Comparing this to how colorful and green these woods looked on the Painting in Midra's is just sad, They say curiosity killed the cat but in this case curiosity nuked a whole region of the map with madness
Abyssal woods is great, but it certainly feels like a casualty of Fromsoft release dealine. There are a lot of places that Torrent could jump to, that we just cant quite reach, plus the entire backyard of the manse with that window behind Nanaya that seems too perfectly placed not to have been traversible at some point. Thanks for another interesting area exploration! Can't wait to see where you go next!
It must be excruciating for a studio that so obviously loves their work, pours their souls, emotions, fears, etc. in the games...but you can't make a game forever, so you gotta release at some point. Drawing that line in such expansive projects must be so hard. Something like...Call of Duty for example, they can just go into it and say, we're gonna make 10 maps, a 5 hour campaign, and call it a day. But games like these...they must constantly be thinking "alright...just one more day...we can show them MORE!"
@@usagipoutine 100% this! Literally so much empty space that could have been used for a frenzy dragon or some sort of large stalking boss that watches you throughout the forest 🤷♂️ seems like a no brainier to me. Would also loved to have seen an eternal sleep dragon
@@shurngirdleh3936 I said frienzied dragon because this place is RIGHT NEXT to dragon peak. Like, the most basic thing ever. There are ghostflame dragons everywhere but the forest. And the forest is the closest spot to the dragon peak. Lost Izalith 2.0
to me this area is super interesting. it is filled with trees as big as lesser erdtrees, it occupies more or less the same area under limgrave with the gigantic lake with all the petrified white trees that mimic the elden beast's arena, and its ost hides the elden beast lietmotiv.
@@SpremeCalami I think it may have been some sort of holy ground before Midra's meddling with the frenzy flame. These trees aren't present anywhere else in the land of shadow. We also have to remember that the land itself was changed massively with its shift into the shadow realm, so the Abyssal Woods may have simply been a beautiful woodland before it sunk to the bottom. I believe the mausoleum connecting it to Shadowkeep was built after this shift, so I think Midra began his meddling after Marika decimated their culture, or perhaps during. The timeline is confusing for me, to be honest.
@@LongClawzHidden The timeline shifts drastically, really depending how much you attribute lore and other beings to being Marika under another moniker/position. Given the environment there being moist though I believe it is likely after Marika arose to make the Golden Order, certainly, and likely the sending things under Shadow that triggered the Madness to be able to take over, just becausr theres very little moisture driven degradation to the library, or building
@@SpremeCalami this is gonna be a little long, but there's a theory i read about which is kinda out of there. it sounds crazy and speculative but the details are interesting. The woods: -Elden Beast's leitmotif, just as the shaman village has the start of the song, and the stone coffin fissure has some notes of the harp. -populated by what could be described as minor erdtrees, which we know are connected to the fingers, or at least the fingers created the seeds. -if it hadn't sunk in the earth, it would be connected to the finger ruins like the shaman village. midras' manse has fingers hidden inside. -looked exactly like the shaman village in the past, filled with flowers. that kind of flower are connected to the shamans. Nanaya: -painted as if she was carrying a child. -her covered eyes mimic the jar shamans. -her decorative braids are gold in color. -she might be responsible to convince midras of studying the flame of frenzy. -carries the relic of a failed lord of frenzy, a stillborn probably. it isn't hers as it is said it was born in a distant land, but one way to create a lord of frenzy i to literally birth one. Midras: -the barbs mimic the elden beast's inner luminescent strings. -his face mimics Marika's children, with the left eye forcibly closed -weirdly stuck in a fate similar to marika, impaled but forced to live carrying divine power inside them. -he turns the barbs torturing him into gold, so he can use the flame to literally create gold (maybe the name is a nod to midas?). -he strikes Marika's pose once he becomes the lord of frenzy. -the golden crux ash of war description says "There is something of the Golden Order in the sight of those fixed upon this crux." so there something of the golden order within midras - the greatsword of damnation is shaped like a golden sewing needle, like Radagon's and miquella's. -Midras name start with M. first letter of the name is important in elden ring. -his ost has a baby crying in the background other details: Ymir describes Marika's origin as "mired in madness". The flame of frenzy is gold in color. The flame of frenzy works similar to the golden order (frenzy infests the eyes much like grace, it needs finger maidens, and frenzy talks through fingers) -the flame of frenzy predates the worship of the greater will and the 2 fingers dogmatism, as the first attempts of communication from the fingers, the fingerprint stone shield, is described as the seed from which frenzy spread. so the flame of freny golden color predates the gold of grace. -Marika, as an empyrean, had to be born from a single god, or influenced by a divine element. -marika has golden yellow hair. -marika's empyrean children harbor visions of fire or are able to commune with outer gods, messmer can create serpentine flames similar in shape to the frenzied flames.Melina seems very knowledgable about the flame of frenzy. The theory basically says Marika was Midras' and nanaya' child. the abyssal woods were a shaman enclave built next to the cerulean coast's finger ruins, just like the shaman village are near their own finger ruins and the ruins of unte(who are filled with shaman flower and on the map have the same texture) are on the same level and next to the finger ruins underneath the cathedral of manus metyr. Nanaya was a shaman harboring revenge towards the hornsent, convinced midras to study the flame as he was a sage. she had a child with him influenced by the flame of frenzy. the outer god's influence made Marika' an empyrean. the hornsent heard of midras' activity and attacked the forest. Marika was carried with the other shamans to bonny's village and the original shaman village. the outer god's influence turned her into an empyrean, but also cursed her children by making them fertile ground for outer god's influence, destructive fire visions, or curses. the story trailer is supposed to refer to Marika's origin: Miquella the kind spoke of the beginning. The seduction: Nanaya seducing MIdras and the betrayal: the 2 summoning the flame of frenzy and going against the hornsent or nanaya taking advantage of midras to summon the flame. An affair from which Gold arose: Marika herself and her golden order of prosperity is the gold. And so too was Shadow born: the pain and curses Marika spread in her revenge and for her age of order and abundance. again is all speculations and purely theoretical.
@@MitridatedCarbon I have a cool theory (self crafted) on the Frenzied Flame in general that may tie into certain parts of your theory too! Hopefully not too long to read lol So outer Gods are parts of the world manifested into powerful things, such as scarlet rot, bleed, frost etc. Malenia’s mentor fought and imprisoned the God of Rot under what then became the lake of rot, there is a blood star that feeds off wounds, and frost is the least fleshed out status ailment and we have no idea about the god of frost. Anyway, the Greater Will is above all these as the father god, and this god created the world for the sake of order. It doesn’t matter what kind, as long as there is Order it is happy. This is why it accepted the Ancient Dragon society and later the Golden Order, both very different to each other but under the same GW umbrella. It is also coincidentally why they grew into a kind of union, with dragon cult communion being an accepted practice within the Golden Order. The Greater Will faces a problem though. Throughout the game there are many displays of polar opposites. Such as the purity of the Erdtree contrasting the sickening deathblight that spreads through it’s roots, the system of empyreans being granted shadowbound beasts, dark violent creatures meant to protect their pure, holy masters. With the DLC there is the Scadutree, black and twisting compared to the straight and tall Erdtree. My point is that everything has an opposite. This stems even to the Greater Will. It’s opposite? The Frenzied Flame. Just think, why doesn’t any other status ailment get its own ending? Why doesn’t any other status ailment get its own set of fingers? Why is there no Shabriri for the rest of the status ailments? I could go on, but the reason is because the Flame of Frenzy is more than just an outer god. Even the fact it manifests as flame is an opposite to the Primordial Current, where all outer gods and the Greater Will are said to reside. Water/current is the opposite to fire. No other outer god opposes the Greater Will so absolutely, and so directly, like the flame of frenzy does. When the Greater Will created order, and became a thing in itself, the universe responded as it does with all things, creating chaos. Where the Greater Will has it’s 2 fingers, tall and proud with learned interpreters who decipher their delicate movement’s, the Frenzy created a mockery. A hunched, burning, flailing set of 3 fingers that scratch their fingerprints into anything they can reach. A complete subversion of the 2 Fingers. Even the fact that they are 3 fingers suggests that they are a mockery, symbolically creating a full hand when joined together. They were never actually physically connected, which is obvious because of the number of 2 fingers, size, skin composition etc. It is a nuanced meaning, but a clear thing to note nonetheless. In the DLC we meet Metyr, the mother of all fingers. Created by the Greater Will to be a communicative connection between the GW and its subjects. As we know, it created many 2 fingers, but only one 3 fingers. We also know that at some point, the Greater Will cut off Metyr for something bad that she did, crippling her and making her unable to birth any more “fingers”. None for the GW, none for anyone, now all she could make was scuttling, animalistic hand creatures that bear no importance. I think you can see where I’m going with this. Metyr’s betrayal was creating a set of 3 Fingers, potentially due to her innate desire to breed offspring, or maybe she was manipulated by the Frenzy directly. Whatever the reason, this was not ok with the GW. The god of chaos now had a means of directly communicating with the people of the lands between, outside of its sickness which it coincidentally uses to drive people away from the Golden Order. Funny, it’s almost like the frenzy opposes everything the greater will does. Now Shabriri is an interesting case. It seems that Shabriri is an attempt at a prophet, sent into the lands between right when the Golden Order was flourishing the most, to lead people down the path of Frenzy as real world prophets are said to have done with each of their religions (of course with much less evil intent). He encourages with strong and emotive language as prophets do, giving us instructions on how to do what he promises us we must. He stuck with his words to the end, like Jesus did on the cross, and like Jesus, he did not die when he was physically killed. His punishment by the Golden Order ended up only bringing him closer to the flame, gouging out his eyes where the frenzy then settled. I am not religious but I am using Christian theology to help me describe Shabriri’s case, but am in no way saying that any religion’s prophet is like Shabriri. I am merely using them as a means of showing how prophet-like Shabriri is. Yap sesh over, I just find it irritating that lore UA-camrs don’t consider the frenzied flame in the same light. It is seen by most as just another status ailment with a corresponding outer god, but clearly it is much more important than that.
My one an only dissapointment with the abyssal woods is that one space behind Midra's Manse. I was hoping to see something like the source of madness , how it all begin that made that place the way it is even if there wasn't any extra boss. Still I rate that place a 10/10 even if people shit on this place for being ¨empty¨
I had a lot of comments discussing that on my previous video covering the Manse, Also for the source of madness we have a rough idea from the hidden fingers inside the Manse that maybe Midra tried creating the three fingers or at least came to contact with them.
The closest thing we have to a confirmed source of madness is the hidden room behind the Midra and Nanaya portrait, where these large pieces of fabric are covering giant finger eggs. The models look identical to the stone eggs in the finger ruins.
My only complain of this place is that is fucking huge xD They should have narrowed the part where the player can go and let the rest be part of the background. The rest is amazing
You get one church, a few stealth sections and some hornsent enemies and rats and then u get to the mansion. For the absolute size of the area I feel like they coulda thrown in a madness field boss, some kind of frenzy dungeon and it would've been a lot better. And Midra's backyard as a bonus area after his boss fight
The Abyssal Woods definitely feels like its kept getting passed over during development. The whole back of the manse, where half of the manse is modelled but then there's just a flat texture on one wall really makes me think they were going to do more and ran out of time, which is probably why the manse is so small. But, the area as a whole just feels empty and devoid of anything really worth exploring or even just to look at. The Ageing Untouchables are pretty tedious on repeat playthroughs too. I guess being a secretish area it probably was always put at the bottom of the list for development.
This place washes me with Dark Souls nostalgia. The tops of the trees remind me of the Arch trees, including having weird whispy branches in some places. The area feels like Smouldering Lake and Things Betwixt had a baby. The story of this area and seeing how it was overcome narratively makes me think of Izalith (purely in a narrative since). To clarify the Izalith point. A scholar found something and seemingly became obsessed with it. That thing, Chaos. The area in which they reigned was consumed by chaos. The ruling divinity on high sent down folks to punish those who unleashed Chaos. When the slumped vessel of chaos is defeated a being with a flaming orb for a head confronts us. Izalith was a swamp before all the lava. It's kinda interesting looking at the "slightly more developed" narrative of Elden Ring and seeing how it can help us understand some of the concept Fromsoft might have been trying to convey in Dark Souls but hadn't figured out how at that point.
It'd be neat to see you explore the land that's north of the Haligtree in yhe base game that wraps around a bit to the west, and maybe some of the various shipwrecks and other things out at sea in the base game. When it comes to unreachable areas in *_Elden Ring_* those still stand fairly prominently in my mind, especially since the DLC didn't end up taking us north.
Shoulda been a frenzy dragon guarding the church (personally i think it’d be sick if it was a frenzied ancient dragon, corrupted by frenzy like how Fortisax was corrupted by death blight). I would also love to see a side dungeon near the Manse with a frenzied knight boss of some kind, prolly a black knight, and after beating it, you get let out into the backyard of the Manse. Also huge missed opportunity to have a wandering merchant here to give a little context/ short npc quest. So much potential with this area, I have a feeling modders are gonna make it what it should’ve been
Finally, an easier way to see how this godforsaken place is laid out. Interesting juxtaposition of this area's creeping terror with the beauty of Queen's Gardens' theme.
It annoys me that the manse is much bigger outside than it is inside. I think they could have allow to see a couple more rooms or hallways at the left and right wings of the manse, to extend the exploration a little bit. My ideal version would have double its current size, extending through the backyard, and having a couple winter lanterns to have some more stealth. Perhaps with a labyrinthic basement to have another layer of exploration. Midra's debate hall would be at the of whole manse, behind a locked door, and the key would be somewhere in the basement.
Sadly the ambient fog still exist if you zoom out too much, The Dlc is storing the fog values differently than the base game it's still a headache to get rid of it currently. I tried to make a shot like that but the details get pretty much lost in the fog when the camera leaves the draw distance of my character.
@@PixelPicklez Probably to achieve something either artistically or engine performance. The DLC seems to have a lot more going on than the base game, both in terms of area effects (fog, lighting, stuff floating about) and the amount of separate locations on screen at once.
@@Zikar yeah i think your last point is what it is. Having so many different locations be visible at all times, means that the areas that would look unpleasant have to be disguised in some kind of way
@@Zikar Indeed, Loading the whole Abyssal woods Alone needed me to load the hollow version of the Jagged peak, And most of the cerulean coast and gravesite plain. The area is very condensed and split to a lot of small map pieces it was a little challenging to set the lights on each map piece without having them lagging the game too much.
@@Kami.Sensei yeah I had saw that video but I want to see Miquella walk out of Divinity gate clearly (Bornefire VN just show his leg :3 ). Hope you think about it
I wonder if there's any visual rendered behind the gate, like an idea of what dimension Miquella might be walking out of, or if it all just looks like what's visible in the shots we get of it in the final game.
I love this area out of most of the places in the DLC, reminds me of Ash Lake, very ancient/forgotten, almost peaceful if it wasn't tained by the Madness. I was really hoping that after defeating the Untouchables/Winter Lanterns and Midra, the fog would clear up JUST a bit and we get to ride Torrent, but sadly it doesn't happen :( Also, From couldn't put in more unique/new enemies in the area besides rats?! Come on, enough with those things!
I love this game, but damn, they could have just put some MORE of anything in these areas I think something happened midway through and they had to nuke a bunch of content, that being said... THANK YOU KAMI SENSEI-san for some more cool perspectives!
Some broken church and some scat frag stuff... I think also maybe a rune arc and that madness talisman? That's about it lol. It's kind of a joke that more wasn't added to this area : (
THIS AREA IS MISSING SOMETHING... A Frenzy Flame Drake!!! In Base game we have 1 Drake for almost all magic types expect Frenzy Flame! Cmon man its so empty besides the Wintern Laterns.......yaaayaaaayaaaa......
Abyssal woods is a cool concept. But the location itself feels empty. If they added like a cave or catacomb at least. I was running around like idiot only to find nothing.
This area looks like this grey assests you import for your beta game :D Hence the importance of lightning in a game ! Honestly, the Abyssal Woods were one the most tedious places of the DLC. Empty (like many other areas of the DLC) and it's too big to be intersting enough without Torrent. But I really liked the story with Midra, and the gameplay with the sentinels.
5:26 somewhere around this spot on your left there is an item up on a hill which cannot be accessed, I'm pretty sure the stone bridge (5:18) grants access to it but you can't normally climb it, can you check it out?
big hulking trees = dead all the way to roots grass = exists unbothered flowers = exists unbothered there's even sheep hanging around and birds and rat. is there no lore in the game that explains how this place came to be this way?
I think this area has the same problems Lost Izalith had in DS1, not enough time to fully develop. They even had in mind to use Torrent there, but removed it to make the area feel bigger. Rauh ruins feels the same, barely anything note worthy there, just a big place with reused enemies and nothing interesting. Charo hidden grave and Cerulean coast are also so empty. Players are right to be disappointed by the DLC, half the areas are empty with only 2 proper legacy dungeons and a forgettable ending(the last boss its ok). Its a shame we waited 2 years for this, i had bigger expectations for such a long wait.
In my opinion everyone has become way too brain poisoned by Ubisoft that they expect stuff to be everywhere. Nobody knows how to just soak up atmosphere and explore for the sake of curiosity anymore. Only Fromsoft could make a DLC this expansive and detailed, which massively adds to the world of Elden Ring, which has some of the game's finest bosses, best level design, and is filled with so much visual splendor, only to have their fans call it "disappointing" because there's not new sword every 14 inches of playable space.
Super kool looking area. Shame it has massive flaws though... 1... Takes forever to get down here lol. 2... Lotta boring running around bs. HUGE area for having next to nothing worth checking out for its size. 3... Missed the chance to toss a freakin chaos dragon at us. Would have been super siiick! Imagine hearing it in the distance before running into it.
Comparing this to how colorful and green these woods looked on the Painting in Midra's is just sad, They say curiosity killed the cat but in this case curiosity nuked a whole region of the map with madness
Or in Melania’s case, nuking Caelid with Scarlet Rot
Abyssal woods is great, but it certainly feels like a casualty of Fromsoft release dealine. There are a lot of places that Torrent could jump to, that we just cant quite reach, plus the entire backyard of the manse with that window behind Nanaya that seems too perfectly placed not to have been traversible at some point. Thanks for another interesting area exploration! Can't wait to see where you go next!
Maybe they wanted for you to unlock new areas after defeating midra removing the frenzy flame😮
It must be excruciating for a studio that so obviously loves their work, pours their souls, emotions, fears, etc. in the games...but you can't make a game forever, so you gotta release at some point. Drawing that line in such expansive projects must be so hard. Something like...Call of Duty for example, they can just go into it and say, we're gonna make 10 maps, a 5 hour campaign, and call it a day. But games like these...they must constantly be thinking "alright...just one more day...we can show them MORE!"
They missed the chance to surprise us with a madness version of the Ulcerated tree spirit lol
Dude yes
and frienzied dragon
Oh god no
@@usagipoutine 100% this! Literally so much empty space that could have been used for a frenzy dragon or some sort of large stalking boss that watches you throughout the forest 🤷♂️ seems like a no brainier to me. Would also loved to have seen an eternal sleep dragon
@@shurngirdleh3936 I said frienzied dragon because this place is RIGHT NEXT to dragon peak.
Like, the most basic thing ever. There are ghostflame dragons everywhere but the forest. And the forest is the closest spot to the dragon peak.
Lost Izalith 2.0
to me this area is super interesting. it is filled with trees as big as lesser erdtrees, it occupies more or less the same area under limgrave with the gigantic lake with all the petrified white trees that mimic the elden beast's arena, and its ost hides the elden beast lietmotiv.
Woah that’s actually super interesting?? There are so many insanely cool theories on what this could mean
@@SpremeCalami I think it may have been some sort of holy ground before Midra's meddling with the frenzy flame. These trees aren't present anywhere else in the land of shadow. We also have to remember that the land itself was changed massively with its shift into the shadow realm, so the Abyssal Woods may have simply been a beautiful woodland before it sunk to the bottom. I believe the mausoleum connecting it to Shadowkeep was built after this shift, so I think Midra began his meddling after Marika decimated their culture, or perhaps during. The timeline is confusing for me, to be honest.
@@LongClawzHidden The timeline shifts drastically, really depending how much you attribute lore and other beings to being Marika under another moniker/position. Given the environment there being moist though I believe it is likely after Marika arose to make the Golden Order, certainly, and likely the sending things under Shadow that triggered the Madness to be able to take over, just becausr theres very little moisture driven degradation to the library, or building
@@SpremeCalami this is gonna be a little long, but there's a theory i read about which is kinda out of there. it sounds crazy and speculative but the details are interesting.
The woods:
-Elden Beast's leitmotif, just as the shaman village has the start of the song, and the stone coffin fissure has some notes of the harp.
-populated by what could be described as minor erdtrees, which we know are connected to the fingers, or at least the fingers created the seeds.
-if it hadn't sunk in the earth, it would be connected to the finger ruins like the shaman village. midras' manse has fingers hidden inside.
-looked exactly like the shaman village in the past, filled with flowers. that kind of flower are connected to the shamans.
Nanaya:
-painted as if she was carrying a child.
-her covered eyes mimic the jar shamans.
-her decorative braids are gold in color.
-she might be responsible to convince midras of studying the flame of frenzy.
-carries the relic of a failed lord of frenzy, a stillborn probably. it isn't hers as it is said it was born in a distant land, but one way to create a lord of frenzy i to literally birth one.
Midras:
-the barbs mimic the elden beast's inner luminescent strings.
-his face mimics Marika's children, with the left eye forcibly closed
-weirdly stuck in a fate similar to marika, impaled but forced to live carrying divine power inside them.
-he turns the barbs torturing him into gold, so he can use the flame to literally create gold (maybe the name is a nod to midas?).
-he strikes Marika's pose once he becomes the lord of frenzy.
-the golden crux ash of war description says "There is something of the Golden Order in the sight of those fixed upon this crux." so there something of the golden order within midras
- the greatsword of damnation is shaped like a golden sewing needle, like Radagon's and miquella's.
-Midras name start with M. first letter of the name is important in elden ring.
-his ost has a baby crying in the background
other details:
Ymir describes Marika's origin as "mired in madness".
The flame of frenzy is gold in color.
The flame of frenzy works similar to the golden order (frenzy infests the eyes much like grace, it needs finger maidens, and frenzy talks through fingers)
-the flame of frenzy predates the worship of the greater will and the 2 fingers dogmatism, as the first attempts of communication from the fingers, the fingerprint stone shield, is described as the seed from which frenzy spread. so the flame of freny golden color predates the gold of grace.
-Marika, as an empyrean, had to be born from a single god, or influenced by a divine element.
-marika has golden yellow hair.
-marika's empyrean children harbor visions of fire or are able to commune with outer gods, messmer can create serpentine flames similar in shape to the frenzied flames.Melina seems very knowledgable about the flame of frenzy.
The theory basically says Marika was Midras' and nanaya' child. the abyssal woods were a shaman enclave built next to the cerulean coast's finger ruins, just like the shaman village are near their own finger ruins and the ruins of unte(who are filled with shaman flower and on the map have the same texture) are on the same level and next to the finger ruins underneath the cathedral of manus metyr. Nanaya was a shaman harboring revenge towards the hornsent, convinced midras to study the flame as he was a sage. she had a child with him influenced by the flame of frenzy. the outer god's influence made Marika' an empyrean. the hornsent heard of midras' activity and attacked the forest. Marika was carried with the other shamans to bonny's village and the original shaman village. the outer god's influence turned her into an empyrean, but also cursed her children by making them fertile ground for outer god's influence, destructive fire visions, or curses.
the story trailer is supposed to refer to Marika's origin:
Miquella the kind spoke of the beginning.
The seduction: Nanaya seducing MIdras
and the betrayal: the 2 summoning the flame of frenzy and going against the hornsent or nanaya taking advantage of midras to summon the flame.
An affair from which Gold arose: Marika herself and her golden order of prosperity is the gold.
And so too was Shadow born: the pain and curses Marika spread in her revenge and for her age of order and abundance.
again is all speculations and purely theoretical.
@@MitridatedCarbon I have a cool theory (self crafted) on the Frenzied Flame in general that may tie into certain parts of your theory too!
Hopefully not too long to read lol
So outer Gods are parts of the world manifested into powerful things, such as scarlet rot, bleed, frost etc. Malenia’s mentor fought and imprisoned the God of Rot under what then became the lake of rot, there is a blood star that feeds off wounds, and frost is the least fleshed out status ailment and we have no idea about the god of frost. Anyway, the Greater Will is above all these as the father god, and this god created the world for the sake of order. It doesn’t matter what kind, as long as there is Order it is happy. This is why it accepted the Ancient Dragon society and later the Golden Order, both very different to each other but under the same GW umbrella. It is also coincidentally why they grew into a kind of union, with dragon cult communion being an accepted practice within the Golden Order.
The Greater Will faces a problem though. Throughout the game there are many displays of polar opposites. Such as the purity of the Erdtree contrasting the sickening deathblight that spreads through it’s roots, the system of empyreans being granted shadowbound beasts, dark violent creatures meant to protect their pure, holy masters. With the DLC there is the Scadutree, black and twisting compared to the straight and tall Erdtree. My point is that everything has an opposite. This stems even to the Greater Will. It’s opposite? The Frenzied Flame. Just think, why doesn’t any other status ailment get its own ending? Why doesn’t any other status ailment get its own set of fingers? Why is there no Shabriri for the rest of the status ailments? I could go on, but the reason is because the Flame of Frenzy is more than just an outer god. Even the fact it manifests as flame is an opposite to the Primordial Current, where all outer gods and the Greater Will are said to reside. Water/current is the opposite to fire. No other outer god opposes the Greater Will so absolutely, and so directly, like the flame of frenzy does.
When the Greater Will created order, and became a thing in itself, the universe responded as it does with all things, creating chaos. Where the Greater Will has it’s 2 fingers, tall and proud with learned interpreters who decipher their delicate movement’s, the Frenzy created a mockery. A hunched, burning, flailing set of 3 fingers that scratch their fingerprints into anything they can reach. A complete subversion of the 2 Fingers. Even the fact that they are 3 fingers suggests that they are a mockery, symbolically creating a full hand when joined together. They were never actually physically connected, which is obvious because of the number of 2 fingers, size, skin composition etc. It is a nuanced meaning, but a clear thing to note nonetheless.
In the DLC we meet Metyr, the mother of all fingers. Created by the Greater Will to be a communicative connection between the GW and its subjects. As we know, it created many 2 fingers, but only one 3 fingers. We also know that at some point, the Greater Will cut off Metyr for something bad that she did, crippling her and making her unable to birth any more “fingers”. None for the GW, none for anyone, now all she could make was scuttling, animalistic hand creatures that bear no importance. I think you can see where I’m going with this. Metyr’s betrayal was creating a set of 3 Fingers, potentially due to her innate desire to breed offspring, or maybe she was manipulated by the Frenzy directly. Whatever the reason, this was not ok with the GW. The god of chaos now had a means of directly communicating with the people of the lands between, outside of its sickness which it coincidentally uses to drive people away from the Golden Order. Funny, it’s almost like the frenzy opposes everything the greater will does.
Now Shabriri is an interesting case. It seems that Shabriri is an attempt at a prophet, sent into the lands between right when the Golden Order was flourishing the most, to lead people down the path of Frenzy as real world prophets are said to have done with each of their religions (of course with much less evil intent). He encourages with strong and emotive language as prophets do, giving us instructions on how to do what he promises us we must. He stuck with his words to the end, like Jesus did on the cross, and like Jesus, he did not die when he was physically killed. His punishment by the Golden Order ended up only bringing him closer to the flame, gouging out his eyes where the frenzy then settled. I am not religious but I am using Christian theology to help me describe Shabriri’s case, but am in no way saying that any religion’s prophet is like Shabriri. I am merely using them as a means of showing how prophet-like Shabriri is.
Yap sesh over, I just find it irritating that lore UA-camrs don’t consider the frenzied flame in the same light. It is seen by most as just another status ailment with a corresponding outer god, but clearly it is much more important than that.
Thank you for showing us the Extremely Relaxing Woods.
My one an only dissapointment with the abyssal woods is that one space behind Midra's Manse. I was hoping to see something like the source of madness , how it all begin that made that place the way it is even if there wasn't any extra boss. Still I rate that place a 10/10 even if people shit on this place for being ¨empty¨
I had a lot of comments discussing that on my previous video covering the Manse, Also for the source of madness we have a rough idea from the hidden fingers inside the Manse that maybe Midra tried creating the three fingers or at least came to contact with them.
this is my favourite place beside gate of divinity - it's has great design even deep story that we not discovery yet
The closest thing we have to a confirmed source of madness is the hidden room behind the Midra and Nanaya portrait, where these large pieces of fabric are covering giant finger eggs. The models look identical to the stone eggs in the finger ruins.
My only complain of this place is that is fucking huge xD
They should have narrowed the part where the player can go and let the rest be part of the background.
The rest is amazing
You get one church, a few stealth sections and some hornsent enemies and rats and then u get to the mansion. For the absolute size of the area I feel like they coulda thrown in a madness field boss, some kind of frenzy dungeon and it would've been a lot better. And Midra's backyard as a bonus area after his boss fight
Madness dragon would be perfect for my madness-dragon communion build
The Abyssal Woods definitely feels like its kept getting passed over during development. The whole back of the manse, where half of the manse is modelled but then there's just a flat texture on one wall really makes me think they were going to do more and ran out of time, which is probably why the manse is so small.
But, the area as a whole just feels empty and devoid of anything really worth exploring or even just to look at. The Ageing Untouchables are pretty tedious on repeat playthroughs too.
I guess being a secretish area it probably was always put at the bottom of the list for development.
If the Untouchables give you some trouble, pop Assassin's Gambit on a dagger and use it. They won't see or hear you and you can run right past them.
@@RhodanWasTaken Not so much trouble as just annoyingly slow. I'll remember your advice next time I'm down there, though!
This place washes me with Dark Souls nostalgia. The tops of the trees remind me of the Arch trees, including having weird whispy branches in some places. The area feels like Smouldering Lake and Things Betwixt had a baby. The story of this area and seeing how it was overcome narratively makes me think of Izalith (purely in a narrative since).
To clarify the Izalith point. A scholar found something and seemingly became obsessed with it. That thing, Chaos. The area in which they reigned was consumed by chaos. The ruling divinity on high sent down folks to punish those who unleashed Chaos. When the slumped vessel of chaos is defeated a being with a flaming orb for a head confronts us. Izalith was a swamp before all the lava. It's kinda interesting looking at the "slightly more developed" narrative of Elden Ring and seeing how it can help us understand some of the concept Fromsoft might have been trying to convey in Dark Souls but hadn't figured out how at that point.
Somewhere in that forest, lives the witch of Izalith’s great great great great great grandson, Midra
🏵👃🏽🏵
It'd be neat to see you explore the land that's north of the Haligtree in yhe base game that wraps around a bit to the west, and maybe some of the various shipwrecks and other things out at sea in the base game. When it comes to unreachable areas in *_Elden Ring_* those still stand fairly prominently in my mind, especially since the DLC didn't end up taking us north.
My room at night when my phone gets a notification
Excellent work on revealing the dreamy landscape behind the veil. I see good tiding for your channel's content; continue to strive and soar :)
this feels like God's Grave from DS3
I was honestly getting a vague DS1 vibe. Not sure exactly what reminded me of it, just got that feeling.
Even with the woods being lit up, it still feels like something is a bit off, and i love it! 😁
Shoulda been a frenzy dragon guarding the church (personally i think it’d be sick if it was a frenzied ancient dragon, corrupted by frenzy like how Fortisax was corrupted by death blight). I would also love to see a side dungeon near the Manse with a frenzied knight boss of some kind, prolly a black knight, and after beating it, you get let out into the backyard of the Manse.
Also huge missed opportunity to have a wandering merchant here to give a little context/ short npc quest. So much potential with this area, I have a feeling modders are gonna make it what it should’ve been
Finally, an easier way to see how this godforsaken place is laid out. Interesting juxtaposition of this area's creeping terror with the beauty of Queen's Gardens' theme.
It annoys me that the manse is much bigger outside than it is inside. I think they could have allow to see a couple more rooms or hallways at the left and right wings of the manse, to extend the exploration a little bit.
My ideal version would have double its current size, extending through the backyard, and having a couple winter lanterns to have some more stealth. Perhaps with a labyrinthic basement to have another layer of exploration. Midra's debate hall would be at the of whole manse, behind a locked door, and the key would be somewhere in the basement.
It wouldve been cool if you had also done a big zoom out of the whole area from above, without the fog covering it
still a great vid 👍
Sadly the ambient fog still exist if you zoom out too much, The Dlc is storing the fog values differently than the base game it's still a headache to get rid of it currently. I tried to make a shot like that but the details get pretty much lost in the fog when the camera leaves the draw distance of my character.
I dont get why they would do it differently than the main game tbh
@@PixelPicklez Probably to achieve something either artistically or engine performance.
The DLC seems to have a lot more going on than the base game, both in terms of area effects (fog, lighting, stuff floating about) and the amount of separate locations on screen at once.
@@Zikar yeah i think your last point is what it is.
Having so many different locations be visible at all times, means that the areas that would look unpleasant have to be disguised in some kind of way
@@Zikar Indeed, Loading the whole Abyssal woods Alone needed me to load the hollow version of the Jagged peak, And most of the cerulean coast and gravesite plain. The area is very condensed and split to a lot of small map pieces it was a little challenging to set the lights on each map piece without having them lagging the game too much.
Abyssal Woods with light looks a bit flat imo. If the trees were alive with lighting like that, it could be like night and day.
can you make a short video about Miquella(free camera) when he walk out of the Divinity Gate in final fight? I hope you see my comment soon haha
I think BonefireVN already made videos covering Miquella with the cutscene included so i didn't feel the need to make one too.
@@Kami.Sensei Bonfire VN only showed his legs, so it would be nice to see him fully
@@aifos5171 I see, I'll try and check if the model is fully visible out of bounds.
@@Kami.Sensei yeah I had saw that video but I want to see Miquella walk out of Divinity gate clearly (Bornefire VN just show his leg :3 ). Hope you think about it
I wonder if there's any visual rendered behind the gate, like an idea of what dimension Miquella might be walking out of, or if it all just looks like what's visible in the shots we get of it in the final game.
I love this area out of most of the places in the DLC, reminds me of Ash Lake, very ancient/forgotten, almost peaceful if it wasn't tained by the Madness. I was really hoping that after defeating the Untouchables/Winter Lanterns and Midra, the fog would clear up JUST a bit and we get to ride Torrent, but sadly it doesn't happen :(
Also, From couldn't put in more unique/new enemies in the area besides rats?! Come on, enough with those things!
I love this game, but damn, they could have just put some MORE of anything in these areas
I think something happened midway through and they had to nuke a bunch of content, that being said... THANK YOU KAMI SENSEI-san for some more cool perspectives!
Love the music, reminds me hard on hollowknight
Greät video :)
Its the greenpath theme from HollowKnight
@@angeltzepesh1 hahaha maybe thats why its on my brain now IT makes Sense thank you
Hello! What is at the top of Messmer's tower? Or the area below Enir Ilim?
there's almost nothing in that whole area other than some mad boyz and a mcmansion
Some broken church and some scat frag stuff... I think also maybe a rune arc and that madness talisman? That's about it lol. It's kind of a joke that more wasn't added to this area : (
Abyssal Woods? More like Colorless Bright Woods
Not so abyssal anymore
The I think the woods is spookier after it is light
THIS AREA IS MISSING SOMETHING...
A Frenzy Flame Drake!!!
In Base game we have 1 Drake for almost all magic types expect Frenzy Flame!
Cmon man its so empty besides the Wintern Laterns.......yaaayaaaayaaaa......
How do you do all these cool stuff like lighting areas and removing fog and so on ? Like what to tools u use ?
Abyssal woods is a cool concept. But the location itself feels empty. If they added like a cave or catacomb at least. I was running around like idiot only to find nothing.
This area looks like this grey assests you import for your beta game :D Hence the importance of lightning in a game !
Honestly, the Abyssal Woods were one the most tedious places of the DLC. Empty (like many other areas of the DLC) and it's too big to be intersting enough without Torrent.
But I really liked the story with Midra, and the gameplay with the sentinels.
5:26 somewhere around this spot on your left there is an item up on a hill which cannot be accessed, I'm pretty sure the stone bridge (5:18) grants access to it but you can't normally climb it, can you check it out?
big hulking trees = dead all the way to roots
grass = exists unbothered
flowers = exists unbothered
there's even sheep hanging around and birds and rat.
is there no lore in the game that explains how this place came to be this way?
You could have sh*t artwork and textures, but still, lighting and music would save the day!
Things betwixt vibes
lost izalith
Looks very DS1
What music is that
How did you kill that guy who dropped a swollen grape, did you use mods?
They are killable if you parry their grab attacks, you can look it up there are a lot of guides on how to do it 😄
is it just me or is the video kinda choppy? i thought my computer was giving out lol
I think this area has the same problems Lost Izalith had in DS1, not enough time to fully develop. They even had in mind to use Torrent there, but removed it to make the area feel bigger. Rauh ruins feels the same, barely anything note worthy there, just a big place with reused enemies and nothing interesting. Charo hidden grave and Cerulean coast are also so empty. Players are right to be disappointed by the DLC, half the areas are empty with only 2 proper legacy dungeons and a forgettable ending(the last boss its ok). Its a shame we waited 2 years for this, i had bigger expectations for such a long wait.
In my opinion everyone has become way too brain poisoned by Ubisoft that they expect stuff to be everywhere. Nobody knows how to just soak up atmosphere and explore for the sake of curiosity anymore. Only Fromsoft could make a DLC this expansive and detailed, which massively adds to the world of Elden Ring, which has some of the game's finest bosses, best level design, and is filled with so much visual splendor, only to have their fans call it "disappointing" because there's not new sword every 14 inches of playable space.
if they got rid of the tutorial messages & made the woods themselves a mandatory pvp zone, i wouldnt mind the area, even despite it being barren
I just wanna explore the section of the map behind the Manse 🥲
Super kool looking area. Shame it has massive flaws though...
1... Takes forever to get down here lol.
2... Lotta boring running around bs. HUGE area for having next to nothing worth checking out for its size.
3... Missed the chance to toss a freakin chaos dragon at us. Would have been super siiick! Imagine hearing it in the distance before running into it.