what a wild ride it has been
Artorias recontectualised our understanding of the knight and all but practically told us that Manus was the furtive pygmy, the DS2 DLCs gave us a third path unconnected to the first flame, and ringed city made it clear what Gwyn did in the first place while also providing us with the Dark Soul itself, recombined from all of humanity. Also, The Old Hunters showed us the origins of Byrgenwerth. They've actually got a good track record of tying up some of the larger mysteries with their DLCs, but the amount of mysteries added in SOTE compared to the amount resolved is extremely unsatisfying. I'm also quite tired of all the people telling us this was clearly planned from the start because Malenia whispered something to Radahn in the very first trailer. Bullshit.
@@daruddock personally I'm OK with having a ton of questions left since the world of Elden Ring is so much larger in terms of lore/scope than all previous from games. Elden Ring goes way more in depth into personal relationships, it's almost like they mixed Ostrava, Gwyndolin and the twin princes and a bunch of other characters into the same family, not to mention relationships with other cultures, which previous games also don't really cover that much. Also, I would consider the whole Metyr and Bayle reveals to be an even greater revelations than that of Artorias or even Kos, but the backstory itself is still so massive even those truth drops didn't cover all questions
“And then it was just Dragon’s Dogma 1, but slightly... worse with nicer graphics.” I was sold on Dragon’s Dogma for being “the best action RPG of all time”, that it had combat that was said to be “better than even Dark Souls” according to Shadiversity. And after sitting with it on my wishlist for 4 years, I finally bought and played it last year. And _boy_ was I disappointed in it. It served as another reminder of why I don’t like buying games based off the recommendations of others. Far too often, they set an expectation in my mind that the game ends up not meeting. To hear some people say that DD2 is apparently _at best,_ on equal level with DD1, is kind of sad. There were some major flaws with the first game that I would’ve thought could be easily fixed with a bigger budget and more development time, as I heard that DD1 basically ran out of money and was put out as half of a full game. But all that I’ve heard thus far seems to suggest that the sequel is practically in the same state.
To be honest, after Bloodborne sekiro and Elden ring, the soul series is like a big Bloodborne:What if dark soul has more fast combat and Cthulhu style. Sekiro:What if parry and block is the main combat system instead roll. ER:What if dark soul is open world game, and a bunch alien outergod combine medieval century story. And now we have Lie of P and LotF . After playing SotE, is just give me more excited about the next soulslike game.
The main objective of the DLC, following Miquella’s footsteps and finding aspects of his flesh he’s abandoned, has a basic continuity error: Miquella abandons his flesh once in the Mohgwyn palace, then abandons it again in the Land of Shadow. So far as I can tell they don’t even bother to explain this. Miquella goes from having zero connection to Radahn in the base game to being almost completely defined by his connection to Radahn in the DLC, to the point where when you meet Miquella in the DLC all he really says is “Radahn is back” and then the ending cutscene is just him simping for Radahn some more. Miquella felt like a character who had a lot of potential to be compelling in the base game, and I just feel like he was ultimately wasted and turned into an excuse for a Radahn 2.0 boss fight. I can’t be bothered to care deeply about the lore of a game the devs themselves don’t really seem to care that much about either.
The withered arm isn't Miquella's true body in the first place, just like the body in the Haligtree isn't. Miquella has a golden body and tries to grow multiple "adult" bodies on top of it. You claim to have cared for the lore but missed the gigantic tree body in Malenia's arena for some reason...
@@antobatta1551Everyone saw that. I also saw the giant hollowed out hole underneath it. Gideon explicitly says that the reason the Haligtree failed is because Miquella was stolen from it. He also seems pretty certain that the cocoon is the actual flesh of Miquella in the base game.
I took the body that we see in Moghwyn Palace as Miquella's physical flesh being destroyed. A lore theory that I really like and believe actually makes sense is that Miquella was corrupted by Mogh's cursed Omen blood, and so when he died, his spirit was not returned to the Erdtree since we know the Omen, a "slur" I guess for Hornsent people, are outside the bounds of Grace. You're right, though, that it makes no sense how Miquella abandons flesh while in the Realm of Shadow. What FromSoftware should have done is hammered home that Miquella is divesting himself of his very spirit, the things that make him who he is. What aI think could've been amazing is if Morgott and Mohg were in the Realm of Shadow. They could've traveled with us, given us more of the familial bond between the demigods and Marika/Radagon, and two new perspectives on the Hornsent and the Realm of Shadow. Such a wasted opportunity by FromSoftware.
Relanna is my new favorite boss. It feels like the the sword fight I wanted from Malenia. She has big flashy moves but nothing that'll just end me if I'm to close when she starts and her swings are fun to parry even if I'm not very good at it.
Really, I think the dlc answered a lot of things. We have pretty much the origin of everything. Omen, jars, Dragon cult, gold, fingers, Marika and her motivation. We have loads of new lore on Trina, Frenzy, Death. There are a few things that feel like they were just stapled on there. But I think the only thing missing is any big Godwyn revelations.
I think the unsatisfying things with Elden Ring lore are related with how base game Elden Ring is handled gameplay wise as well. Elden Ring base game was too big for it's own good, this DLC does Elden Ring better than Elden Ring itself does, because while it ha sopen field areas, it is much more tightly designed, with more intent, more refinement, everything feels like it has a reason to be. This is something I can't say about the base game, the base game's content is spread too thin over a huge world, and the same can be said about the lore of it, there's so many questions, so many things that people want to know about, but the depth just isn't there, we can't really ever see a glimmer of what the night of black knives was like or what was up with he gloam eyed queen, the nature of Radagon and Marika's duality, the nature of Godwyn's death and his body being taken over by some strange death fish-like god, Miquella's kindness, Malenia's rot, Mohg's blood. There's so much and we can't really get a good answer on most of it, if any of it. I'm at least happy we got more of a context of why Marika lead the golden order the way she did.
In terms of gameplay and mechanical content, SotE is fantastic. I have a save state set up and I'll be re-fighting those bosses with different builds and strats for a long time. The world is creative and stunning. But the lore is disappointing. Too disconnected from the base game, too many new additions that don't properly and believably tie in. Most damning for me is how hard it is to buy that the Land of Shadow really 'existed' during the base game. Like, no it didn't. It all feels like a retcon. They had so many chances to flesh out the most interesting mysteries - instead they went with zombie Radahn. I think that the most emblematic little thing is the fact that Torrent appears in the teaser poster, and isn't mentioned once in the DLC. This is a microcosm of my issues with it.
I genuinely believe the best and most exciting parts of Elden Ring's story are all contained to the story cinematic trailers (Shadow of the Erdtree included), which tragically aren't even included in the actual release. There was a lot of atmosphere but so little context to it besides the Shaman Village which was genuinely the only time in the DLC where I felt something emotional pull at me. I don't say this to any other game than Elden Ring but it really, really needed more cinematics and cutscenes on the level of those trailers.
I think they took the formula for the map of ER and made it better than base game ER. I like ER, might be one of my favorites from FS but I think that they made the base game too massive. It’s why areas like the mountaintops feel so empty is because they focused a lot on quantity and not quality. Reducing the size but increasing the quality of the content made SOTE waaay better imo. There’s still reused content of course but the overall quality is still higher. Imagine if we had dungeons like Darklight or Fog Rift in the base game? Not to mention i think that having the ruined forges was a nice break from having the same formula for the dungeons and instead you get unique weapons.
@joesheridan9451 nah man, that's too far. It's none of these things, I'm not happy with the "lore" only. Everything else is perfect, the dungeons are fun, the new bosses, enemies, areas, weapons/spells/ armor are all great. There's nothing about it that's sloppy or cash grabby. The DLC is huge with tons of content How is that cash grabby? I can dislike some parts yes and criticize others, but let's be fair here.
@@joesheridan9451 I think that's a nuts take. I can see why you might not like the lore but the amount of effort and detail put into the entire thing is incredible. I don't see how you could call it rushed at all.
I felt the same exact way as the chatters question, Sucks when you like a content creator's stuff and you look forward to it but the game doesn't drive them enough to post much of anything after it releases. Its free content at the end of the day so I can't pretend otherwise, Ill just try to manage expectations better in my head.
Im not going to argue with people over this, they have their own wants and desires and view the game in their own way. However, it is silly and just a plain lie to claim this DLC lore didnt answer any significant questions. It may not have answered the one you (not pointing the finger at anyone) wanted, at least as obviously as you would have liked, but lore of the game has still developed in a very satisfying way imo. While there are many things I would have liked to see explored further, that doesn't mean that I should be disappointed, there are plenty new things to get excited about and these lead to new avenues to understand or appreciate old ideas. Fromsoft hasnt changed how they tell stories very much. Sure they have explored more direct narrative in Sekiro and obviously try to generally improve over time, but ultimately their methods remain much the same. Elden Ring happens to be a much larger world with a more detailed history of characters and events, this leads to a greater amount of 'lore holes' than past games just because there are more holes to make. Yes they make the holes on purpose, yes some are just holes, yes it can be frustrating. However it boils down to what Miyazaki and his team want their audience to feel. What is their story and what is our experience of it. Fromsoft stories (at least since Souls began) are not avout piecing together a cohesive narrative or about understanding characters and turns of events, the truth is much more complicated. Essentially relating to how the audience feels about it, how it makes us think about not only the world of the game but the real world around us too. After all, that's the world that really matters. Players wouldn't have to think if it were easy to understand or presented clearly. Some of the lore obviously is as we need a foundation to build our thoughts upon, but these thoughts arent meant to be contained to the world behind the screen, rather they are rooted in understanding the real world and even ourselves better. By changing how we think or giving us a reason to think at all. As with a lot of art, it's a lens to view ourselves and others. To learn and grow and sometimes just to feel. Think of the gameplay experience of a souls game, not so different when it comes to the story as well. First and foremost, these are experiences that should be deeply personal. They are not wads of text to be disgested and analysed, they're a collection of thoughts and ideas that encourage thoughts and ideas of our own. As with real life, it is a journey and not a destination. This is a game that is made to be experienced, not beaten, not mastered, not figured out. Just like it was an experience to write this story, so it is when its read. Rarely are these experiences the same. I love a good fantasy story as much as anyone, and appreciate lore videos in a similar fashion. Maybe this personal experience can be separated from story analysis, but to do so is to refuse to understand that this experience is what makes the story complete and gives it meaning. To anyone reading this, I hope you are well and thanks for your time. Be kind. God bless. - A fellow human being, who knows very little and hopes this post wasn't an incoherent mess.
I'm just gonna say it : the elden ring lore feels unfinished, it's like we need another DLC to make a coherent all. But are not gonna... Can we call that bad world building ? I don't know, but all the other souls game are more complet with just enough mysteries and ambiguity for you to keep wondering. Elden Ring just left you with a " wait... What ?" kinda vibe.
Yeah, hard agree, theres simply not enough circumstantial evidence or context on the information we get to draw any solid conclusions. Just feels like random plot lines and snippets of lore are thrown at you, and then never elaborated on or brought up again, you cant really infer anything from most of this stuff. Idk, it almost feels like they're just trying to drown you in info, with the story becoming so convoluted and confusing that you don't notice all the holes in it. Even trying to construct a basic timeline of events seems nigh on impossible.
@@joshualouw9506 GRR Martins is pissing of a lot of fans of the song of ice and fire book series, the main complaint is his inability to finish his story in part because the world is too wide and the plot too numerous and complexe to make a coherent story. Sounds familiar don't you think ? I'm not putting all the blame on Martins, I imagine he produce a finished tale for the game but the similarity of problems is quite something...
@@andreaven2287 Oh yeah, im very familiar with not only a song of ice and fire but with george's work in general, he's one of my all time favourite authors, so I understand the frustration all too well haha. But its interesting that you mention it because ive never really thought about the story of ER in that context, for some reason. It seems so obvious now that you mention it, but it really does evoke many of the same issues I have with george's other work, particularly asoiaf as it stand now.
@@joshualouw9506 I know right ? It would be interesting to read the text Martins created for them, to see if it's just an abstract worldbuilding (my guess) or a complete story or history of the universe. Even without the warping of Fromsoft it could be so much. But I don't think we are gonna be that lucky...
I keep feeling more and more like the Elden Ring lore was pretty much cracked as far as it can be cracked when Parasoulsus made that post on reddit three years ago-before the game even came out-speculating that it would be heavily based on alchemy and its symbolism. I think that’s it. That’s all that’s in the burrito really. Some esoteric nerd shit (not that I’m not one). And like alchemy it’s very open ended. I have also (perhaps irrationally) convinced myself that it doesn’t all come together tightly because they relied on another big time writer’s involvement. I don’t mean that as a dig, it’s just that when I imagine what that creative process might have been like, it strikes me that it could create a lot of opportunities for confusion or misinterpretation between collaborators. I doubt GRRM fully understood these games when he sat down to write, and I doubt From Soft fully understood his writing when it was turned in…. And that may have been the entire point. From may have relegated the seeding lore to an outside party specifically so they could focus on crafting the world itself and the player experience. But in the process they may have lost hold of the reigns on telling a story. Instead, what you get in the game plays out more like a series of icons or reliefs conveying a great legend or myth… and that’s cool, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the impact of a tighter story.
They in no way, shape or form “seeded lore to an outside party.” You can dislike the lore for your own reasons but if anything Miyazaki went out of his way to not have Martin simply write lore for the game the way he set it up its development. He wanted both FS and Martin to have independent creative input which is why he had Martin write an independent mythos 5 thousand years before the events of the game. Also I love Rata but it’s hard to critique the lore when you have almost no prior familiarity with one of the lore’s writers (Martin). This is not like other Miyazaki games for better or worse but if you read Martin, it enriches the experience of the lore just like playing prior Miyazaki games will do the same.
Just for the record, my favorite lore in the series is Bloodborne and Sekiro, and I think both tell a tighter story, even if still open ended, than ER or DS. I maybe place the lore of the Ringed City DLC in a close third to those because I think the themes in that are beautifully explored in the writing, and that experience satisfies me more than the lore in ER. And it isn’t that I don’t like it, I just think it lacks the usual punch.
@@istareatthesun That’s fair- Bloodborne is hard to top for me as well and I still haven’t decided on Elden Ring. I think a lot of people, myself included, are reacting to their own lack of confirmation bias that the DLC provided. I’m still going to give it time before I decide whether that disappointment is legitimate or just personal bias that I didn’t get the answers or confirmation I wanted.
Hot take: overall Fromsoft fumbled an aspect of the lore, specifically, they didn't do a good job of carefully adding context and circumstantial evidence. Text relating to the vow SHOULD have been in the base game, for example. I'm sure Fromsoft likely has a pretty good timeline, and they know which dots connect to what, but I think they just didn't make enough dots, and not enough dotted lines in the game, if you understand what im sayin. Edit: Nobody has said anything that points to some kind of connection between Miquella and Radahn in the base game. The church of vows is interesting, but not relevant with the context, per my limited understanding. But I've still been looking, and i don't really have anything strong to go off of. But I did recall the two commanders, O'Neil and Niall. Commander Niall seems to have some association with Miquella, while O'Neil... well... i don't know... but it would certainly be interesting if he served Radahn... right?
@hellogoodbye3786 yeah I'm still very unhappy about how there's no way to connect Radahn and Miquella in base game, so the vow feels too out of left field. Not to mention there's hardly any context for the final boss fight if you didn't do Freyja and Ansbach's quests
@@oddlang687 Come on now, the Ansbach quest is one of the easiest to follow. In some aspects you can even call it spoilers lol. He literally spells out who the final boss is and what's Miquela's final plan.
@@ericjensen7580 that's interesting, could you be more specific please? I've already gone to the church for my current playthrough and thus I cannot hear all the dialogue from Miriel. I could start a whole new playthrough, but well...
@@joxerrrrr yes I agree with you, but i still think something this important really should've been in the base game. I'm receptive to being corrected, so if you can point something out I missed I'll happily look at the information with an open mind, but as far as I know the vow is only mentioned in the dlc. But i mean the vow is only ONE example. Why does Godefroy look like Godrick? What is the importance of The Sun in Elden Ring? Is the Sun The Greater Will? Is the sun being eclipsed by the regular Moon or The Black Moon? Does The Black Moon absorb light from the Sun, similar to how the eternal darkness spell absorbs spells and incantations, and if so where is that energy being transmitted? Who is The Gloam eyed Queen? Melina? Then that means Melina was a Queen, and thus associated with the Godskins... I can't find anything to connect them in game however... why in the hell did Miyazaki make Miquella so beautiful, only to make him forever underage 🤨
I knew from the beginning that SotE would be the Ringed City of Elden Ring. At least, I enjoyed it far more than that hellhole that Ringed City was. And I liked the lore of SotE, despite the fact that there was nothing on GEQ, Melina, Miquella-Torrent connections, or other things. More than anything, I love how DLC just invites people to revisit the lore of the base game. But I agree that the majority of the new lore is specific to the realm of shadow and not connected to the main game.
I think people are finally realizing that a better implementation for a DLC within the main story of a Fromsoftware basegame is the exception, not the rule. Does Artorias of The Abyss serve as an epilogue for its own game? No, not at all. Neither does The Old Hunters. The Ringed City serves that function, but just barely. Dark Souls 2's DLCs are very much different in this sense, but I would argue an exception that proves the rule because DS2 without its DLCs feels like half a game. Turns out that Fromsoftware has been making DLCs in the same sort of model for more than a decade at this point: a side story that elaborates on some characters you see or hear about in the base game, but that ultimately doesn't seek to answer half the questions that the basegame presents. The two year wait lead people into thinking Shadow of The Erdtree would serve a different purpose, but no, the only reason it took so long is because Elden Ring has a content model that requires an enormous ammount of elbow grease to function. I knew this would happen the very moment Miyazaki clarified in an interview that SOTE would seek to tell Miquella's story instead of serving as an epilogue to the Lands Between as a whole. Seeing the community try to convince itself it would be any different was wild. Shadow of The Erdtree is a Fromsoftware DLC through and through, and it has just as much bearing on the main story and ending of its basegame as most other Fromsoftware DLCs: almost none. You don't have an extrinsic motivation to visit The Old Hunter's dream, just like with Oolacile and Ariandel. Once you beat the Orphan of Kos, you simply teleport back to the base game and face Gehrman and the Moon Presence if you are so inclined. Taken in context of Elden Ring as a whole, Shadow of The Erdtree is the exact same.
@@Erick-tv8oq I don't really agree. AotA answered a lot of questions from the base game about Gwyn's knights, the Abyss, and humanity. It wasn't an epilogue but it didn't need to be. It directly expanded on stuff we heard about in the main game. Old Hunters was the same. We learned more about Laurence, the origins of the Healing Church, Gehrman's connection to the doll via Maria, and the Great Ones in general. It was really only DS3's DLCs, and now Shadow of the Erdtree, that felt more like lore tangents than lore expansions.
@@MarkHogan994 That's just arguing lore for the sake of arguing lore. I'm not talking about what narrative threads each DLC decided to follow or ignore, I'm talking about the role of the expansions in relation to the basegame they complement. I agree with you in the sense that I also think Fromsoft's previous DLCs didn't need to be epilogues, and neither did Shadow of The Erdtree. My point is that the main aspect behind such a cry for more in terms of lore and a new ending tied to the DLC is that somehow along the way people just sort of started expecting such things due to the two year wait, when the only reason there's this long a period of time between basegame launch and DLC launch is because Elden Ring is epic in scale and so should its expansion be. Two entire years of wait and theorization skewed the perception of the community so heavily that it's extremely difficult to have an honest conversation about what Shadow of The Erdtree actually brings to the table. This DLC is kind of being evaluated as its own thing, when in truth it was envisioned within the context of Elden Ring from the very beginning. Would someone who bought the game today - someone who didn't spend two years theorizing about Godwyn and the GEQ and whatnot - still feel disappointment towards the "lack of answers" within the expansion? That's an incredibly important question that no one is asking
I concur, shadow of the erdtree did not address a lot of the question I had and did not expand on some of the lore points I suspected. Things such as Melina, GEQ, Marikas actual internal thoughts and reasons (they troll us with the Golden Braid, and ik we can extrapolate based on Shaman Village, but it's still opaque), the exact circumstances around Marika's ascension to godhood shown in the trailer, Torrent's relationship with Miquella and their potential connection between Ranni, Miquella, and Melina, and some other more minor things. Also, a lot of the stuff with the Crucible was a let down, both in terms of Gameplay and the lore. The new crucible incantations are bad and they show off way cooler ones from enemies that we can't get.
I don't know man, Miquella was a massive hole unanswered in the main game especially after finding him. Shadow of the Erdtree fills that hole. People were just disappointed Miquella was evil even tho the main game implied that he was
I didn’t see anyone complaining when we didn’t get any more lore on Velka in DS3 or an explanation on Oedon in BB. The lore of From games has always been open to interpretation and it’s only after the series reached Skyrim levels of popularity with ER that there’s been this tide shift where everyone wants all loose ends explained for them and everything story wise to be tied up with a neat bow. Things like the GEQ and Godwyn were meant to flesh out the theming of the world, not provide concrete answers. Don’t forget, we’re still just a lowly tarnished exploring the story of a world that’s already happened. Anything we do find out is by mere happenstance, like archaeologists discovering ancient pottery but not understanding the full culture that went into creating it.
@@thedingleberrybush6076 If you didn't see people complaining about the lack of Velka lore then you weren't paying attention lol. People complained about that a lot, it was a big talking point.
@@MarkHogan994 Maybe, but my point still stands. Even including the older games like DeS and DS1 they never fully elucidated on every detail in the story. Expecting Miyazaki to demystify everything is a woeful misunderstanding of his approach to narrative.
TotK and Elden Ring DLC are exactly the same in terms of lore. More lore on new elements they introduce to the world, but very little expansion on questions we had from the previous entry.
Not true, yes we got new lore but we also had many questions answered like why Marika hates the Omen, How the Greater Will peaced out long before Marika became a god. Compare that to TotK where we get a lot of new lore but it also contradicts and retcons BotW lore. SotE doesn’t do that.
Im just not feeling SotE in a way i felt The Ringed City, Old Hunters, or Artorias of the Abyss. It felt shalow, undercoocked and tedious most of the time. The Shadow keep and the dungeon leading to Miquella were cool but thats about it. The expansion kinda left a hole in my heart. It was so underwhelming for me. The bosses were also just kinda there for the most part. Messmer and the first Dancing Lion being the exception. Everything else was meh.
The ending of the DLC was so bad lore-wise that it soured the whole thing for me, barely even made me want to clean up the rest of the DLC remembrance bosses after Radahn but I did all of them anyway. I was never the biggest basegame Elden Ring fan anyway, but after this game I've done with the traditional souls formula and combat. Sekiro had an actual narrative and cast of characters to get invested in, and amazing combat, and a cool non-medieval european setting - now that's a good ass modern fromsoft game. Honourable mention to AC6 as well, and that new Fromsoft director, Masaru Yamamura. Hopefully all the next games in the works by new fromsoft directors that Miyazaki mentioned are more like Sekiro and AC6 and less Souls.
Why are people upset about Miquella choosing Radahn as a consort and all that? I always wondered why Malenia went to fight with Radahn and this gave me more of an idea, as if Malenia attempted to recruit OG Radahn for Miquella's cause but he refused and that was the cause of the fight.
@@Yama-qg3il Because people are fixated on the idea that it should have been Godwyn, or that Miquella actually wanted Godwyn instead of Radahn, or something something Godwyn. The only examples of interactions we have between Miquella and Godwyn is a description of a sword where Miquella prays for Godwyn to die a true death (in order words, for his soul to return to the Erdtree, which isn't possible since his soul was destroyed), and the failed endeavour to revive a dead demigod (who might not even be Godwyn, but rather the nameless demigod in the nearby mausoleum) at Castle Sol through an eclipse.
@@colovianhastur5962 For me personally it was never about wanting Godwyn as the final boss, just that Miquella's multi-layered plan was to ressurect a character we've already encountered and only has links to him in the DLC. The Marika/Messmer/Hornsent and Shaman genocide stuff was cool, and I was interested in the mystery of what exactly Miquella was doing but it being Radahn is both confusing (even if you've done Freyja and Ansbach's storylines beforehand.) and doesn't really end Elden Ring on a triumphant note for me, considering this will likely be the last piece of content for this game.
ngl I was very disappointed that we got basally nothing on the Gloam Eyed Queen, She seemed like such a big deal being an empyrean with destined death flame
To me that just cemented the idea that Melina is the geq, if lore is not expanded on something in SotE then that means the base game has all we need to know about that something
@@michalnowacki1489 also metyr has some connection with gloam so maybe people havent understood it yet. i think i got it tho. its basically like the real world. dude theres never gonna be an answer. somethings we just dont know and thats why there are so many beliefs and they are all wrong. trying to give sense to the greater will is like asking why humans have to die. and if you think you can find a solution all you will create are hopeless and in fact will lead to more problems. such as the age of marika, age of the crucible, age of plenty, age of compassion, age of the stars... its hopeless. theres no meaning to it all and were wasting our time asking instead of feeling it (i know we feel it its just like in real life sometimes that can happen) if anything this just shows that the more definite ending is the frenzied flame one. thats the only one where theres hope that something changed. for better or worse but changed
I have the impression that the Gloam Eyed Queen is Melina, and that she was resurrected as Spirit by St. Trina, thus her sleep spell and purple eye. Also explains why she has Torrent and the Putrescence Knight is called GEQ knight. I don't think it was cut, more like Miyazaki obfuscated it
So did SotE answer your questions? Did you finally learn what the theme is? These are the questions I want answered cause I’m also fucked if I know So it’s just… over?
The lore of the dlc is fine, it’s just that their are so many interconnecting plot points to put together that you either leave stuff out in your explanation that people loose track or go on a super long mad tangent. We are dealing with a novel size amount of lore to sift through. But their are some crazy cool things to find - as the old saying goes “you’ll never know if you don’t try.” Don’t worry about being correct the first time, just post your general theories and work off with others on what does and doesn’t make sense to you. If you want a idea to start with - how about adding to your frenzy flame lore vids with what we learned about midra, specifically about the lord of chaos?
The DLC lore was a complete hatchet job that was clearly done in a rush after the base game. It wasn’t stuff they had already thought of and waited to release it later like they’ve done before
In my case I really like the DLC but there are few things that are kidna bad for me: First of all the biggest disappointment for me is Radahn. And before somebody writes to me you wanted Godwyn and it didnt meet your expectantion. No the promised consort storyline it could be literally enyone else or even somebody we didnt know. Its just boring that we have another Radahn fight and bringing his back for me destroyed his lore which was phenomenal and felt finished in the base game. 2nd thing is Romina is the most random character they added ever in any game. She is just there, she burns in cinematic, some rot lore with like 2,3 descriptions and that's it. It feels so disconnected from everything 3rd thing is I ABSOLUTELY LOVE MIDRA!!!!. But.... Why is he so easy. Holy shit this is DLC Boss why is he so easy. Music is on point, theme is on point jsut please make him orphan of kos level ahrd it would fit him so much. From all those point 2 and 3rd and can survive and accept but first point with Radahn just makes me kinda not wanting to come back to Elden Ring.
Yeah, I really liked the DLC for the most part, but as soon as I encountered Radahn everything soured to me. And it seems so petty that one boss could do this when the others were great with a few exceptions. But, I don't know, Radahn really rubs me the wrong way and I think it has to do with Miquella, who I wanted to see more of and maybe interact more. But the only time we actually encounter Miquella, it's now mostly just Radahn and I hate that they decided this. Radahn was a better character without the DLC, he had a finished arc (put the great warrior to rest), now he is just this reused manipulated guy that has overstayed his welcome. Miquella was also a better character in the base game, so much mystery and intrigue, he seemed so brillant and otherwordly. But how they characterized him in the DLC is so pointless and boring ("please be my consort, Radahn" + vague rambling of some age of compassion - rinse and repeat - is not really a great way to conclude a character).
malenia was basically his consort, why not her? Radahn relied on his great rune while malenia was skilled. malenia would had won if radahn didn't have his great rune
Maybe because I played on NG+3, but I didn't think Midra was that easy. He was decently challenging even with a high scadu level. Not every boss needs to be hard as nails, the DLC already has a bunch of insanely tough fights. Midra was a respectable challenge without being anything crazy, and I think that's totally fine.
Same. The haligtree even lost its magic to me. I had hopes of Miquella being the best part of elden ring and all he ended up being was an accomplice in a community acclaimed horrible phase 2 fight@@lexiferenczy9695
I absolutely love playing Elden Ring but I don't think it brings me much joy thinking or reading about it. Trust me its not for a lack of trying Seeing most fans being so accepting of its extremely cryptic nature drives me up the wall sometimes. If someone tells me "it's supposed to be vague" one more time....lol
Not throwing hate his way cause I think he's a good dude that finds genuine enjoyment in this game, but Ziostorm has a post on Twitter with two images, one was the "eyes" of the Scadutree Avatar and the second was a star constellation, and that post absolutely sent me up the wall. Like WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GLEAN FROM THIS!? It's ancillary speculation that offers nothing to the base game. Did the DLC really offer so little that THIS is what we're discussing only three weeks out past release!? I get nauseated a little bit everytime I think about it haha
Remember, Souls was a three-game franchise. Elden Ring is a single project + expansion. The lore of DS1 was equally vauge, to the point that we thought Solarie was the Nameless King.
@@hoked2194 Dark Souls arguably only got more vague with each following game. Anyway I think ER just introduced too many concepts, terms, people, etc in one go, and instead of making an effort to clarify, streamline things a bit, they introduced even more stuff in the DLC. btw yes people got the Solaire is the first born thing wrong but the nameless king also obviously didn't exist yet before DS3
The lore of this game has now jumped the shark for me. By the time final DLC of DS3 released, we had a MUCH better grasp on a basic timeline of events even though TIME HAD LITERALLY COLLAPSED ON ITSELF. By the time Bloodborne DLC released, there was some semblance of understanding of the basic timeline and what exactly happened leading up to the events of the game. Sure they both still had a TON of mystery left over, but even now no two people can agree on a basic timeline of what happened prior to the events of the game in Elden Ring. Not even one bit. It's just obtuse and convoluted for the sake of being obtuse and convoluted. I'm also surprised they went this far in that direction considering how clear Sekiro was in terms of story telling(but with a ton of mystery left, even including a super important character that never appears or shows up). And then you have people that obsess over a stupid tablet with a map of babylon on it. Just some artists having a good time making an asset that's supposed to just show that an old civilization lived there. You got people posting 5 hour rabbit holes on a stupid tablet and statue of and old moses looking dude. It's all so silly.
Enir Ilim is an analog for Babylon though. In the same way that Leyendell is an analog for Constantinople. We even get a bunch of references to Mesopotamian culture in the DLC. This highlights a big problem I've had with the main thrust of the lore community. There's some, to me, bizarre agreement that these games ought to be analyzed through a historians methodology. Privileging some kinds of data over others. The problem being, this is not history. Video games are literature. Ignoring the reference material leads to dead ends, confusion and frustration. If you're not willing to allow yourself to see the literary inspirations, like that Godfrey takes a lot of cues from Conan the Barbarian and Robert Howard, if you're not willing to see the hundreds of major real world historical events which went into developing the demi-gods and the history of the Lands Between, you're going to walk away imagining that everything is an incomprehensible mess. You reference older games but you ignore that those games were largely the creation of one person. Their knowledge and their interests necessarily create a more singular story with a less complicated web of connections. Because one person can only manage so many connections. But Elden Ring has two major contributors. Which exponentially increases the amount of connections as they are both playing off one another's ideas. Martin developed all of these back stories based off of his interests and inspirations, then Miyazaki added himself to the mix by asserting connections to the things Martin made which interested him in order to fit them into the story he was trying to tell about Marika and how she came to effect the Lands Between. "It's just obtuse and convoluted for the sake of being obtuse and convoluted." It's really not. It's just a natural consequence of collaboration on this scale and an unwillingness on the part of the lore community to expand their set of tools even when the game is thrusting evidence that they should right in their face.
@@rainbowkrampus A basic timeline of events isnt that unreasonable to want. Without that, lore reading is just pissing in the wind finding some deep meaning in referencess that never go 1:1. Like the furnace golems being an influence from Celtic wickermen against romans, yet in Elden Ring its the "roman style" army that utlizes them. The reference means absolutely nothing other than the fact that it looks cool and is a reference. And i have a feeling youre chasing a ton of other references that were added for no reason other than an artist thinking they looked cool. The fact that people spent DAYS of their trying to figure out what the Babylon map MEANS in the game is so silly because it meant absolutely nothing to the narrative or lore other than to show that an old civilization existed.
@@ALaz502 I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that we would have a timeline barely a month into this massive recontextualizing of all the things we knew when it took many months just to arrive at a still disputed timeline for the base game. Like, how basic are you even meaning? Because we have a basic timeline in the sense that the shaman arrived in the Lands Between. They came to be valued for their capacity to meld with other lifeforms and were the subjects of religious persecution. An alien somehow got stuck in the Lands Between and one shaman began communicating with it and started developing a plan to seek revenge for her people's persecution. She eventually worked her way into the upper echelons of the dominant culture and became "a god". At which point she used her position to grow her own loyalist group and eventually used her power to destroy the culture that persecuted her and her people. This destruction also coincided with the separating of the land into two. This "god" hit on the idea of granting her people eternal life, so she accomplished two things by separating the land. She was able to trap the threats to her new order and the object which allowed it to function and she was able to hide away any knowledge of her humble origins and the reminders of what was no doubt a traumatic past. This is when we get into known points from the base game and the period leading up to the banishing of the Tarnished and the events of the game proper. That's pretty basic but that's what happened. Marika is the key just as Gwyn was before her. A longer timeline is not something I'm willing to write out in a YT comment, especially since, as mentioned, it's too early to really arrive at one. "And i have a feeling youre chasing a ton of other references that were added for no reason other than an artist thinking they looked cool." If you think that there is only one way to use a reference then it's no wonder you are frustrated. Sometimes a reference is just an aesthetic choice. The crystallians are just an aesthetic reference. As are the furnace golems. But a reference to historical events, people, literary references and character references are very different beasts. They tell you things about motivation and personality and theme. A reference can also be both, as in Messmer being a reference to Richard III bot in the events of his life and in the bad case of snake induced scoliosis. "it meant absolutely nothing to the narrative or lore other than to show that an old civilization existed" Well, no, it didn't just mean that. It tells us things about that civilization. What kinds of things they likely valued and what kind of material culture we should expect from them. It suggests things that aren't made explicit in game. For instance. The only remaining political organization we encounter for the hornsent are the inquisition. Who were their rulers? What can Babylon and Mesopotamian culture broadly tell us about what we should expect to find were we given that information? Why do you think that there's a prominent statue in Enir Ilim portraying two robed figures in an intimate pose, both entwined by a horn? Can you use your existing cultural knowledge as well as suggestions made in the game and the knowledge of what kind of culture we derive from Mesopotamian culture to arrive at an understanding of what that statue means and who/what it's portraying? Because I can. And I can't see any other way to do so unless you allow for the inclusion of meta-textual references.
The gameplay and systems were fun but they fucked up the lore. Radahn is a disappointment but he's not even the greatest one. The greatest disappointment is that the trailers feel like they told a separate story full of details but that we got a watered down version of with all the same bosses and npcs but only enough exposition to uderstand miquilla's current plan. People had theories that they expected to be proven wrong but no one expected a dlc that, from a lore perspective, feels like a demo compared to what was hinted at. We
Yeah, the trailers had Miquella removing the veil from the Scadutree (never happened even though Miyazaki in interviews mentioned the veil would be important.), and the story cinematic with Marika's betrayal is basically self-contained, there's nothing in the game that tells you what happened there. The DLC was definitely rushed, I really don't see how they'd put in major scenes in the trailers but have them be nowhere in the actual game.
Yeah barely any boss cutscenes. The ending was such a “is that it” moment. Left me feeling empty. There where points where I enjoyed the DLC but I was always kind of waiting for it to get good and for something amazing to be just round the corner and it never came
I’m sorry but the lore aspect of this dlc(and the whole game in general) was just not handled right. I had questions going in the dlc and came with even more questions. At least the previous dlcs answered some questions. It’s a shame, because I really like the Themes and ideas of the main game of Elden ring and was hoping they would build up on it, instead the dlc feels like another game with another set of questions. The dlc and the main game feel only similar in gameplay and a few themes of the main game.
@@paz1514 I just said pervious dlcs gave some answers. No this is not the first time playing souls. Elden ring has more plot missing than any of the previous games
@@paz1514ds1 mentioned artorias and manus then we got to see them in the dlc Ds2 mention fume knight, sir alonne, the kingdom the velstad used to serve for before vendrick. We got to see those, and also we got our question answered when there was a lack of demon bosses in ds2: the old chaos was guarded by the burnt ivory king. Ds3: the ring city pretty much showed us what the dark soul is capable of, and why Gwyn feared it. Look the previous games also had plot missing, but it wasnt as bad as Elden ring. In Elden ring, there was a lot of missing plot. In the dlc we got an answer only to: what happened to miquella? And they decided to make a connection between him and radahn for some reason even tho there was zero mention of it in the main game. The other bosses weren’t even mentioned in the main game (aside from maybe the dancing lion (being close to the omen) and Bayle) they were just made with little to no thought about the lore of the main game
@@paz1514and even assuming that previous DLCs didn’t answer something, it’s still a point of valid criticism. Just because u did something for a very long time that it became a tradition, it doesn’t mean it’s a perfect practice. I get that they want some mystery in their games, but when u can’t make a coherent timeline of at least the events mentioned the game, that’s not plot points missing for the sake of building mystery. That is just not a complete story.
@@paz1514building up mystery is good tool to entice the player/reader to be engage with the media, but that only works when said mystery is at least resolved in some way or another (maybe not a full answer but at least something) Here mysteries are built then they leave it at that. This is not gonna make me engaged with the lore, if anything, going forward I’m gonna be much more cautious about the lore of these games and whether I engage with it or not. They had a golden plate of full mysteries and characters that we wanted to see/solve, but they threw all of that out in favor of something completely different. They had a golden ticket of a last boss fight (godwyn/ gloom eyed queen) instead we got a character whose lore was pretty much finished.
I think speculations were better than what was actually showed so people have to adapt their theories or straight up change them but it still will not be as good as pre release lore speculations
He said it's a 10/10. It just doesn't do anything substantially different from the base game, so there's not much to be said design-wise that hasn't already been discussed over the last two years.
DS1 and BB DLCs answered a lot of questions. AotA answered questions from the base game about Gwyn's knights, the Abyss, and humanity. It directly expanded on stuff we heard about in the main game. Old Hunters was the same. We learned more about Laurence, the origins of the Healing Church, Gehrman's connection to the doll via Maria, and the Great Ones in general. DS2's DLC was similar with respect to Manus' daughters.
@@MarkHogan994It's not like SOTE didn't answer anything. There are multiple major revelations in SOTE, with far bigger implications than any DLC that came before.
Sote answered lore questions, but not the ones some were expecting/wanting. Miyazaki had a perfect chance to give us a whole dlc focused on godefroy dammit!
You thought SoTE was going to clearly and explicitly answer all of your specific lore questions? I like your content but I think you’ve developed a bit of a hype issue. Lore in From games has always been something that needs to be teased out by the community. That’s part of the appeal. With Zelda lore and theories has always been something that is 50% the devs throwing a cool line in and then 50% authored by the fans until it becomes so popular it’s accepted as canon. It’s fun to be part of these communities but expecting the devs and writers to address and cater everything directly to the lore communities is just setting yourself up for disappointment. You can not like them it’s fine and a valid opinion I just feel like based on how you, and others in a similar boat who might read this, talk you are depriving yourself of a lot of enjoyment if you just take things as they are.
I’m personally kinda done with FromSoftware (well souls games specifically) because I want something new and unique. Lies of P was kinda what I wanted Elden Ring to be combat wise. Which is why I’m personally more excited for what they are doing over FromSoftware. Unless they do a Bloodborne 2 I’m kinda just tired of Souls.
Not a complete disappointment like TotK, but not From’s best DLC. That honor still belongs to The Old Hunters. SotE is mostly just fine. If you wanted more Elden Ring, it is certainly more Elden Ring. My only real gripes are that there are only 50 scadutree fragments when you need 50 to max out your blessing level and the final boss. Radahn’s return is just cheap fan service and you can’t convince me otherwise. Literally nothing linking him and Miquella in the base game.
Something about the lore for the dlc just feels off. I don’t really know why I feel like this yet but it felt underwhelming as hell. The Radahn lore was just shit as well. I would’ve been so much happier with a rotting Godwyn even if it barely made any sense. But at least we had expectations there
Bizarre things to me in terms of how people are responding to the DLC. There are people who think Miquella is just misguided. Talk about a complete lack of media literacy. Dude is evil and he's not some naive kid. There are people who still insist that the outer gods and the Greater Will are real entities even after having a lying zealous evangelist alien thrown in their face. There are people who thought that the DLC was going to tell them all about the Gloam Eyed Queen and are still mad that it didn't. There are people who insist that Radahn was a retcon even when the evidence that they were simply wrong is staring them in the face. The major thing the DLC did was force us to rethink our assumptions. But it seems like some people just aren't interested in that. Preferring instead to double down on their, incorrect, assumptions rather than own up to having been wrong. The other thing the DLC does is point out that treating these games as though they are pure histories and only allowing for historical methodologies as a lens of analysis is an insufficient approach. We get a big honking Babylonian tablet in the base game and then we get a big honking analog for Babylon and a bunch of references to Mesopotamian culture in the DLC and people still want to act like they can just ignore all of the historical and literary inspirations. Even though the game is bashing them over the head telling them what those inspirations are and that you can use them to infer further things about the game world.
@rainbowkrampus this is the most asinine wannabe pseudointentullectual smoothbraine word salad of anything that sounds intelligent without actual saying much of anything get a life lose
The irony when you talk about a lack of media literacy and then throw around statements like "Miquella is evil for sure, he can't just be misguided!", "it's clear the outer gods don't exist and saying otherwise makes no sense!". You are aware that what the game presents to us is so far from being definitive that interpretating it in different ways is not only still valid but the only thing we can do actually, when we want to remain even somewhat objective about analyzing it? Maybe rethink your assumptions or whatever
@@lexiferenczy9695 Yes, so misguided that he (checks notes) Experimented on the corpse of his half brother in an effort to control his other half brother and wound up hiding the sun from a whole section of the map. Had his sister nuke a country just to try to kill his half brother so he could revive him under his control to fulfill his weird obsession. Mind controlled yet another half brother and got him to start a murder cult in order to hide his true activities and then manipulated some random Tarnished into killing two of his half brothers in order that he could use the body of one to house the soul of the other. Just a totally understandable series of mistakes that anyone could have made and not the sign of an evil, manipulative control freak (you'll have to imagine me rolling my eyes so far into the back of my head that all you see is the whites). "You are aware that what the game presents to us is so far from being definitive that interpretating it in different ways is not only still valid but the only thing we can do actually" No, actually, the game really isn't that vague. There's wiggle room, certainly. There are a few inconsequential things we'll likely never know. But the big picture stuff? The motivations of certain characters and the events which lead the Lands Between to their current state? Pretty freaking clear when you don't just ignore the things which are inconvenient to your preconceived ideas from the base game or ignore obvious context clues that are staring you in the face. This is literature. There's intentionality behind everything here because that's how literature works, everything has to be placed and arranged by a person. Spend some time thinking through things with that in mind and I promise you that nothing is so open to interpretation that you can arrive at any random conclusion.
It was a predictably meh lore expansion to a meh base-game lore. Dark Souls was better, as I've said for 2.5 years. Nothing in the DLC convinced me otherwise.
i'm so disappointed when I hop on youtube to see what people are talking about the DLC and to see if people are enjoying it as much as i did, but I'm only seeing debate and discussion of "final boss disappoint" or "empty areas" or "reused enemies" or "trash difficulty", and it's really sad for me because I didn't even thought of any of that playing, and hearing only those picky comments instead of talking about how great this piece of content is, it's making me lose all the good eyes I had for this community. it's like hearing annoying little kids every time an ER post comes up in my feed and i decide to look at the comments edit: criticism is good. but one thing is a critic, other thing is what I'm talking about whining bc you can't kill a boss or the story didn't go as you theorized, do I really have to say this omg
You are right. We are only here to mindlessly consume, consume and consume some more and that's it. Don't you dare to form a thought ! No criticism allowed
Was definitely disappointed with the lore dlc, but I’ll chalk it up to getting overhyped and selling myself a dream on what I thought would be revealed. There were definitely new revelations and questions answered, just not the ones I wanted answered. Expected Godwyn to play a pivotal role alongside miquella, but clearly that wasn’t the case. This dlc just made me realize that i need to make my own stories.
FS dropped the ball with SOTE’s lore/story, TBH it makes me worried about their future as one of the few last non woke studio’s because they never mess up lore this bad
you'd think with how big it is (almost as big as the og game I would) say that it would have been able to answer about 80% - 70% of our questions from the original game, but I would say it answered about 50% or less (no less then 40%) which is anti-climactic? not disapointing cause there is nothing disappointing about the DLC tbh. Lore just is scarce in this one in some places.
The lore was a disappointment. It raised more questions, answered almost none from the base game and presented new plot points for no reason. Overall it damaged the quality of the story. That first scene in the story trailer will haunt us for decades.
I think he just is upset other people caught onto the lore train after Elden Ring, and the market for lore videos is so saturated he has nothing to had. With the base game, he was what they call “first to market”, doesn’t have that benefit with SOTE
SotE is a good DLC....if all you want is more gameplay that expands on the base game and something that is absolutely beautiful to look at. For me, though, SotE is the most disappointing game I've ever played because it provides very few worthwhile answers to the main story and adds new lore than confuses if not outright contradicts what we learned in the base game. It's why the lore community is in absolute shambles right now because either it offers so little or is so esoteric that it's uninterpretable. Not only that but the game's balancing is worse now because Fromsoftware just refuses to let you be as powerful as the enemies you're fighting. It's so painfully aggravating to have all these varied builds all become reduced down to outputting the most damage through R1 and jump attack spam because bosses are so fast and hit so hard. Not even Messmer, easily one of the best bosses they've ever made, could save this DLC.
Lore-wise, SotE was a letdown. Gameplay? Great. All the weapons/etc? Awesome. But then the game just. . . ends. There's no resolution or even anything hinting at a temporary resolution, Dark Souls-style. It's just over. Sorry Miyazaki, but you whiffed this one. Unless there's a surprise bit of patch content, which I highly doubt. Back to hoping for more Sekiro.
Not every DLC has to be TRC levels for conclusive. SOTE is very clearly *not* meant to be a conclusion to Elden Ring. It's a major side quest that explains several mysteries from the base game, and that's it.
It's a shame you don't feel enough of a connection to elden ring to try to come up with some grand theories of the themes. There are a lot of smaller themes and sub themes explored in Elden Ring. So to get to the core theme Myazaki is trying to say in Elden Ring, I think you have to understand the precise metaphors of light and dark in Elden Ring. Specifically, the greater will is suggested to be not just dark but some kind of literal Black Hole God. I wonder if black hole's nature as entropy sinks has anything to do with the themes? Then for some reason, maybe inadvertently as some kind of hawking radiation, created light. A light essential in creating these diverse species and civilizations found in the world. Though the light itself was splintered into all kinds of fire to achieve its goals, it appears to be fundamentally unable to create any sort of satisfactory civilzation. Finally I think a mixture of light and dark, represented by the moon, might be the way forward for everyone.
You are putting way more thought into it than Miyazaki and his team have themselves. This DLC especially was just a rushed hack job, felt like fanfic mostly
@@joesheridan9451 If nothing else, I absolutely adored Ymir's dialogue, the swordhands of night and the blackhole noises found in Metyr's boss music. It really gets the imagination going.
Truth is Miyazaki thrives on the fact that no one can piece together the full lore and discover how fucking awful and nonsensical it is. Just look at the huge amount of cut content, the whole "Hoarah Roux the Goldmask" thing, the Putrescent Knight originally being designed as guardian for the GEQ, all the countless underdeveloped characters and plot threads leading nowhere. It's a shitshow of reused content, reused ideas and concepts from past games, regurgitated storylines haphazardly patched together a couple months before release, with enough holes to not let you notice. The DLC only served to cement the fact that Miyazaki is running out of ideas, and that the open world formula inevitably tanked the quality of the setting and lore. What's really carrying Elden Ring are the QoL improvements on the souls gameplay and the incredible art direction. But that can only go so far. That's why a lot of people felt the DLC was a pretty but ultimately empty shell.
Whats really carrying Elden Ring is that its a great game, standing above anything else FromSoft released before. I've heard about how Miyazaki has been running out of idea since he put Anor Londo in DS3. "Countless underdeveloped characters", with no examples that you brought up, of course, has been a thing since at least Bloodborne, like the chapel dweller, arianna, skeptical man, etc.
@@mikhailkalinin6536 Elden Ring definitely stands above all the other games in terms of scope, quality of the environments and art direction. Not that i would expect anything less from a FromSoft that has now (deservedly) reached the peak of their production value. This, however, doesnt excuse the obviously messy and inconclusive lore (my main point of criticism), where characters have been cut, repurposed and improvised a few months before release, with enough holes in the narrative to give the benefit of the doubt. Just try and follow any single plot thread in Elden Ring and see where that takes you. You want examples of incomplete/underdeveloped characters? Melina, the maiden supposed to be your companion throughout the entire adventure, is basically nonexsistent save for a couple dialogues at sites of grace. We know absolutely nothing of substance about her. Same goes for Godfrey. All the cut content points at him being a completely different (with the whole Goldmask situation, whatever that means, and Serosh originally being Maliketh), and also a sort of mentor figure for the tarnished. Miquella is another character that got absolutely butchered and reeks of retcons and last minute changes. And then you have the endless (and honestly trite) Berserk references, which at this point feel more like creative bankruptcy than subtle nods to another story. And concepts from previous games just straight up ported into Elden Ring. Like...ohhh so now the Ancient Dragons made of stone wield lightning instead of being weak to it (stroke of genius). And fire is this evil power that will end all life instead of being the force that created it. And then Winter Lanterns, and then the cosmic horror stuff from bloodborne, and so on...) It's like he reused every good idea he's had up until now just cause he needed to fill the world. And dont get me wrong, there are indeed some beautiful and fresh ideas original to Elden Ring, but again, the open world formula calls for a much more expansive lore with many moving parts, which i guess was just too much for Zaki to handle as cleanly as he did with the previous games. As for DS3...How is a single zone comparable to any of this? It's the same IP, part of the same world, albeit distorted, so it makes sense that Anor Londo could be there too. I've literally never seen anyone complain about it. If anything, people were surprised and pumped at the prospect of visiting such a beloved place again. You also bring up Bloodborne, but i really don't see how a character like Arianna that has a complete story with a couple of secrets and cool interactions is in anyway comparable to...idk...Nepheli Loux, with her weird Ruler of Limgrave quest, which again, feels strange precisely because of the cut content.
@ev3nstar you seem to hold up Melina to some very high standard that she doesn't meet, and yet she is far more prominent of character with far deeper lore than fire keeper in ds3, doll in bloodborne, or the barely present fire keeper in ds1. Elden Ring has the best questlines in fromsoft history, like the ranni quest, milicent quest, sorceress sellen quest. Sure, not all will meet that standard, but they're still solid, like Alexander quest. If you've never heard people complain about how ds3 is just 'fan-service' and miyazaki 'ran out of ideas' then you must not care much about ds3, bc that's an extremely prominent opinion. DS2 which tried to distance itself from ds1 really didn't help the case either.
@@ev3nstar Hold up. You've never seen people be disappointed at Anor Londo 2.0? Plague of gripes, epicnamebro, agermanspy. All souls oldies that have been vocal about their DS3 dislikes
@@mikhailkalinin6536 I do hold up Melina to a higher standard than the fire keepers and the doll, which belong to much smaller games and are relegated to the hub. A more fair comparison would be between the fire keeper and Roderika, which I feel are pretty similar in terms of scope. Although Melina kind of embodies the role of a keeper, she’s supposed to be much more. A companion throughout your journey. And yet we barely see her and know almost nothing about her. We basically know as much of Melina as we do the doll, and it shouldn’t be like that. About DS3, I do think it was released in an attempt to not let the series die with DS2, and also because of economic interest, more so than pure inspiration, since Miyazaki has mentioned multiple times how he prefers new IPs to sequels. But still it was a great conclusion to the series. The final boss of Ringed City is among the most iconic boss fights in From history (and I don’t think anyone would say the same about new Radahn) Also it expanded meaningfully on some of the most fundamental parts of the lore and for that, despite not being my favourite, I can’t really complain, if we’re still strictly speaking about the lore and how conclusive it is.
DLC was honestly a big letdown. 40$ for copy and paste base game bosses/ little to no story impact, base game pickups, items, and even some weapons wtf, and not much reward for exporation. Its just a useless area once you're in ng+. Scadutree fragments become useless in ng+ because they don't stack like memories from Sekiro. It honestly created problems that no other dlc has had which frustrates me because c'mon its ELDEN RING.
I feel like you could have a lot to talk about, you being a legacy dungeon enjoyer. You talked a lot about them in the base game and i was kinda let down for most of them in SoTE.
"None of my lore questions were answered" Welcome to the frustration that is being a fromsoft lore fan they litteraly dont care for plot unless its B team who did dark souls 2 because somehow they did what miyazaki couldnt
While the dlc is great, at the end of the day, it's just "some more Elden Ring." I can probably play through it again someday, but i got my fill already.
The DLC is in no way mid. I loved every second of it, hell I liked a lot of aspects more than the base game. I just wish it tied in better lore wise with the main game.
Honestly, you need to accept Miyazaki is running out of tricks. Every game is the same gimmicks and mechanics, same traps, the same level/boss design, same obtuse lore/quests, themes and motifs. He is not answering any lore questions (because he prefers it that way), and he is running out of Berserk content to rip off from 😒 This is coming from a guy who actually enjoyed SotE quite a bit, mind you. But its time for something new.
No no, seriously is this y'alls first time playing a souls game? Im 100% serious cause if it wasnt you'd know that fromsoft almost NEVER answers all the lore question and add in new mysteries. Literally all the time. This lore wasnt in anyway fumbled, this is some of the best lore Fromsoft has ever written. Please please just leave the community, im begging y'all. These games arent for you. That much is so clear
Man I loved the DLC and a lot of the lore we got. I also think its fair to levy some criticism on how certain very important moments were handled. The same goes for all of Fromsoft's games btw, none of them are perfect lore wise. Some of Ds1's most important characters lore wise were underdeveloped, Ds2 contradicts Ds1 in many ways, a lot of Ds3 feels unnecessary, the Bloodborne chalice dungeons were underdeveloped etc. I still love all these games but its not healthy for a community to blindly praise things we are into. You don't get to tell people to leave a community just because they have opinions lmao.
@@Zoombeanie132Oh wow wild I just did and watch this, I'll do it again. This has always been things with Fromsoft souls lore and once again this is some of the best written lore they have ever made. If you're gonna complain about this l despite it being perfectly fine this entire time. Leave the community. The game isn't for you. See that ? I just did it again.
Not profitable and the momentum was lost .I bought elden ring but the 2 year wait and the scum content youtube has been releasing the last few years have driven me out of the games industry, most quality content creators have left and many gaming studios have closed, its just a diff landscape, feels like UA-cam has turned into trash tv and the games industry big companies are maximizing profit at the cost of the experience.
There are plenty of lore channels still making great content. Smough, Quelaag, Vaati, Tarnished archeologist etc.Rata is more of a variety content creator these days anyway. Let him do what he wants.
Messmer was amazing, both gameplay and lore but other than that the lore wasn't slaping like I thought it would. Godwyn not being Miquellas consort and never making an appearance besides the roots suuuuuucks. No Gloam Eye Queen stuff at all. No clear answers on how Merika became a God or how Miquella stripped his flesh? Just weird lore that didnt feel amazing like the base games did. I really hope for an Elden Ring 2 or a prequel game called "The Crucible" or something
i really loved SotE its one of the best DLC From ever made, but man nothing will EVER match the atmosphere of when the main game dropped, game wise and community wise, those first few months were the entire community felt like they were just playing and enjoying the game together and just how amazing lands between were, it will never be replicated, even now with SotE it feels like discourse over discourse on many things rather than people enjoying the DLC
I think the discussions that came with the DLC are the tip of the iceberg. The majority of action underneath is people playing and enjoying it for countless hours. That's just my impression.
When Elden Ring came out, I had never seen the internet so universally positive about something. It was truly a magical time.
Shadow of the Erdtree, while fantastic, didn't substantially improve on what Elden Ring did (not that it really could, honestly). It does some things better, some things worse, but overall there isn't much more to say about it design-wise than what we've been talking about for 2.5 years now.
@@ETBrooD Same - I'm loving it. Could care less what the internet says, really - folks said it was too hard, then they complained that there were items that destroyed bosses. Which is it? Right now, it's so much fun: there are a lot of organic invasions, folks just playing through the levels. You'll still get ganked, but many seem to just be progressing through the areas. And I love what the DLC adds to the lore of the main game - some blanks were filled out in an interesting way. Those are my two cents.
@@THEEVANTHETOON I constantly saw salty dark souls fans that hate elden ring's combat. Lots of criticism was thrown at fromsoft when the game came out, but none of it really mattered because it's their best selling game of all time. Just a lot of noisy people doing what they do best. Complain. What matters is how much WE enjoyed the game and the dlc.
@@MrFRNTIK This point exactly. Joseph Anderson convinced half the fandom that the bosses of ER aren't good with his +3 million view essay and we're out here talking like ER was universally taken like manna from heaven. And none of it mattered because millions of people enjoyed playing the game in the comfort of their homes.
I had a great time with the DLC, but after multiple online discussions where people tried to gaslight me into not liking it, and stumbling on a review and folks talking about how apparently, the music is bad, the graphics are bad, the lore is bad, the gameplay is bad - everything is bad - I decided that I am sick of the community discourse, and have checked out of it entirely as I did with each of the previous games once enough time goes by
Yeah, it's nice to be able to talk to others about art, but other people's reviews can completely change the light you would have viewed something in. It's why I've decided to never listen to day 1 reviews, or read detailed critiques before playing a game, reading a novel or listening to an album. I did not think the DLC was perfect, mostly because I disliked the final boss from a story perspective, but dismissing the whole thing in the manner some people have done seems absurd.
But at the end of the day, it's only your own experience that matters. There was a list I found a few years ago on the website Rate Your Music about the 10 commandments, and one of them was "Thou Shalt Not Trust Any Ears but Yours". I think we should all live by that more.
Rata: "I was completely wrong about Sote, I thought it would answer my lore questions"
Me: I WAS RIIIIIIIIGHT
Yeah, I've been banging the drum since the beginning too. The lore is so one-dimensional, and adds very little to what we already knew that it's honestly infuriating to me. And some of the stuff that DOES offer new insight into the base game makes stuff in the base game more confusing.
Uhm yeah, first time playing a souls game ? This is literally nothing new.
@@paz1514 spamming this comment everywhere isn't helpful. People like Me who are completely unsatisfied with the dlc lore have consumed more dark souls lore than you ever did probably. And this time it's not the same. SoTE's ending was nowhere near the Ringed city's endings in terms of conclusion or satisfaction, or logic.
@@tomtrees763 get him
@@tomtrees763"watched more lore than you" nah not a chance kiddo. I've been playing since Demon Souls released heck you wanna go farther back ? I played and consumed the lore of kings field all the way back in the day. Get over yourself, secondly once again I can tell this is you're first souls game. Cause you're wrong.
I'm waiting for the crunchy unhinged podcast part 2
God, same. Please please please.
Keep playing & enjoying the new content - I look forward to the inevitable lore dives - even if it wasn't all the lore we wanted.
Finger vids, here we come
Was it any of the lore we wanted? I think the only group that got something satisfying was the dragons. And even then no word on Placidusax’s god that fled
@@trenchmouse2438 We certainly learned more about Mikella, Mesmer, the Fingers, and Serpents
@@dylearium i feel like we learned little to nothing about the serpents. Aside from the fact that there is a “base” serpent, that’s where the new lore addition ends, and the game doesn’t explain at all what the base serpent is
I guess that explains why most of the discourse I see online apart from early reviews is so negative. There isn't much to praise that wasn't praised 2 years ago. For me that's not a problem. Playing the DLC has felt just like my first Elden Ring playthrough 2 years ago. But all the online discourse is way too
negative, so I try to avoid it for my own sake.
Yea I agree. It's just...more elden ring. Didn't feel as impactful as like old hunters for example.
@@Sephirothkingdom782 This statement could be applied to any soulsborne DLC 😭 I think the fact that you fight people you’ve been hearing about all game long in bloodborne probably made it more impactful for you. Honestly me too. Lore wise old hunters takes it
@@Sephirothkingdom782 Lorewise we had a lot of the questions answered like why Marika hates Omens, How fundamentally broken the Order has actually been and for how long, We got the reason as to why Placidusax is so damaged, It also answers questions on the nature of Marika and Radagon through St Trina and Miquella, We also got more info on the Flame of Frenzy. Really it did answer a majority of questions.
What happened to "Elden ring is uninterpretable" video?
I’m wondering what lore answers people are waiting for? Gloam eyed queen or something? I mean, the DLC taught us about Marika’s backstory, expanded the lore on Mohg, Radahn, St. Trina, taught us more about Placidusax, even added tidbits more about Godwyn with the death knight gear and those descriptions, we learn game-changing revelations about the Fingers and the Greater Will, more about frenzied flame, more about the Carian Royal Family, more about the Crucible, and we even learn about how gods actually ascend to godhood, which is a major reoccurring ambition for many of the ER characters. I’m pretty confused about how the lore could be disappointing, unless people went in with super precise expectations.
(Yapping incoming...)
I guess something in the DLC that would directly impact something in the base game. In Dark Souls 1, you got an entirely different cutscene with the Sif boss fight. With Bloodborne, the Doll has a few more lines. In Dark Souls 3, Yuria of Londor mentions you meeting her sister, Friede. That was one expectation many had. But there's nothing that happens in Shadow of the Erdtree that affects any part of the base game, not Ranni, not Gideon, not Fia, heck, not even Melina. Most I was hoping for was a full on new ending like in Dark Souls 2.
But regarding characters that needed more expansion, the biggest and most glaring culprit was Melina. After all these years, zero mention or expansion on Melina after months of speculation on how Messmer's and Marika's motivations would tie to Melina only to... literally end up with nothing. We got one very, very small mention of her in Messmer's remembrance and then FS patched it out... Like, why? Why are they so afraid to talk about the player's literal companion character in the game?
One direction I would've loved to see them go with Melina is revealing her being the Gloam-Eyed Queen reincarnated as Marika's daughter & Messmer's sister who you could fight as a boss if you defeated Midra after inheriting the Flame of Frenzy from the Three Fingers. You get transported back to the Lands Between, covered in ash, realizing you're in the aftermath of the Flame of Frenzy consuming everything including the Erdtree. You explore, find little more than barren ash, very atmospheric... except for Melina who has swore to deliver destined death to you. You defeat her, get her Remembrance, get context on who she is, what she was, and with her Remembrance, either choose a Godslayer version of the Blade of Calling to represent her roots as the Gloam-Eyed Queen or Melina's Minor Erdtree Incantation to represent her roots as Marika's daughter.
The other was Godwyn The Golden... we needed much more Godwyn than we got. Sure, we get some knights who follow Godwyn The Prince of Death but it's so bizarre to me that we never once fight Godwyn in any form or know the full details surrounding his death which caused The Shattering. What did Marika have to do with his death? And if Radahn was supposedly Miquella's "Lord Brother" all along, then why had he already built Castle Sol and stationed people to resurrect him before the base game even began, before we even killed Radahn? Why was there a statue of Godwyn embracing a young, scared Malenia and Miquella in the Haligtree? All signs pointed to Miquella intending to resurrect Godwyn through whatever powerful magic exists at the Gate of Divinity that could undo true death of the soul. Oh but... we get Radahn again.
I think it was important for the DLC to do more with Melina, Godwyn, Miquella, and give us just a bit more Marika since she was the big focus of the story trailer.
Your last sentence pretty much describes it. People fed on their own expectations and pre-release theories, and then were disappointed when the DLC didn't conform to their completley unsubstantiated expectations.
@@magicfoogieA Fromsoft did not patch out the mention of Melina in Messmer’s remembrance, it’s still there.
That's a shame, would've liked seeing your take on the theme of Elden Ring now that the DLC released and arguably talked about it in a more explicit way.
@dizzyhungry What is the theme?
@@HomingAsatoMass I'd say the main theme is "ambition is necessary to affect meaningful change in the world but can corrupt even the most well-intentioned goals".
Elden ring is a big game with a lot of themes that interweave with each other. The frenzied flame, for instance, is so thematically rich that you could dedicate an entire game to it alone, but in elden ring it's just one small part of the whole.
I've had fun with some aspects of the game, mainly exploration, visual presentation and brainstorming ideas for build crafting, which is something I personally like. However, I'm torn between that and everything else, I recently completed my second playthrough because I wanted to see all the stuff that I didnt find on my first and I might do a third.
But if I'm being honest with myself, most of it comes from me wanting to make sure I'm being fair with the issues I have with the game rather than a desire to replay the game out of an undoubtedly good experience like I had with Sekiro, where once I finished the game my immediate thought was "That was so good, we go again".
Exactly. I felt the same with something like twilight princess too. I got the same feeling with old hunters too. It was a dlc that I was eager to replay because the experience I had with it was mostly great, I unfortunately can't say the same about SOTE and it has nothing to do with difficulty tbh
The DLC has a really big flaw in storytelling imo. The story promised to be about a certain individual but we only get a very small clue once a while, and then when that individual finally shows up the spotlight is not even for them.
I hold no grudge against Radahn, just hate that he stole Miquella's grand finale.
I had set my expectations low in regards to answers for questions I had for the lore because it simply wasn't realistic that the dlc was going to just go like "you know these vague questions about the lore you're curious about? Here's an explicit answer to all of them"
I think the DLC lore is good. The thing is it's fine on it's own, because when you try to tie it in with the base game lore it gets convoluted, because all in all it doesn't change the problems I have with the base game lore: being too vague about points that shouldn't be vague. Let me exemplify. Being too vague about the nuances and details about why Marika shattered the Elden Ring is fine, being too vague about why she shattered it to begin with is not, because that's literally the main plot point. The dlc was clear enough about the hornsent, what happened to Marika, what Miquella was doing, his objectives and what he did in life. And although I was disappointed in Radahn, I softened up to it, specially now that I see that I thought that Radahn had a full character/story arc in the base game but actually he didn't. With all that information, the suppositions we can make about the overaching lore are still very vague, but we are able to make up something coherent nonetheless. Did Radahn stop the stars because he was trying to stop Miquella or his own fate? If yes, why? He was testing Miquella or just antagonizing him entirely? If the hornsent spoke about Marika actually betraying them, that means she worked for/helped them/was allied with them in some way? That means she might have helped them kill shamans before she had them give her access to the Gate of Divinity, and now that would explain why Numen women killed Godwyn, because they wanted revenge for this?
But still, the overall lore is still way too vague and trying to tie it all up is more of an intense effort than it actually needed to be, and before we are able to do that Elden Ring's lore just feels like a jumbled mess of unrelated facts that don't have a coherent storyline. Bloodborne has a just as complex lore and it nowhere as hard to understand.
Although I think the dlc lore is interesting, it is kind of a bummer how little it ties up with the main game and tries to explain it's loose ends. Radahn felt completely out of the left field, and that's why it felt disappointing that he was Miquella's main twist and the final boss, but thanks to that now I really do believe that we lived in an illusion of having a very well explained and clear character. We never knew why Radahn conquered the stars or fought Malenia. Now we (kinda) know, lol. And althought the dlc hinted at Melina, which would be a nice tie in, it was waaay too vague. Just makes you wonder if she had anything to do with Marika's ascension, as she, just like Messmer, might have been born before she became a god and might have become "burned and bodiless" for a significant reason.
In regards to the shattering Marika might have realized that Metyr was fundamentally broken and that the Greater Will stopped communicating with her a long time ago. That could have shattered her faith quite hard.
The only problem with the dlc is that the lore doesn't connect well with the base game. It feels like its own thing mostly. The lore we did get I still loved though, and the overall experience was still amazing.
I think it’s like Ashes of Ariendal, which a lot of people seem to skip over for some reason.
What I mean by it’s like it is, it is the same story as the base game but it reframes the ideas so we can compare the two and learn more about both
Disagree.
@@James_Rustled I agree with this. There's plenty of stuff it recontextualizes and it even connects with certain aspects of the base game (St Trina, Marika's past, the nature of the Erdtree, Mother of Fingers, the crucible etc). It also adds a lot of really important context to the motivations of the various Demigods. All that stuff is top tier. However It really fumbled with how it handled Radahn. I'm actually ok with Radahn conceptually but having Malenia whisper in Radahn's ear exclusively in the trailer is borderline criminal. It should have been in the game along with more descriptions that hinted at Miquella's plan, we got nothing of the sort. Radahn is the final boss yet we don't really get a lot more info about him apart from the fact that Miquella thought he'd make a good lord. I really would have appreciated a Sif moment with Malenia and Gideon, some changed dialogue even, no one in the base game reacts to anything you did in the dlc. Its a gigantic missed opportunity. Then there's the Gate. I get what they were going for with the Gate being the big unknown at the end but having the dlc end the way it did is a bit baffling. It screams that there is supposed to be more content after this, yet Miyazaki has pretty much ruled it out (unless he's lying again lol).
@@Zoombeanie132 Slightly off topic but I find it funny how a lot of people treat the confirmation of st. Trina being Miquella's other half as not a big reveal when the only reason we knew that was because we datamined the game and looked at stuff we were presumably never intended to see.
I do wonder how different the experience of a new player going through Elden Ring years in the future will be from us. I'm sure many of them would share some of the common criticism levied nowadays of course, but it's possible they might be more impressed with what lore the DLC does have than us, who are comparing our experiences with the sum of all information, discussion, and crackhead theory crafting we consumed on the internet in the last 2 years.
Nah that's just wrong my man. I'm sorry but it fits in beautifully
2:44 Exactly my point. I expected the mystery & truths to be uncovered brilliantly.. with how great TOH & TRC DLCs were.
That Radahn reveal left a bad taste in everyones mouth tbh. Those saying otherwise just might be coping.
There is so much cope going round it’s honestly sad to see. Not just Radhan who capped off an overall disappointing offering very fittingly
I was already banking on how SotE will present more questions than answers because of how the lore of Soulborne games are written intentionally ambiguous. But I was ready for more of it, and what a wild ride it has been
Artorias recontectualised our understanding of the knight and all but practically told us that Manus was the furtive pygmy, the DS2 DLCs gave us a third path unconnected to the first flame, and ringed city made it clear what Gwyn did in the first place while also providing us with the Dark Soul itself, recombined from all of humanity. Also, The Old Hunters showed us the origins of Byrgenwerth.
They've actually got a good track record of tying up some of the larger mysteries with their DLCs, but the amount of mysteries added in SOTE compared to the amount resolved is extremely unsatisfying. I'm also quite tired of all the people telling us this was clearly planned from the start because Malenia whispered something to Radahn in the very first trailer. Bullshit.
@@daruddock personally I'm OK with having a ton of questions left since the world of Elden Ring is so much larger in terms of lore/scope than all previous from games. Elden Ring goes way more in depth into personal relationships, it's almost like they mixed Ostrava, Gwyndolin and the twin princes and a bunch of other characters into the same family, not to mention relationships with other cultures, which previous games also don't really cover that much.
Also, I would consider the whole Metyr and Bayle reveals to be an even greater revelations than that of Artorias or even Kos, but the backstory itself is still so massive even those truth drops didn't cover all questions
“And then it was just Dragon’s Dogma 1, but slightly... worse with nicer graphics.”
I was sold on Dragon’s Dogma for being “the best action RPG of all time”, that it had combat that was said to be “better than even Dark Souls” according to Shadiversity. And after sitting with it on my wishlist for 4 years, I finally bought and played it last year. And _boy_ was I disappointed in it. It served as another reminder of why I don’t like buying games based off the recommendations of others. Far too often, they set an expectation in my mind that the game ends up not meeting.
To hear some people say that DD2 is apparently _at best,_ on equal level with DD1, is kind of sad. There were some major flaws with the first game that I would’ve thought could be easily fixed with a bigger budget and more development time, as I heard that DD1 basically ran out of money and was put out as half of a full game. But all that I’ve heard thus far seems to suggest that the sequel is practically in the same state.
To be honest, after Bloodborne sekiro and Elden ring, the soul series is like a big
Bloodborne:What if dark soul has more fast combat and Cthulhu style.
Sekiro:What if parry and block is the main combat system instead roll.
ER:What if dark soul is open world game, and a bunch alien outergod combine medieval century story.
And now we have Lie of P and LotF .
After playing SotE, is just give me more excited about the next soulslike game.
The main objective of the DLC, following Miquella’s footsteps and finding aspects of his flesh he’s abandoned, has a basic continuity error: Miquella abandons his flesh once in the Mohgwyn palace, then abandons it again in the Land of Shadow. So far as I can tell they don’t even bother to explain this. Miquella goes from having zero connection to Radahn in the base game to being almost completely defined by his connection to Radahn in the DLC, to the point where when you meet Miquella in the DLC all he really says is “Radahn is back” and then the ending cutscene is just him simping for Radahn some more. Miquella felt like a character who had a lot of potential to be compelling in the base game, and I just feel like he was ultimately wasted and turned into an excuse for a Radahn 2.0 boss fight.
I can’t be bothered to care deeply about the lore of a game the devs themselves don’t really seem to care that much about either.
The withered arm isn't Miquella's true body in the first place, just like the body in the Haligtree isn't. Miquella has a golden body and tries to grow multiple "adult" bodies on top of it. You claim to have cared for the lore but missed the gigantic tree body in Malenia's arena for some reason...
@@antobatta1551Everyone saw that. I also saw the giant hollowed out hole underneath it.
Gideon explicitly says that the reason the Haligtree failed is because Miquella was stolen from it. He also seems pretty certain that the cocoon is the actual flesh of Miquella in the base game.
People now say he went there as a spirit and left "ideas" of himself behind.
Pls no more..
I took the body that we see in Moghwyn Palace as Miquella's physical flesh being destroyed. A lore theory that I really like and believe actually makes sense is that Miquella was corrupted by Mogh's cursed Omen blood, and so when he died, his spirit was not returned to the Erdtree since we know the Omen, a "slur" I guess for Hornsent people, are outside the bounds of Grace.
You're right, though, that it makes no sense how Miquella abandons flesh while in the Realm of Shadow.
What FromSoftware should have done is hammered home that Miquella is divesting himself of his very spirit, the things that make him who he is. What aI think could've been amazing is if Morgott and Mohg were in the Realm of Shadow. They could've traveled with us, given us more of the familial bond between the demigods and Marika/Radagon, and two new perspectives on the Hornsent and the Realm of Shadow.
Such a wasted opportunity by FromSoftware.
God you souls newbie drive me nuts. Just say you don't know what you're talking about and move on
Relanna is my new favorite boss. It feels like the the sword fight I wanted from Malenia. She has big flashy moves but nothing that'll just end me if I'm to close when she starts and her swings are fun to parry even if I'm not very good at it.
Really, I think the dlc answered a lot of things. We have pretty much the origin of everything. Omen, jars, Dragon cult, gold, fingers, Marika and her motivation. We have loads of new lore on Trina, Frenzy, Death. There are a few things that feel like they were just stapled on there. But I think the only thing missing is any big Godwyn revelations.
I think the unsatisfying things with Elden Ring lore are related with how base game Elden Ring is handled gameplay wise as well.
Elden Ring base game was too big for it's own good, this DLC does Elden Ring better than Elden Ring itself does, because while it ha sopen field areas, it is much more tightly designed, with more intent, more refinement, everything feels like it has a reason to be.
This is something I can't say about the base game, the base game's content is spread too thin over a huge world, and the same can be said about the lore of it, there's so many questions, so many things that people want to know about, but the depth just isn't there, we can't really ever see a glimmer of what the night of black knives was like or what was up with he gloam eyed queen, the nature of Radagon and Marika's duality, the nature of Godwyn's death and his body being taken over by some strange death fish-like god, Miquella's kindness, Malenia's rot, Mohg's blood. There's so much and we can't really get a good answer on most of it, if any of it.
I'm at least happy we got more of a context of why Marika lead the golden order the way she did.
It’s a great side quest taken as part of the game as a whole.
I think that was the whole point. It's called an expansion for a reason. It builds laterally, and isn't meant to cap off the game.
In terms of gameplay and mechanical content, SotE is fantastic. I have a save state set up and I'll be re-fighting those bosses with different builds and strats for a long time. The world is creative and stunning. But the lore is disappointing. Too disconnected from the base game, too many new additions that don't properly and believably tie in. Most damning for me is how hard it is to buy that the Land of Shadow really 'existed' during the base game. Like, no it didn't. It all feels like a retcon. They had so many chances to flesh out the most interesting mysteries - instead they went with zombie Radahn. I think that the most emblematic little thing is the fact that Torrent appears in the teaser poster, and isn't mentioned once in the DLC. This is a microcosm of my issues with it.
That's bugging me too, the Torrent thing in the teaser artwork.
I genuinely believe the best and most exciting parts of Elden Ring's story are all contained to the story cinematic trailers (Shadow of the Erdtree included), which tragically aren't even included in the actual release. There was a lot of atmosphere but so little context to it besides the Shaman Village which was genuinely the only time in the DLC where I felt something emotional pull at me. I don't say this to any other game than Elden Ring but it really, really needed more cinematics and cutscenes on the level of those trailers.
I think they took the formula for the map of ER and made it better than base game ER. I like ER, might be one of my favorites from FS but I think that they made the base game too massive. It’s why areas like the mountaintops feel so empty is because they focused a lot on quantity and not quality. Reducing the size but increasing the quality of the content made SOTE waaay better imo. There’s still reused content of course but the overall quality is still higher. Imagine if we had dungeons like Darklight or Fog Rift in the base game? Not to mention i think that having the ruined forges was a nice break from having the same formula for the dungeons and instead you get unique weapons.
I'm not happy with SOTE, it's fun I like it, but I'm not happy with it, I guess the lore wasn't good enough for me.
Imo it fell short compared to like old hunters or ringed city in terms of lore
It’s a rushed, unfinished sloppy cash grab. Crazy to me that more people can’t see it for what it is
@joesheridan9451 nah man, that's too far. It's none of these things, I'm not happy with the "lore" only. Everything else is perfect, the dungeons are fun, the new bosses, enemies, areas, weapons/spells/ armor are all great. There's nothing about it that's sloppy or cash grabby. The DLC is huge with tons of content How is that cash grabby?
I can dislike some parts yes and criticize others, but let's be fair here.
@@joesheridan9451 Ragebait almost got me 😅
@@joesheridan9451 I think that's a nuts take. I can see why you might not like the lore but the amount of effort and detail put into the entire thing is incredible. I don't see how you could call it rushed at all.
I felt the same exact way as the chatters question, Sucks when you like a content creator's stuff and you look forward to it but the game doesn't drive them enough to post much of anything after it releases. Its free content at the end of the day so I can't pretend otherwise, Ill just try to manage expectations better in my head.
@@OGRENZO94 good view on free content…
I usually argue with commenters who complain that creators aren’t making videos for them
Im not going to argue with people over this, they have their own wants and desires and view the game in their own way. However, it is silly and just a plain lie to claim this DLC lore didnt answer any significant questions. It may not have answered the one you (not pointing the finger at anyone) wanted, at least as obviously as you would have liked, but lore of the game has still developed in a very satisfying way imo. While there are many things I would have liked to see explored further, that doesn't mean that I should be disappointed, there are plenty new things to get excited about and these lead to new avenues to understand or appreciate old ideas. Fromsoft hasnt changed how they tell stories very much. Sure they have explored more direct narrative in Sekiro and obviously try to generally improve over time, but ultimately their methods remain much the same. Elden Ring happens to be a much larger world with a more detailed history of characters and events, this leads to a greater amount of 'lore holes' than past games just because there are more holes to make. Yes they make the holes on purpose, yes some are just holes, yes it can be frustrating. However it boils down to what Miyazaki and his team want their audience to feel. What is their story and what is our experience of it. Fromsoft stories (at least since Souls began) are not avout piecing together a cohesive narrative or about understanding characters and turns of events, the truth is much more complicated. Essentially relating to how the audience feels about it, how it makes us think about not only the world of the game but the real world around us too. After all, that's the world that really matters. Players wouldn't have to think if it were easy to understand or presented clearly. Some of the lore obviously is as we need a foundation to build our thoughts upon, but these thoughts arent meant to be contained to the world behind the screen, rather they are rooted in understanding the real world and even ourselves better. By changing how we think or giving us a reason to think at all. As with a lot of art, it's a lens to view ourselves and others. To learn and grow and sometimes just to feel. Think of the gameplay experience of a souls game, not so different when it comes to the story as well. First and foremost, these are experiences that should be deeply personal. They are not wads of text to be disgested and analysed, they're a collection of thoughts and ideas that encourage thoughts and ideas of our own. As with real life, it is a journey and not a destination. This is a game that is made to be experienced, not beaten, not mastered, not figured out. Just like it was an experience to write this story, so it is when its read. Rarely are these experiences the same.
I love a good fantasy story as much as anyone, and appreciate lore videos in a similar fashion. Maybe this personal experience can be separated from story analysis, but to do so is to refuse to understand that this experience is what makes the story complete and gives it meaning.
To anyone reading this, I hope you are well and thanks for your time. Be kind. God bless.
- A fellow human being, who knows very little and hopes this post wasn't an incoherent mess.
@@sleep_enjoyer13 I love this line of thinking. Well put
I love this line of thinking. Well put.
I'm just gonna say it : the elden ring lore feels unfinished, it's like we need another DLC to make a coherent all. But are not gonna... Can we call that bad world building ? I don't know, but all the other souls game are more complet with just enough mysteries and ambiguity for you to keep wondering. Elden Ring just left you with a " wait... What ?" kinda vibe.
Yeah, hard agree, theres simply not enough circumstantial evidence or context on the information we get to draw any solid conclusions. Just feels like random plot lines and snippets of lore are thrown at you, and then never elaborated on or brought up again, you cant really infer anything from most of this stuff. Idk, it almost feels like they're just trying to drown you in info, with the story becoming so convoluted and confusing that you don't notice all the holes in it. Even trying to construct a basic timeline of events seems nigh on impossible.
@@joshualouw9506 GRR Martins is pissing of a lot of fans of the song of ice and fire book series, the main complaint is his inability to finish his story in part because the world is too wide and the plot too numerous and complexe to make a coherent story. Sounds familiar don't you think ? I'm not putting all the blame on Martins, I imagine he produce a finished tale for the game but the similarity of problems is quite something...
@@andreaven2287 Oh yeah, im very familiar with not only a song of ice and fire but with george's work in general, he's one of my all time favourite authors, so I understand the frustration all too well haha. But its interesting that you mention it because ive never really thought about the story of ER in that context, for some reason. It seems so obvious now that you mention it, but it really does evoke many of the same issues I have with george's other work, particularly asoiaf as it stand now.
@@joshualouw9506 I know right ? It would be interesting to read the text Martins created for them, to see if it's just an abstract worldbuilding (my guess) or a complete story or history of the universe. Even without the warping of Fromsoft it could be so much. But I don't think we are gonna be that lucky...
First time playing a souls game ? It's becoming clearer and clearer that these games aren't for you folk
I keep feeling more and more like the Elden Ring lore was pretty much cracked as far as it can be cracked when Parasoulsus made that post on reddit three years ago-before the game even came out-speculating that it would be heavily based on alchemy and its symbolism.
I think that’s it. That’s all that’s in the burrito really. Some esoteric nerd shit (not that I’m not one). And like alchemy it’s very open ended.
I have also (perhaps irrationally) convinced myself that it doesn’t all come together tightly because they relied on another big time writer’s involvement. I don’t mean that as a dig, it’s just that when I imagine what that creative process might have been like, it strikes me that it could create a lot of opportunities for confusion or misinterpretation between collaborators. I doubt GRRM fully understood these games when he sat down to write, and I doubt From Soft fully understood his writing when it was turned in…. And that may have been the entire point.
From may have relegated the seeding lore to an outside party specifically so they could focus on crafting the world itself and the player experience. But in the process they may have lost hold of the reigns on telling a story. Instead, what you get in the game plays out more like a series of icons or reliefs conveying a great legend or myth… and that’s cool, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the impact of a tighter story.
They in no way, shape or form “seeded lore to an outside party.” You can dislike the lore for your own reasons but if anything Miyazaki went out of his way to not have Martin simply write lore for the game the way he set it up its development. He wanted both FS and Martin to have independent creative input which is why he had Martin write an independent mythos 5 thousand years before the events of the game. Also I love Rata but it’s hard to critique the lore when you have almost no prior familiarity with one of the lore’s writers (Martin). This is not like other Miyazaki games for better or worse but if you read Martin, it enriches the experience of the lore just like playing prior Miyazaki games will do the same.
Just for the record, my favorite lore in the series is Bloodborne and Sekiro, and I think both tell a tighter story, even if still open ended, than ER or DS. I maybe place the lore of the Ringed City DLC in a close third to those because I think the themes in that are beautifully explored in the writing, and that experience satisfies me more than the lore in ER. And it isn’t that I don’t like it, I just think it lacks the usual punch.
@@istareatthesun That’s fair- Bloodborne is hard to top for me as well and I still haven’t decided on Elden Ring. I think a lot of people, myself included, are reacting to their own lack of confirmation bias that the DLC provided. I’m still going to give it time before I decide whether that disappointment is legitimate or just personal bias that I didn’t get the answers or confirmation I wanted.
Hot take: overall Fromsoft fumbled an aspect of the lore, specifically, they didn't do a good job of carefully adding context and circumstantial evidence. Text relating to the vow SHOULD have been in the base game, for example. I'm sure Fromsoft likely has a pretty good timeline, and they know which dots connect to what, but I think they just didn't make enough dots, and not enough dotted lines in the game, if you understand what im sayin.
Edit: Nobody has said anything that points to some kind of connection between Miquella and Radahn in the base game. The church of vows is interesting, but not relevant with the context, per my limited understanding. But I've still been looking, and i don't really have anything strong to go off of. But I did recall the two commanders, O'Neil and Niall. Commander Niall seems to have some association with Miquella, while O'Neil... well... i don't know... but it would certainly be interesting if he served Radahn... right?
@hellogoodbye3786 yeah I'm still very unhappy about how there's no way to connect Radahn and Miquella in base game, so the vow feels too out of left field. Not to mention there's hardly any context for the final boss fight if you didn't do Freyja and Ansbach's quests
@@oddlang687 Come on now, the Ansbach quest is one of the easiest to follow. In some aspects you can even call it spoilers lol. He literally spells out who the final boss is and what's Miquela's final plan.
I think it is. Go visit the church of Vows.
@@ericjensen7580 that's interesting, could you be more specific please? I've already gone to the church for my current playthrough and thus I cannot hear all the dialogue from Miriel. I could start a whole new playthrough, but well...
@@joxerrrrr yes I agree with you, but i still think something this important really should've been in the base game. I'm receptive to being corrected, so if you can point something out I missed I'll happily look at the information with an open mind, but as far as I know the vow is only mentioned in the dlc. But i mean the vow is only ONE example. Why does Godefroy look like Godrick? What is the importance of The Sun in Elden Ring? Is the Sun The Greater Will? Is the sun being eclipsed by the regular Moon or The Black Moon? Does The Black Moon absorb light from the Sun, similar to how the eternal darkness spell absorbs spells and incantations, and if so where is that energy being transmitted? Who is The Gloam eyed Queen? Melina? Then that means Melina was a Queen, and thus associated with the Godskins... I can't find anything to connect them in game however... why in the hell did Miyazaki make Miquella so beautiful, only to make him forever underage 🤨
I knew from the beginning that SotE would be the Ringed City of Elden Ring. At least, I enjoyed it far more than that hellhole that Ringed City was. And I liked the lore of SotE, despite the fact that there was nothing on GEQ, Melina, Miquella-Torrent connections, or other things.
More than anything, I love how DLC just invites people to revisit the lore of the base game. But I agree that the majority of the new lore is specific to the realm of shadow and not connected to the main game.
I think people are finally realizing that a better implementation for a DLC within the main story of a Fromsoftware basegame is the exception, not the rule.
Does Artorias of The Abyss serve as an epilogue for its own game? No, not at all. Neither does The Old Hunters. The Ringed City serves that function, but just barely. Dark Souls 2's DLCs are very much different in this sense, but I would argue an exception that proves the rule because DS2 without its DLCs feels like half a game.
Turns out that Fromsoftware has been making DLCs in the same sort of model for more than a decade at this point: a side story that elaborates on some characters you see or hear about in the base game, but that ultimately doesn't seek to answer half the questions that the basegame presents. The two year wait lead people into thinking Shadow of The Erdtree would serve a different purpose, but no, the only reason it took so long is because Elden Ring has a content model that requires an enormous ammount of elbow grease to function.
I knew this would happen the very moment Miyazaki clarified in an interview that SOTE would seek to tell Miquella's story instead of serving as an epilogue to the Lands Between as a whole. Seeing the community try to convince itself it would be any different was wild.
Shadow of The Erdtree is a Fromsoftware DLC through and through, and it has just as much bearing on the main story and ending of its basegame as most other Fromsoftware DLCs: almost none. You don't have an extrinsic motivation to visit The Old Hunter's dream, just like with Oolacile and Ariandel. Once you beat the Orphan of Kos, you simply teleport back to the base game and face Gehrman and the Moon Presence if you are so inclined. Taken in context of Elden Ring as a whole, Shadow of The Erdtree is the exact same.
@@Erick-tv8oq I don't really agree. AotA answered a lot of questions from the base game about Gwyn's knights, the Abyss, and humanity. It wasn't an epilogue but it didn't need to be. It directly expanded on stuff we heard about in the main game. Old Hunters was the same. We learned more about Laurence, the origins of the Healing Church, Gehrman's connection to the doll via Maria, and the Great Ones in general.
It was really only DS3's DLCs, and now Shadow of the Erdtree, that felt more like lore tangents than lore expansions.
@@MarkHogan994 That's just arguing lore for the sake of arguing lore. I'm not talking about what narrative threads each DLC decided to follow or ignore, I'm talking about the role of the expansions in relation to the basegame they complement.
I agree with you in the sense that I also think Fromsoft's previous DLCs didn't need to be epilogues, and neither did Shadow of The Erdtree. My point is that the main aspect behind such a cry for more in terms of lore and a new ending tied to the DLC is that somehow along the way people just sort of started expecting such things due to the two year wait, when the only reason there's this long a period of time between basegame launch and DLC launch is because Elden Ring is epic in scale and so should its expansion be. Two entire years of wait and theorization skewed the perception of the community so heavily that it's extremely difficult to have an honest conversation about what Shadow of The Erdtree actually brings to the table.
This DLC is kind of being evaluated as its own thing, when in truth it was envisioned within the context of Elden Ring from the very beginning. Would someone who bought the game today - someone who didn't spend two years theorizing about Godwyn and the GEQ and whatnot - still feel disappointment towards the "lack of answers" within the expansion? That's an incredibly important question that no one is asking
I concur, shadow of the erdtree did not address a lot of the question I had and did not expand on some of the lore points I suspected. Things such as Melina, GEQ, Marikas actual internal thoughts and reasons (they troll us with the Golden Braid, and ik we can extrapolate based on Shaman Village, but it's still opaque), the exact circumstances around Marika's ascension to godhood shown in the trailer, Torrent's relationship with Miquella and their potential connection between Ranni, Miquella, and Melina, and some other more minor things. Also, a lot of the stuff with the Crucible was a let down, both in terms of Gameplay and the lore. The new crucible incantations are bad and they show off way cooler ones from enemies that we can't get.
I really did not know what people expected, it’s a fromsoft game
I don't know man, Miquella was a massive hole unanswered in the main game especially after finding him. Shadow of the Erdtree fills that hole. People were just disappointed Miquella was evil even tho the main game implied that he was
I didn’t see anyone complaining when we didn’t get any more lore on Velka in DS3 or an explanation on Oedon in BB. The lore of From games has always been open to interpretation and it’s only after the series reached Skyrim levels of popularity with ER that there’s been this tide shift where everyone wants all loose ends explained for them and everything story wise to be tied up with a neat bow. Things like the GEQ and Godwyn were meant to flesh out the theming of the world, not provide concrete answers. Don’t forget, we’re still just a lowly tarnished exploring the story of a world that’s already happened. Anything we do find out is by mere happenstance, like archaeologists discovering ancient pottery but not understanding the full culture that went into creating it.
@@thedingleberrybush6076 If you didn't see people complaining about the lack of Velka lore then you weren't paying attention lol. People complained about that a lot, it was a big talking point.
@@MarkHogan994 Maybe, but my point still stands. Even including the older games like DeS and DS1 they never fully elucidated on every detail in the story. Expecting Miyazaki to demystify everything is a woeful misunderstanding of his approach to narrative.
TotK and Elden Ring DLC are exactly the same in terms of lore. More lore on new elements they introduce to the world, but very little expansion on questions we had from the previous entry.
Not true, yes we got new lore but we also had many questions answered like why Marika hates the Omen, How the Greater Will peaced out long before Marika became a god. Compare that to TotK where we get a lot of new lore but it also contradicts and retcons BotW lore. SotE doesn’t do that.
Im just not feeling SotE in a way i felt The Ringed City, Old Hunters, or Artorias of the Abyss. It felt shalow, undercoocked and tedious most of the time. The Shadow keep and the dungeon leading to Miquella were cool but thats about it. The expansion kinda left a hole in my heart. It was so underwhelming for me. The bosses were also just kinda there for the most part. Messmer and the first Dancing Lion being the exception. Everything else was meh.
Am I crazy, didn't you praise the fast travel system in DD2?
The ending of the DLC was so bad lore-wise that it soured the whole thing for me, barely even made me want to clean up the rest of the DLC remembrance bosses after Radahn but I did all of them anyway. I was never the biggest basegame Elden Ring fan anyway, but after this game I've done with the traditional souls formula and combat. Sekiro had an actual narrative and cast of characters to get invested in, and amazing combat, and a cool non-medieval european setting - now that's a good ass modern fromsoft game. Honourable mention to AC6 as well, and that new Fromsoft director, Masaru Yamamura. Hopefully all the next games in the works by new fromsoft directors that Miyazaki mentioned are more like Sekiro and AC6 and less Souls.
Why are people upset about Miquella choosing Radahn as a consort and all that? I always wondered why Malenia went to fight with Radahn and this gave me more of an idea, as if Malenia attempted to recruit OG Radahn for Miquella's cause but he refused and that was the cause of the fight.
@@Yama-qg3il Because people are fixated on the idea that it should have been Godwyn, or that Miquella actually wanted Godwyn instead of Radahn, or something something Godwyn.
The only examples of interactions we have between Miquella and Godwyn is a description of a sword where Miquella prays for Godwyn to die a true death (in order words, for his soul to return to the Erdtree, which isn't possible since his soul was destroyed), and the failed endeavour to revive a dead demigod (who might not even be Godwyn, but rather the nameless demigod in the nearby mausoleum) at Castle Sol through an eclipse.
@@colovianhastur5962 For me personally it was never about wanting Godwyn as the final boss, just that Miquella's multi-layered plan was to ressurect a character we've already encountered and only has links to him in the DLC. The Marika/Messmer/Hornsent and Shaman genocide stuff was cool, and I was interested in the mystery of what exactly Miquella was doing but it being Radahn is both confusing (even if you've done Freyja and Ansbach's storylines beforehand.) and doesn't really end Elden Ring on a triumphant note for me, considering this will likely be the last piece of content for this game.
ngl I was very disappointed that we got basally nothing on the Gloam Eyed Queen, She seemed like such a big deal being an empyrean with destined death flame
To me that just cemented the idea that Melina is the geq, if lore is not expanded on something in SotE then that means the base game has all we need to know about that something
Hey she is just like Velka in DarkSouls, that is the vibe they have always been going w her.
@@michalnowacki1489 also metyr has some connection with gloam so maybe people havent understood it yet. i think i got it tho. its basically like the real world. dude theres never gonna be an answer. somethings we just dont know and thats why there are so many beliefs and they are all wrong. trying to give sense to the greater will is like asking why humans have to die. and if you think you can find a solution all you will create are hopeless and in fact will lead to more problems. such as the age of marika, age of the crucible, age of plenty, age of compassion, age of the stars... its hopeless. theres no meaning to it all and were wasting our time asking instead of feeling it (i know we feel it its just like in real life sometimes that can happen)
if anything this just shows that the more definite ending is the frenzied flame one. thats the only one where theres hope that something changed. for better or worse but changed
I have the impression that the Gloam Eyed Queen is Melina, and that she was resurrected as Spirit by St. Trina, thus her sleep spell and purple eye. Also explains why she has Torrent and the Putrescence Knight is called GEQ knight. I don't think it was cut, more like Miyazaki obfuscated it
@@antobatta1551 If they added godskin aspect to that fight, it would’ve have been so hype
So did SotE answer your questions? Did you finally learn what the theme is? These are the questions I want answered cause I’m also fucked if I know
So it’s just… over?
I swear these big "Souls" youtubers are just making shit up at this point lmao
I don't think I played the same video game as them.
The lore of the dlc is fine, it’s just that their are so many interconnecting plot points to put together that you either leave stuff out in your explanation that people loose track or go on a super long mad tangent.
We are dealing with a novel size amount of lore to sift through. But their are some crazy cool things to find - as the old saying goes “you’ll never know if you don’t try.” Don’t worry about being correct the first time, just post your general theories and work off with others on what does and doesn’t make sense to you.
If you want a idea to start with - how about adding to your frenzy flame lore vids with what we learned about midra, specifically about the lord of chaos?
The DLC lore was a complete hatchet job that was clearly done in a rush after the base game. It wasn’t stuff they had already thought of and waited to release it later like they’ve done before
Well im glad i didn't but the DLC then. Gonna go back to Subnautic and Mental Omega until the DLC goes on sale
I await the Dragon's Dogma video.
I really like dragons dogma, apart from the dlc x
I think they just can't top the base game with just 2 years baked DLC.
And you still haven't solved the Godefroy Theory
In my case I really like the DLC but there are few things that are kidna bad for me:
First of all the biggest disappointment for me is Radahn. And before somebody writes to me you wanted Godwyn and it didnt meet your expectantion. No the promised consort storyline it could be literally enyone else or even somebody we didnt know. Its just boring that we have another Radahn fight and bringing his back for me destroyed his lore which was phenomenal and felt finished in the base game.
2nd thing is Romina is the most random character they added ever in any game. She is just there, she burns in cinematic, some rot lore with like 2,3 descriptions and that's it. It feels so disconnected from everything
3rd thing is I ABSOLUTELY LOVE MIDRA!!!!. But.... Why is he so easy. Holy shit this is DLC Boss why is he so easy. Music is on point, theme is on point jsut please make him orphan of kos level ahrd it would fit him so much.
From all those point 2 and 3rd and can survive and accept but first point with Radahn just makes me kinda not wanting to come back to Elden Ring.
Yeah, I really liked the DLC for the most part, but as soon as I encountered Radahn everything soured to me. And it seems so petty that one boss could do this when the others were great with a few exceptions.
But, I don't know, Radahn really rubs me the wrong way and I think it has to do with Miquella, who I wanted to see more of and maybe interact more. But the only time we actually encounter Miquella, it's now mostly just Radahn and I hate that they decided this.
Radahn was a better character without the DLC, he had a finished arc (put the great warrior to rest), now he is just this reused manipulated guy that has overstayed his welcome.
Miquella was also a better character in the base game, so much mystery and intrigue, he seemed so brillant and otherwordly. But how they characterized him in the DLC is so pointless and boring ("please be my consort, Radahn" + vague rambling of some age of compassion - rinse and repeat - is not really a great way to conclude a character).
malenia was basically his consort, why not her? Radahn relied on his great rune while malenia was skilled. malenia would had won if radahn didn't have his great rune
@@SmartCreeper Malenia was not Miquella's consort, she was his sworn sword, and twin.
Maybe because I played on NG+3, but I didn't think Midra was that easy. He was decently challenging even with a high scadu level. Not every boss needs to be hard as nails, the DLC already has a bunch of insanely tough fights. Midra was a respectable challenge without being anything crazy, and I think that's totally fine.
Same.
The haligtree even lost its magic to me. I had hopes of Miquella being the best part of elden ring and all he ended up being was an accomplice in a community acclaimed horrible phase 2 fight@@lexiferenczy9695
I absolutely love playing Elden Ring but I don't think it brings me much joy thinking or reading about it. Trust me its not for a lack of trying
Seeing most fans being so accepting of its extremely cryptic nature drives me up the wall sometimes.
If someone tells me "it's supposed to be vague" one more time....lol
Not throwing hate his way cause I think he's a good dude that finds genuine enjoyment in this game, but Ziostorm has a post on Twitter with two images, one was the "eyes" of the Scadutree Avatar and the second was a star constellation, and that post absolutely sent me up the wall. Like WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GLEAN FROM THIS!? It's ancillary speculation that offers nothing to the base game. Did the DLC really offer so little that THIS is what we're discussing only three weeks out past release!? I get nauseated a little bit everytime I think about it haha
Remember, Souls was a three-game franchise. Elden Ring is a single project + expansion. The lore of DS1 was equally vauge, to the point that we thought Solarie was the Nameless King.
@@hoked2194 Dark Souls arguably only got more vague with each following game. Anyway I think ER just introduced too many concepts, terms, people, etc in one go, and instead of making an effort to clarify, streamline things a bit, they introduced even more stuff in the DLC.
btw yes people got the Solaire is the first born thing wrong but the nameless king also obviously didn't exist yet before DS3
The lore of this game has now jumped the shark for me. By the time final DLC of DS3 released, we had a MUCH better grasp on a basic timeline of events even though TIME HAD LITERALLY COLLAPSED ON ITSELF. By the time Bloodborne DLC released, there was some semblance of understanding of the basic timeline and what exactly happened leading up to the events of the game. Sure they both still had a TON of mystery left over, but even now no two people can agree on a basic timeline of what happened prior to the events of the game in Elden Ring. Not even one bit. It's just obtuse and convoluted for the sake of being obtuse and convoluted. I'm also surprised they went this far in that direction considering how clear Sekiro was in terms of story telling(but with a ton of mystery left, even including a super important character that never appears or shows up).
And then you have people that obsess over a stupid tablet with a map of babylon on it. Just some artists having a good time making an asset that's supposed to just show that an old civilization lived there. You got people posting 5 hour rabbit holes on a stupid tablet and statue of and old moses looking dude.
It's all so silly.
Enir Ilim is an analog for Babylon though. In the same way that Leyendell is an analog for Constantinople. We even get a bunch of references to Mesopotamian culture in the DLC.
This highlights a big problem I've had with the main thrust of the lore community. There's some, to me, bizarre agreement that these games ought to be analyzed through a historians methodology. Privileging some kinds of data over others. The problem being, this is not history. Video games are literature. Ignoring the reference material leads to dead ends, confusion and frustration.
If you're not willing to allow yourself to see the literary inspirations, like that Godfrey takes a lot of cues from Conan the Barbarian and Robert Howard, if you're not willing to see the hundreds of major real world historical events which went into developing the demi-gods and the history of the Lands Between, you're going to walk away imagining that everything is an incomprehensible mess.
You reference older games but you ignore that those games were largely the creation of one person. Their knowledge and their interests necessarily create a more singular story with a less complicated web of connections. Because one person can only manage so many connections. But Elden Ring has two major contributors. Which exponentially increases the amount of connections as they are both playing off one another's ideas. Martin developed all of these back stories based off of his interests and inspirations, then Miyazaki added himself to the mix by asserting connections to the things Martin made which interested him in order to fit them into the story he was trying to tell about Marika and how she came to effect the Lands Between.
"It's just obtuse and convoluted for the sake of being obtuse and convoluted."
It's really not. It's just a natural consequence of collaboration on this scale and an unwillingness on the part of the lore community to expand their set of tools even when the game is thrusting evidence that they should right in their face.
Agreed
@@rainbowkrampus
A basic timeline of events isnt that unreasonable to want. Without that, lore reading is just pissing in the wind finding some deep meaning in referencess that never go 1:1. Like the furnace golems being an influence from Celtic wickermen against romans, yet in Elden Ring its the "roman style" army that utlizes them. The reference means absolutely nothing other than the fact that it looks cool and is a reference.
And i have a feeling youre chasing a ton of other references that were added for no reason other than an artist thinking they looked cool.
The fact that people spent DAYS of their trying to figure out what the Babylon map MEANS in the game is so silly because it meant absolutely nothing to the narrative or lore other than to show that an old civilization existed.
@@ALaz502 I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that we would have a timeline barely a month into this massive recontextualizing of all the things we knew when it took many months just to arrive at a still disputed timeline for the base game. Like, how basic are you even meaning? Because we have a basic timeline in the sense that the shaman arrived in the Lands Between. They came to be valued for their capacity to meld with other lifeforms and were the subjects of religious persecution. An alien somehow got stuck in the Lands Between and one shaman began communicating with it and started developing a plan to seek revenge for her people's persecution. She eventually worked her way into the upper echelons of the dominant culture and became "a god". At which point she used her position to grow her own loyalist group and eventually used her power to destroy the culture that persecuted her and her people.
This destruction also coincided with the separating of the land into two. This "god" hit on the idea of granting her people eternal life, so she accomplished two things by separating the land. She was able to trap the threats to her new order and the object which allowed it to function and she was able to hide away any knowledge of her humble origins and the reminders of what was no doubt a traumatic past.
This is when we get into known points from the base game and the period leading up to the banishing of the Tarnished and the events of the game proper.
That's pretty basic but that's what happened. Marika is the key just as Gwyn was before her. A longer timeline is not something I'm willing to write out in a YT comment, especially since, as mentioned, it's too early to really arrive at one.
"And i have a feeling youre chasing a ton of other references that were added for no reason other than an artist thinking they looked cool."
If you think that there is only one way to use a reference then it's no wonder you are frustrated. Sometimes a reference is just an aesthetic choice. The crystallians are just an aesthetic reference. As are the furnace golems. But a reference to historical events, people, literary references and character references are very different beasts. They tell you things about motivation and personality and theme.
A reference can also be both, as in Messmer being a reference to Richard III bot in the events of his life and in the bad case of snake induced scoliosis.
"it meant absolutely nothing to the narrative or lore other than to show that an old civilization existed"
Well, no, it didn't just mean that. It tells us things about that civilization. What kinds of things they likely valued and what kind of material culture we should expect from them. It suggests things that aren't made explicit in game. For instance. The only remaining political organization we encounter for the hornsent are the inquisition. Who were their rulers? What can Babylon and Mesopotamian culture broadly tell us about what we should expect to find were we given that information? Why do you think that there's a prominent statue in Enir Ilim portraying two robed figures in an intimate pose, both entwined by a horn? Can you use your existing cultural knowledge as well as suggestions made in the game and the knowledge of what kind of culture we derive from Mesopotamian culture to arrive at an understanding of what that statue means and who/what it's portraying? Because I can. And I can't see any other way to do so unless you allow for the inclusion of meta-textual references.
@@rainbowkrampus It's crazy you got thumbs up at all. Shows the lore nerds are insane. It's an analog because you and fools like Queelag say it is? BS
Yep, darksouls is still king
The gameplay and systems were fun but they fucked up the lore. Radahn is a disappointment but he's not even the greatest one. The greatest disappointment is that the trailers feel like they told a separate story full of details but that we got a watered down version of with all the same bosses and npcs but only enough exposition to uderstand miquilla's current plan. People had theories that they expected to be proven wrong but no one expected a dlc that, from a lore perspective, feels like a demo compared to what was hinted at. We
Yeah, the trailers had Miquella removing the veil from the Scadutree (never happened even though Miyazaki in interviews mentioned the veil would be important.), and the story cinematic with Marika's betrayal is basically self-contained, there's nothing in the game that tells you what happened there. The DLC was definitely rushed, I really don't see how they'd put in major scenes in the trailers but have them be nowhere in the actual game.
Yeah barely any boss cutscenes. The ending was such a “is that it” moment. Left me feeling empty.
There where points where I enjoyed the DLC but I was always kind of waiting for it to get good and for something amazing to be just round the corner and it never came
it was a little dissapointing lore wise, wasn't it?
I’m sorry but the lore aspect of this dlc(and the whole game in general) was just not handled right.
I had questions going in the dlc and came with even more questions.
At least the previous dlcs answered some questions.
It’s a shame, because I really like the Themes and ideas of the main game of Elden ring and was hoping they would build up on it, instead the dlc feels like another game with another set of questions. The dlc and the main game feel only similar in gameplay and a few themes of the main game.
First time playing a souls game ?
@@paz1514 I just said pervious dlcs gave some answers.
No this is not the first time playing souls.
Elden ring has more plot missing than any of the previous games
@@paz1514ds1 mentioned artorias and manus then we got to see them in the dlc
Ds2 mention fume knight, sir alonne, the kingdom the velstad used to serve for before vendrick. We got to see those, and also we got our question answered when there was a lack of demon bosses in ds2: the old chaos was guarded by the burnt ivory king.
Ds3: the ring city pretty much showed us what the dark soul is capable of, and why Gwyn feared it.
Look the previous games also had plot missing, but it wasnt as bad as Elden ring.
In Elden ring, there was a lot of missing plot. In the dlc we got an answer only to: what happened to miquella?
And they decided to make a connection between him and radahn for some reason even tho there was zero mention of it in the main game.
The other bosses weren’t even mentioned in the main game (aside from maybe the dancing lion (being close to the omen) and Bayle) they were just made with little to no thought about the lore of the main game
@@paz1514and even assuming that previous DLCs didn’t answer something, it’s still a point of valid criticism. Just because u did something for a very long time that it became a tradition, it doesn’t mean it’s a perfect practice. I get that they want some mystery in their games, but when u can’t make a coherent timeline of at least the events mentioned the game, that’s not plot points missing for the sake of building mystery. That is just not a complete story.
@@paz1514building up mystery is good tool to entice the player/reader to be engage with the media, but that only works when said mystery is at least resolved in some way or another (maybe not a full answer but at least something)
Here mysteries are built then they leave it at that. This is not gonna make me engaged with the lore, if anything, going forward I’m gonna be much more cautious about the lore of these games and whether I engage with it or not.
They had a golden plate of full mysteries and characters that we wanted to see/solve, but they threw all of that out in favor of something completely different. They had a golden ticket of a last boss fight (godwyn/ gloom eyed queen) instead we got a character whose lore was pretty much finished.
I think speculations were better than what was actually showed so people have to adapt their theories or straight up change them but it still will not be as good as pre release lore speculations
So negative review of SOTE vid incoming?
It's already out!
He said it's a 10/10. It just doesn't do anything substantially different from the base game, so there's not much to be said design-wise that hasn't already been discussed over the last two years.
@@THEEVANTHETOON its funny he calls it a 10 and yet it hardly sounds like he means it imo
It’s a 6-7/10 at best. First time a from dlc has been worse than the base gme
@@GonadsOfGodrey he is afraid of backlash and wants to be invited to events like other youtubers.
Thanks for the hype train and posting at all.
When has fromsoft dlc even closed loops and explained questions?
They pretty much always raise new stuff.
DS1 and BB DLCs answered a lot of questions. AotA answered questions from the base game about Gwyn's knights, the Abyss, and humanity. It directly expanded on stuff we heard about in the main game. Old Hunters was the same. We learned more about Laurence, the origins of the Healing Church, Gehrman's connection to the doll via Maria, and the Great Ones in general. DS2's DLC was similar with respect to Manus' daughters.
@@MarkHogan994It's not like SOTE didn't answer anything. There are multiple major revelations in SOTE, with far bigger implications than any DLC that came before.
Sote answered lore questions, but not the ones some were expecting/wanting. Miyazaki had a perfect chance to give us a whole dlc focused on godefroy dammit!
this is sad...
People need to realize Miyahacki is japanese Scott Cawthon. This has been apparent for years.
The biggest problem with Elden Ring is that its too good and too big.
Just too big, definitely not too good lol
Totk is the best of hype before the storm lol
You thought SoTE was going to clearly and explicitly answer all of your specific lore questions?
I like your content but I think you’ve developed a bit of a hype issue. Lore in From games has always been something that needs to be teased out by the community. That’s part of the appeal.
With Zelda lore and theories has always been something that is 50% the devs throwing a cool line in and then 50% authored by the fans until it becomes so popular it’s accepted as canon.
It’s fun to be part of these communities but expecting the devs and writers to address and cater everything directly to the lore communities is just setting yourself up for disappointment.
You can not like them it’s fine and a valid opinion I just feel like based on how you, and others in a similar boat who might read this, talk you are depriving yourself of a lot of enjoyment if you just take things as they are.
I’m personally kinda done with FromSoftware (well souls games specifically) because I want something new and unique. Lies of P was kinda what I wanted Elden Ring to be combat wise. Which is why I’m personally more excited for what they are doing over FromSoftware. Unless they do a Bloodborne 2 I’m kinda just tired of Souls.
Yesss good please leave.
Not a complete disappointment like TotK, but not From’s best DLC. That honor still belongs to The Old Hunters. SotE is mostly just fine. If you wanted more Elden Ring, it is certainly more Elden Ring. My only real gripes are that there are only 50 scadutree fragments when you need 50 to max out your blessing level and the final boss. Radahn’s return is just cheap fan service and you can’t convince me otherwise. Literally nothing linking him and Miquella in the base game.
I constantly keep missing at least one fragment so I always end up at 19
Something about the lore for the dlc just feels off. I don’t really know why I feel like this yet but it felt underwhelming as hell. The Radahn lore was just shit as well. I would’ve been so much happier with a rotting Godwyn even if it barely made any sense. But at least we had expectations there
Bizarre things to me in terms of how people are responding to the DLC.
There are people who think Miquella is just misguided. Talk about a complete lack of media literacy. Dude is evil and he's not some naive kid.
There are people who still insist that the outer gods and the Greater Will are real entities even after having a lying zealous evangelist alien thrown in their face.
There are people who thought that the DLC was going to tell them all about the Gloam Eyed Queen and are still mad that it didn't.
There are people who insist that Radahn was a retcon even when the evidence that they were simply wrong is staring them in the face.
The major thing the DLC did was force us to rethink our assumptions. But it seems like some people just aren't interested in that. Preferring instead to double down on their, incorrect, assumptions rather than own up to having been wrong.
The other thing the DLC does is point out that treating these games as though they are pure histories and only allowing for historical methodologies as a lens of analysis is an insufficient approach. We get a big honking Babylonian tablet in the base game and then we get a big honking analog for Babylon and a bunch of references to Mesopotamian culture in the DLC and people still want to act like they can just ignore all of the historical and literary inspirations. Even though the game is bashing them over the head telling them what those inspirations are and that you can use them to infer further things about the game world.
@rainbowkrampus this is the most asinine wannabe pseudointentullectual smoothbraine word salad of anything that sounds intelligent without actual saying much of anything get a life lose
The irony when you talk about a lack of media literacy and then throw around statements like "Miquella is evil for sure, he can't just be misguided!", "it's clear the outer gods don't exist and saying otherwise makes no sense!". You are aware that what the game presents to us is so far from being definitive that interpretating it in different ways is not only still valid but the only thing we can do actually, when we want to remain even somewhat objective about analyzing it? Maybe rethink your assumptions or whatever
@@lexiferenczy9695 Yes, so misguided that he (checks notes) Experimented on the corpse of his half brother in an effort to control his other half brother and wound up hiding the sun from a whole section of the map. Had his sister nuke a country just to try to kill his half brother so he could revive him under his control to fulfill his weird obsession. Mind controlled yet another half brother and got him to start a murder cult in order to hide his true activities and then manipulated some random Tarnished into killing two of his half brothers in order that he could use the body of one to house the soul of the other.
Just a totally understandable series of mistakes that anyone could have made and not the sign of an evil, manipulative control freak (you'll have to imagine me rolling my eyes so far into the back of my head that all you see is the whites).
"You are aware that what the game presents to us is so far from being definitive that interpretating it in different ways is not only still valid but the only thing we can do actually"
No, actually, the game really isn't that vague. There's wiggle room, certainly. There are a few inconsequential things we'll likely never know. But the big picture stuff? The motivations of certain characters and the events which lead the Lands Between to their current state? Pretty freaking clear when you don't just ignore the things which are inconvenient to your preconceived ideas from the base game or ignore obvious context clues that are staring you in the face.
This is literature. There's intentionality behind everything here because that's how literature works, everything has to be placed and arranged by a person. Spend some time thinking through things with that in mind and I promise you that nothing is so open to interpretation that you can arrive at any random conclusion.
It was a predictably meh lore expansion to a meh base-game lore. Dark Souls was better, as I've said for 2.5 years. Nothing in the DLC convinced me otherwise.
No one cares and you’re wrong. You may think one is better, but it’s still better than 99.9 percent of games
@@Moped_Mike I care and you need to play more games
@@Moped_Mike lol?
Not just meh lore, a meh expansion across the board
Yeah yeah when's SMTV² nice try.
i'm so disappointed when I hop on youtube to see what people are talking about the DLC and to see if people are enjoying it as much as i did, but I'm only seeing debate and discussion of "final boss disappoint" or "empty areas" or "reused enemies" or "trash difficulty", and it's really sad for me because I didn't even thought of any of that playing, and hearing only those picky comments instead of talking about how great this piece of content is, it's making me lose all the good eyes I had for this community. it's like hearing annoying little kids every time an ER post comes up in my feed and i decide to look at the comments
edit: criticism is good. but one thing is a critic, other thing is what I'm talking about whining bc you can't kill a boss or the story didn't go as you theorized, do I really have to say this omg
You are right. We are only here to mindlessly consume, consume and consume some more and that's it. Don't you dare to form a thought ! No criticism allowed
@@sarez6767 you sarcastically bitching or what
God forbid people break out of the fromsoft cult and see this dlc for what it is. A rushed, sloppy afterthought probably made by the B team
@@joesheridan9451 this is funny af
Was definitely disappointed with the lore dlc, but I’ll chalk it up to getting overhyped and selling myself a dream on what I thought would be revealed. There were definitely new revelations and questions answered, just not the ones I wanted answered. Expected Godwyn to play a pivotal role alongside miquella, but clearly that wasn’t the case. This dlc just made me realize that i need to make my own stories.
I was wondering if or when you were gonna address SotE since it pretty much gave a firm middle finger to all of your speculations around the lore.
FS dropped the ball with SOTE’s lore/story, TBH it makes me worried about their future as one of the few last non woke studio’s because they never mess up lore this bad
Its so crazy how they did so good all the Lore and stuff about dragons in this expansions but fumbled so hard almost all the other stuffs.
Your voice sounds different. New mic?
2:35
Jak 3 best game
I fking told you bro
Sad :(
we shall await the negative lore review! Cos honestly, disappointment is beyond an understatement
you'd think with how big it is (almost as big as the og game I would) say that it would have been able to answer about 80% - 70% of our questions from the original game, but I would say it answered about 50% or less (no less then 40%) which is anti-climactic? not disapointing cause there is nothing disappointing about the DLC tbh. Lore just is scarce in this one in some places.
Pretty much everything about this dlc was disappointing
The lore was a disappointment. It raised more questions, answered almost none from the base game and presented new plot points for no reason. Overall it damaged the quality of the story. That first scene in the story trailer will haunt us for decades.
First DLC they’ve done that didn’t reach the heights of the base game. Imo anyway
I think he just is upset other people caught onto the lore train after Elden Ring, and the market for lore videos is so saturated he has nothing to had. With the base game, he was what they call “first to market”, doesn’t have that benefit with SOTE
SotE is a good DLC....if all you want is more gameplay that expands on the base game and something that is absolutely beautiful to look at.
For me, though, SotE is the most disappointing game I've ever played because it provides very few worthwhile answers to the main story and adds new lore than confuses if not outright contradicts what we learned in the base game. It's why the lore community is in absolute shambles right now because either it offers so little or is so esoteric that it's uninterpretable.
Not only that but the game's balancing is worse now because Fromsoftware just refuses to let you be as powerful as the enemies you're fighting. It's so painfully aggravating to have all these varied builds all become reduced down to outputting the most damage through R1 and jump attack spam because bosses are so fast and hit so hard.
Not even Messmer, easily one of the best bosses they've ever made, could save this DLC.
Lore-wise, SotE was a letdown. Gameplay? Great. All the weapons/etc? Awesome. But then the game just. . . ends. There's no resolution or even anything hinting at a temporary resolution, Dark Souls-style. It's just over. Sorry Miyazaki, but you whiffed this one. Unless there's a surprise bit of patch content, which I highly doubt. Back to hoping for more Sekiro.
Not every DLC has to be TRC levels for conclusive. SOTE is very clearly *not* meant to be a conclusion to Elden Ring. It's a major side quest that explains several mysteries from the base game, and that's it.
It's a shame you don't feel enough of a connection to elden ring to try to come up with some grand theories of the themes. There are a lot of smaller themes and sub themes explored in Elden Ring. So to get to the core theme Myazaki is trying to say in Elden Ring, I think you have to understand the precise metaphors of light and dark in Elden Ring. Specifically, the greater will is suggested to be not just dark but some kind of literal Black Hole God. I wonder if black hole's nature as entropy sinks has anything to do with the themes?
Then for some reason, maybe inadvertently as some kind of hawking radiation, created light. A light essential in creating these diverse species and civilizations found in the world. Though the light itself was splintered into all kinds of fire to achieve its goals, it appears to be fundamentally unable to create any sort of satisfactory civilzation. Finally I think a mixture of light and dark, represented by the moon, might be the way forward for everyone.
You are putting way more thought into it than Miyazaki and his team have themselves. This DLC especially was just a rushed hack job, felt like fanfic mostly
@@joesheridan9451 If nothing else, I absolutely adored Ymir's dialogue, the swordhands of night and the blackhole noises found in Metyr's boss music. It really gets the imagination going.
Yes why .. I didn’t watch this
Truth is Miyazaki thrives on the fact that no one can piece together the full lore and discover how fucking awful and nonsensical it is.
Just look at the huge amount of cut content, the whole "Hoarah Roux the Goldmask" thing, the Putrescent Knight originally being designed as guardian for the GEQ, all the countless underdeveloped characters and plot threads leading nowhere.
It's a shitshow of reused content, reused ideas and concepts from past games, regurgitated storylines haphazardly patched together a couple months before release, with enough holes to not let you notice.
The DLC only served to cement the fact that Miyazaki is running out of ideas, and that the open world formula inevitably tanked the quality of the setting and lore.
What's really carrying Elden Ring are the QoL improvements on the souls gameplay and the incredible art direction.
But that can only go so far.
That's why a lot of people felt the DLC was a pretty but ultimately empty shell.
Whats really carrying Elden Ring is that its a great game, standing above anything else FromSoft released before. I've heard about how Miyazaki has been running out of idea since he put Anor Londo in DS3.
"Countless underdeveloped characters", with no examples that you brought up, of course, has been a thing since at least Bloodborne, like the chapel dweller, arianna, skeptical man, etc.
@@mikhailkalinin6536 Elden Ring definitely stands above all the other games in terms of scope, quality of the environments and art direction.
Not that i would expect anything less from a FromSoft that has now (deservedly) reached the peak of their production value.
This, however, doesnt excuse the obviously messy and inconclusive lore (my main point of criticism), where characters have been cut, repurposed and improvised a few months before release, with enough holes in the narrative to give the benefit of the doubt.
Just try and follow any single plot thread in Elden Ring and see where that takes you.
You want examples of incomplete/underdeveloped characters?
Melina, the maiden supposed to be your companion throughout the entire adventure, is basically nonexsistent save for a couple dialogues at sites of grace.
We know absolutely nothing of substance about her.
Same goes for Godfrey. All the cut content points at him being a completely different (with the whole Goldmask situation, whatever that means, and Serosh originally being Maliketh), and also a sort of mentor figure for the tarnished.
Miquella is another character that got absolutely butchered and reeks of retcons and last minute changes.
And then you have the endless (and honestly trite) Berserk references, which at this point feel more like creative bankruptcy than subtle nods to another story.
And concepts from previous games just straight up ported into Elden Ring.
Like...ohhh so now the Ancient Dragons made of stone wield lightning instead of being weak to it (stroke of genius). And fire is this evil power that will end all life instead of being the force that created it. And then Winter Lanterns, and then the cosmic horror stuff from bloodborne, and so on...)
It's like he reused every good idea he's had up until now just cause he needed to fill the world.
And dont get me wrong, there are indeed some beautiful and fresh ideas original to Elden Ring, but again, the open world formula calls for a much more expansive lore with many moving parts, which i guess was just too much for Zaki to handle as cleanly as he did with the previous games.
As for DS3...How is a single zone comparable to any of this? It's the same IP, part of the same world, albeit distorted, so it makes sense that Anor Londo could be there too. I've literally never seen anyone complain about it. If anything, people were surprised and pumped at the prospect of visiting such a beloved place again.
You also bring up Bloodborne, but i really don't see how a character like Arianna that has a complete story with a couple of secrets and cool interactions is in anyway comparable to...idk...Nepheli Loux, with her weird Ruler of Limgrave quest, which again, feels strange precisely because of the cut content.
@ev3nstar you seem to hold up Melina to some very high standard that she doesn't meet, and yet she is far more prominent of character with far deeper lore than fire keeper in ds3, doll in bloodborne, or the barely present fire keeper in ds1.
Elden Ring has the best questlines in fromsoft history, like the ranni quest, milicent quest, sorceress sellen quest. Sure, not all will meet that standard, but they're still solid, like Alexander quest.
If you've never heard people complain about how ds3 is just 'fan-service' and miyazaki 'ran out of ideas' then you must not care much about ds3, bc that's an extremely prominent opinion. DS2 which tried to distance itself from ds1 really didn't help the case either.
@@ev3nstar Hold up. You've never seen people be disappointed at Anor Londo 2.0?
Plague of gripes, epicnamebro, agermanspy. All souls oldies that have been vocal about their DS3 dislikes
@@mikhailkalinin6536 I do hold up Melina to a higher standard than the fire keepers and the doll, which belong to much smaller games and are relegated to the hub.
A more fair comparison would be between the fire keeper and Roderika, which I feel are pretty similar in terms of scope.
Although Melina kind of embodies the role of a keeper, she’s supposed to be much more. A companion throughout your journey. And yet we barely see her and know almost nothing about her.
We basically know as much of Melina as we do the doll, and it shouldn’t be like that.
About DS3, I do think it was released in an attempt to not let the series die with DS2, and also because of economic interest, more so than pure inspiration, since Miyazaki has mentioned multiple times how he prefers new IPs to sequels. But still it was a great conclusion to the series.
The final boss of Ringed City is among the most iconic boss fights in From history (and I don’t think anyone would say the same about new Radahn)
Also it expanded meaningfully on some of the most fundamental parts of the lore and for that, despite not being my favourite, I can’t really complain, if we’re still strictly speaking about the lore and how conclusive it is.
DLC was honestly a big letdown. 40$ for copy and paste base game bosses/ little to no story impact, base game pickups, items, and even some weapons wtf, and not much reward for exporation. Its just a useless area once you're in ng+. Scadutree fragments become useless in ng+ because they don't stack like memories from Sekiro. It honestly created problems that no other dlc has had which frustrates me because c'mon its ELDEN RING.
Too busy killing Metal Heads Cherries
I feel like you could have a lot to talk about, you being a legacy dungeon enjoyer. You talked a lot about them in the base game and i was kinda let down for most of them in SoTE.
"None of my lore questions were answered"
Welcome to the frustration that is being a fromsoft lore fan they litteraly dont care for plot unless its B team who did dark souls 2 because somehow they did what miyazaki couldnt
Delusional. Bloodborne and Demon's Souls have the most cohesive lore FS have made, followed by DS1 and Sekiro. Miyazaki is more than capable of it.
@@MarkHogan994 was*
"none of my lore theories were answered" this is kinda disingenuous. They were answered. Melina is not the gloam-eyed queen
While the dlc is great, at the end of the day, it's just "some more Elden Ring." I can probably play through it again someday, but i got my fill already.
3rd
Just admit this DLC is was mid and you don't feel like making content for it ; it's really that simple
He said the dlc is the best dlc that ever released.
@@fishgiovaana8441 well his content says otherwise so it wasn't that good after all .
@@YourFriendlyGymRat no
@@YourFriendlyGymRat if you don't like the DLC you don't have to push that onto other people lmao
The DLC is in no way mid. I loved every second of it, hell I liked a lot of aspects more than the base game. I just wish it tied in better lore wise with the main game.
Honestly, you need to accept Miyazaki is running out of tricks. Every game is the same gimmicks and mechanics, same traps, the same level/boss design, same obtuse lore/quests, themes and motifs. He is not answering any lore questions (because he prefers it that way), and he is running out of Berserk content to rip off from 😒
This is coming from a guy who actually enjoyed SotE quite a bit, mind you. But its time for something new.
You are lazy 🫠😂
No no, seriously is this y'alls first time playing a souls game? Im 100% serious cause if it wasnt you'd know that fromsoft almost NEVER answers all the lore question and add in new mysteries. Literally all the time. This lore wasnt in anyway fumbled, this is some of the best lore Fromsoft has ever written. Please please just leave the community, im begging y'all. These games arent for you. That much is so clear
Man I loved the DLC and a lot of the lore we got. I also think its fair to levy some criticism on how certain very important moments were handled. The same goes for all of Fromsoft's games btw, none of them are perfect lore wise. Some of Ds1's most important characters lore wise were underdeveloped, Ds2 contradicts Ds1 in many ways, a lot of Ds3 feels unnecessary, the Bloodborne chalice dungeons were underdeveloped etc. I still love all these games but its not healthy for a community to blindly praise things we are into. You don't get to tell people to leave a community just because they have opinions lmao.
So instead of engaging with the criticisms honestly, your go-to is to tell people to leave the community. C'mon.
to be honest i wouldnt know how to feel if i were you, being so pathetic and all
@@maximany9506projection isn't healthy kiddo
@@Zoombeanie132Oh wow wild I just did and watch this, I'll do it again.
This has always been things with Fromsoft souls lore and once again this is some of the best written lore they have ever made. If you're gonna complain about this l despite it being perfectly fine this entire time. Leave the community. The game isn't for you. See that ? I just did it again.
Not profitable and the momentum was lost .I bought elden ring but the 2 year wait and the scum content youtube has been releasing the last few years have driven me out of the games industry, most quality content creators have left and many gaming studios have closed, its just a diff landscape, feels like UA-cam has turned into trash tv and the games industry big companies are maximizing profit at the cost of the experience.
@@TheSUGA1202 tf are you talking about
@@sarge3294 he's finally awake.
There are plenty of lore channels still making great content. Smough, Quelaag, Vaati, Tarnished archeologist etc.Rata is more of a variety content creator these days anyway. Let him do what he wants.
Messmer was amazing, both gameplay and lore but other than that the lore wasn't slaping like I thought it would. Godwyn not being Miquellas consort and never making an appearance besides the roots suuuuuucks. No Gloam Eye Queen stuff at all. No clear answers on how Merika became a God or how Miquella stripped his flesh? Just weird lore that didnt feel amazing like the base games did. I really hope for an Elden Ring 2 or a prequel game called "The Crucible" or something