FromSoft, and specifically Hidetaka Miyazaki, has a very unusual approach to game lore.
Lore in games, particularly RPGs, which are a very narrative-driven genre, is often a big draw. While I don't think a game can survive on lore alone if its gameplay isn't good, the lore can help us feel invested, to make playing the game feel more meaningful.
And in storytelling, the standard advice is that clarity is key: a good story will have a character with clear motivations and a plot with clear stakes. Miyazaki doesn't really like to do that.
The Soulsborne games have created a cottage industry of YouTube videos and wikis that delve into and attempt to unravel what it is, exactly, that these games are about, but the games are intentionally aloof - leaving them open to interpretation. Consider, for example, the two possible endings of the original Dark Souls. In one, you Link the Fire, sacrificing yourself to extend the Age of Fire, but by the time of Dark Souls III, we find that this process has become a regular historical ritual, not any sort of permanent solution to the problem. In the Dark Lord ending, we walk away from the First Flame and usher in an age of darkness - but is darkness actually evil? And that's not a rhetorical question! The player is left to decide for themselves whether they've gotten the "good ending" or not.
At this point, I'm still fairly early (I assume) in Elden Ring, having only beaten the first "Legacy Dungeon," Stormveil Castle.
Soulsborne games use visual motifs a lot to give you clues about the world. Different factions and groups will wear familiar colors or wield similar spells. The fact, for example, that Pontiff Suleyvahn has a sword that scales with Intelligence gives you a hint that this guy isn't some devout priest.
So far, I don't really have a strong sense of all the factions at play in Elden Ring. Clearly, each of the demigods likely has a faction associated with it. Godrick, the boss of Stormveil Castle, has decided to empower himself by grafting the arms of various Tarnished people (like us) onto his shoulders and back to make himself stronger. The first "boss" we face, and in almost all cases get promptly destroyed by, has been made spider-like in how many grafted limbs it has, and I assume the one we face in Stormveil Castle is the very same one (if you kill it, it doesn't come back unless your power goes out before the game saves).
Godrick's castle has a painting of a figure with a lion companion - and it just so happens that there's a lion-like humanoid boss of a mini-dungeon to the south of Limgrave. I suspect that Lions could be a common motif to look out for.
Another character we meet (whose name I'm blanking on) is the narrator of the lore trailer - the strange blue-skinned witch with the kind of after-image of a second face reflecting her own. She also seems to have two extra arms (or maybe four?) that look to be grafted on - yet she seems to not be in league with Godrick.
I also know that there's a school of sorcery called Raya Lucaria, and the woman who sell sorceries and is an exile of that school wears a big stone statue head as a mask or helmet, and I've seen other characters with this look.
Anyway, it's super early and I'm eager to delve deeper. Normally I try to play through these games perfectly without missing anything, and I'm sure that I'll screw up some quest lines or something, but I'm trying to just absorb what I can for now.
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