From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM

[Odoryuk]

Also, the thing with headless bodies outside Midra's Manse, people say that they lower their necks when you kill a wintern lantern dude that is associated with each body - that's bullshit, right? I only killed one of these dude weeks ago, and I can't check for myself, so please do provide any info of that if you know it for sure. Frankly, it's too good to be true and FS, despite having a reputation of adding a lot of unnecessary details, wouldn't do this.

 

[Hell Swarm]

People are finally starting to figure out that a bit of mystery is far preferable to an endless exhausting barrage of "lore".

From write the same way JJ Abrams does. As long as there is a mystery box it doesn't matter if you ever reveal what's in it. Which is fine if it's not the dominate way you write your story and the rest isn't "and then kill every powerful being in the land because... well because". Elden Ring gives you no reason to want to become Elden Lord. It doesn't tell you what being an Elden lord means or what it does for YOU. You just wake up and a cut scene your character doesn't see says "go kill these people". And then we meet consort Radahn who is effectively another Elden lord since he's the right hand man to a God and he's literally nothing special or different.

I would really recommend reading more on "Mystery box" writing and how it's damaged every medium it's touched. If you want to discuss how great From's lore is at least read the counter point because From's writing isn't actually original. It's the standard method of story telling for TV series for decades. The only difference is soap operas don't use sword descriptions you shouldn't know and have no context for.

https://www.abdulymalik.com/writing/kill-the-mystery-box

https://www.reddit.com/r/fantasywriters/comments/18zoa5q/the_mystery_box_method_of_writing/

 

[Strange Fellow]

Elden Ring gives you no reason to want to become Elden Lord. It doesn't tell you what being an Elden lord means or what it does for YOU. You just wake up and a cut scene your character doesn't see says "go kill these people". And then we meet consort Radahn who is effectively another Elden lord since he's the right hand man to a God and he's literally nothing special or different.

Great point, too bad it's about Dark Souls 2. Correct me if I'm wrong: The story of Elden Ring is that something has gone wrong with the afterlife so people aren't dying properly anymore, and it's believed that restoring the Elden Ring will fix that, which is why so many Tarnished, including the PC, are trying to do it. That seems like a straightforward and compelling enough motivation to me.

 

[abija]

Also, the thing with headless bodies outside Midra's Manse, people say that they lower their necks when you kill a wintern lantern dude that is associated with each body - that's bullshit, right? I only killed one of these dude weeks ago, and I can't check for myself, so please do provide any info of that if you know it for sure. Frankly, it's too good to be true and FS, despite having a reputation of adding a lot of unnecessary details, wouldn't do this.

I thought the shards used after decapitation were to prevent them from turning into the lantern dudes.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The deep lore of post-it notes and absolutely no story as to why you have to murder every creature in the world. A tale truly worthy of toilet paper.

Ye ye we get it the story is shit, the lore is shit, the combat is shit, the level design is shit, the art is shit. Everything FromSoft ever did was shit, across the board, from King's Field to this DLC.

You are just fucking boring at this point.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Elden Ring gives you no reason to want to become Elden Lord. It doesn't tell you what being an Elden lord means or what it does for YOU. You just wake up and a cut scene your character doesn't see says "go kill these people". And then we meet consort Radahn who is effectively another Elden lord since he's the right hand man to a God and he's literally nothing special or different.

Great point, too bad it's about Dark Souls 2. Correct me if I'm wrong: The story of Elden Ring is that something has gone wrong with the afterlife so people aren't dying properly anymore, and it's believed that restoring the Elden Ring will fix that, which is why so many Tarnished, including the PC, are trying to do it. That seems like a straightforward and compelling enough motivation to me.

Dark souls 2 has a motivation. You're going Hollow and heard there's a cure for it in Dranglec. Why you have to murder people to get it I don't know, but that's a fair shake. Elden ring is "you come from a distant land to become Elden lord because... you just do okay?"

The deep lore of post-it notes and absolutely no story as to why you have to murder every creature in the world. A tale truly worthy of toilet paper.

Ye ye we get it the story is shit, the lore is shit, the combat is shit, the level design is shit, the art is shit. Everything FromSoft ever did was shit, across the board, from King's Field to this DLC.

You are just fucking boring at this point.

I like how angry you are. It's funny and you should keep being angry

 

[Strange Fellow]

Dark souls 2 has a motivation. You're going Hollow and heard there's a cure for it in Dranglec. Why you have to murder people to get it I don't know, but that's a fair shake. Elden ring is "you come from a distant land to become Elden lord because... you just do okay?"

No, I'm pretty sure it's for exactly the reason I said.

Dark Souls 2 on the other hand, you start out going to Drangleic to free yourself from the curse, and you start out rooting around killing some people to go see the king (which is fair enough, as I recall he "peered into the essence of the soul" so he might be a good lead). Then, about halfway though the game, your motivation suddenly changes to becoming the next monarch. The problem is, the old monarch went hollow just the same as everyone else, and it's not clear how anything has changed, nor is there any apparent connection between becoming king and lifting the curse. I would say that kingship doesn't have much luster when you know you're cursed and doomed to lose your mind, and yet the game insists that that's what you want to do. In that regard it's very different from Elden Ring, where the motivation to become Elden Lord is secondary to curing the world of its fucked-upness. It just so happens that you can't do one without the other.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Dark souls 2 has a motivation. You're going Hollow and heard there's a cure for it in Dranglec. Why you have to murder people to get it I don't know, but that's a fair shake. Elden ring is "you come from a distant land to become Elden lord because... you just do okay?"

No, I'm pretty sure it's for exactly the reason I said.

Dark Souls 2 on the other hand, you start out going to Drangleic to free yourself from the curse, and you start out rooting around killing some people to go see the king (which is fair enough, as I recall he "peered into the essence of the soul" so he might be a good lead). Then, about halfway though the game, your motivation suddenly changes to becoming the next monarch. The problem is, the old monarch went hollow just the same as everyone else, and it's not clear how anything has changed, nor is there any apparent connection between becoming king and lifting the curse. I would say that kingship doesn't have much luster when you know you're cursed and doomed to lose your mind, and yet the game insists that that's what you want to do. In that regard it's very different from Elden Ring, where the motivation to become Elden Lord is secondary to curing the world of its fucked-upness. It just so happens that you can't do one without the other.

Does any one even tell you how you're supposed to cure the world or that the world is even fucked and you're the one to save it?

• When met in human form at Drangleic Castle
  You have fought admirably on your journey, cursed Undead.
  I am Nashandra, Queen of Drangleic.
  A true monarch carries the weight of their souls.
  The last king of this land, King Vendrick, as he was called…
  He was less of a king than you might imagine.
  He found the strength to rule his people, and when the Undead were born, cursed…
  He found more strength, to face them.
  But in the end, he never took the true throne.

• When talking a second time during the first encounter
  Visit Vendrick.
  We have no need for two rulers…

• When coming back and talking after first encounter, having not activated other triggers
  …

• When talking after killing or just visiting Vendrick
  Drangleic is no longer.

• When talking after obtaining the King's Ring
  Brave Undead, seek the throne.
  Follow the symbol of the monarch, and do what must be done.
  
  It's not rock solid but the queen tells you to take the true throne because the last king failed and guides you through the adventure if you talk to her. Depending on how you look at it you could argue you believe the true throne will save you (the DLC actually confirms this with the triple crown) and the queen is telling you how to sit on it.

 

[Strange Fellow]

That's an extremely charitable interpretation. That may very well be the idea the developers had in mind at some stage, but the dialogue you quote there is as close as the game comes to actually stating the purpose of becoming king, and it's literally just "do what must be done". By comparison, the instructions from the Emerald Herald are a lot more direct, but what she tells you to do is to usurp the throne from Vendrick, and the curse is never mentioned again after reaching Drangleic Castle, even though this should be your character's exclusive priority. What good is a throne if you end up like Vendrick, wandering the crypt as a mindless hollow? Nashandra says that he didn't take the true throne, but there is zero indication of what the true throne is or why we would want it. If you want to talk about mystery boxes, there's a perfect example.

As for Elden Ring, I just watched the intro cutscene again and it was indeed more vague than I remembered, and I can't recall if Malenia goes into more detail. What is clear, though, is that the Elden Ring was shattered and that event lead directly to the abandonment of the Lands Between by the Greater Will, which, we can infer, is when all the bad shit started happening. I think it's reasonable to expect the restoration of the Elden Ring to bring back the Greater Will, considering the shattering is what drove it away. There's a much clearer connection there than between the curse and the throne in Dark Souls 2, which may as well exist in different games.

There's also an alternative view: In Dark Souls 2, it is established that you are cursed and will go hollow very soon unless you find a cure. In Elden Ring, you're not, at least I don't believe so. As such, in Elden Ring a desire to seize the throne for power and glory is perfectly cogent, but in Dark Souls 2 it isn't. The only sensible reason for seizing the throne of Drangleic is if doing so lifts the curse, which, again, you have no explicit reason to think it does because the curse plot is left by the wayside halfway through the game.

 

[Hell Swarm]

The 2nd line of the DaS2 intro states souls can help you keep from going hollow. And Nashadra is implying Vendrick failed to continue fighting and consuming souls so he went hollow. He didn't achieve the true throne, he just retreated. So even if you want to say the story was dropped (and lets be honest From games don't have a story) it's at least explained within the game it's self. The game even implies by the time you reach the castle you're already forgetting why you would try to get there so it's still functioning as the intro predicted.

The Tarnished have no connection to the lands between any more. They have no reason to care about the Elden Ring as they're not in the lands between.

 

[Strange Fellow]

The 2nd line of the DaS2 intro states souls can help you keep from going hollow. And Nashadra is implying Vendrick failed to continue fighting and consuming souls so he went hollow. He didn't achieve the true throne, he just retreated. So even if you want to say the story was dropped it's at least explained within the game it's self.

Yeah, but that is no basis for a story with a beginning and an end. Player arrives in Drangleic, consumes powerful souls for a while and then the game just sort of ends? That's a shit story. If the throne absolves the player of having to seek souls (in essence, if it lifts the curse) then that's fine, that's an end to the story. But nothing in the game says it does.

The game even implies by the time you reach the castle you're already forgetting why you would try to get there so it's still functioning as the intro predicted.

If we take the amnesia thing at face value, that would mean that your character has no motivation at all, and simply goes around killing these powerful beings for no reason. Which, again, fair enough, that's how the game starts and I have no problem with that, but you're always looking for a way to get uncursed, and if the game doesn't tell you how to do that at the beginning, it needs to do it at some point before the end of the game or the whole thing is pointless.

The Tarnished have no connection to the lands between any more. They have no reason to care about the Elden Ring as they're not in the lands between.

I swear the game tells you that the shattering fucked up the process of deceased souls proceeding to the afterlife (or being taken into the Greater Will, if you prefer), making the Lands Between either a purgatory, or a mortal world/purgatory combo. Now, you being your difficult self, and me not being able to cite anything specific to back this up, we can say I hallucinated all that, in which case the murderhobo motivation still remains.

and lets be honest From games don't have a story

On the contrary, the good From games that I've played have simple, easily summarised stories.

• Demon's Souls: You're trapped in Boletaria, and to escape you'll need to kill demons to lull the Old One back to slumber.
• Dark Souls 1: You're undead and doomed to lose your mind. To prevent this you have to amass powerful souls, defeat the old God whose decline has led to the world going to shit, and usher in a new age of fire (which we're told is a nice age while it lasts). Granted, there's also the whole Kaathe thing (which is also very clearly explained once you find it), but taken at face value the story is straightforward.
• Sekiro: Do I need to do this one? The game has a shitload of cutscenes.
• Elden Ring: The Ring was shattered and the Lands Between went to shit. You're a Tarnished, and you want to repair the Ring. If it's not to fix the shithole that is the Lands Between, or to let people die properly again, it can be for simple murderhobo reasons, power, wealth and hot chicks.

Dark Souls 2 is the only one with serious issues. It starts the same as the first game, then ????? you must become king for reasons (even though by all accounts it's a shit job and won't help you get uncursed).

 

[Ravielsk]

Correct me if I'm wrong: The story of Elden Ring is that something has gone wrong with the afterlife so people aren't dying properly anymore, and it's believed that restoring the Elden Ring will fix that, which is why so many Tarnished, including the PC, are trying to do it. That seems like a straightforward and compelling enough motivation to me.

Well since you asked here goes.

People not dying is quite literary the least of the problems in the world of elden ring if it is even at problem at all. The only ones who are ever mentioned as being problematic in regards to their immortality are "those who live in death" but even that is only in the sense that their existence is somehow at odds with the golden order. Not in the sense that it violates natural order or is somehow unusual for people to be immortal.
As far as we know immortality has been the norm in the lands between. That said the only thing mentioned for certain is that Marika removed the rune of death from the elden ring by which she most likely stopped natural death from occurring... but again this is never really explained, just mentioned.

The elden ring has literary nothing to do with any of this, at least as far as the ingame material goes. Nothing even alludes to the fact that it shattering somehow altered the world. The only thing concretely said is that the War of Shattering rekt the world but the shattering itself seems to have had little to no impact(at least nothing in the game states anything to the contrary).

 

[Strange Fellow]

The elden ring has literary nothing to do with any of this, at least as far as the ingame material goes. Nothing even alludes to the fact that it shattering somehow altered the world. The only thing concretely said is that the War of Shattering rekt the world but the shattering itself seems to have had little to no impact(at least nothing in the game states anything to the contrary).

Okay, so it's: Elden Ring is shattered -> War breaks out -> War causes the Greater Will to fuck off. The shattering is still the catalyst. Besides, that doesn't really have any bearing on my synopsis, does it? It's still broadly right.

And, to repeat myself once more, even if you want to completely ignore the death thing (even though I think it's pigheaded of you to insist that the cessation of natural death isn't a big deal), there remains the murderhobo thing. If the problem with the Lands Between is that it's in the ravages of civil war, your motivation to become Elden Lord (stomping all your rivals in the process) and usher in a new reign, is perfectly rational.

 

[Ravielsk]

As for Elden Ring, I just watched the intro cutscene again and it was indeed more vague than I remembered, and I can't recall if Malenia goes into more detail. What is clear, though, is that the Elden Ring was shattered and that event lead directly to the abandonment of the Lands Between by the Greater Will, which, we can infer, is when all the bad shit started happening. I think it's reasonable to expect the restoration of the Elden Ring to bring back the Greater Will, considering the shattering is what drove it away. There's a much clearer connection there than between the curse and the throne in Dark Souls 2, which may as well exist in different games.

The first time you are told that fixing the elden ring would even register on the greater will's radar is only after getting your first great rune. Before that point nobody even tries to sell you on the idea that the elden ring is something you should or even could care about.

After obtaining a Great Rune
"Great Elden Ring, root of the Golden Order."
"Anchor of all lands, giver of grace, wellspring of all joy."
"Until it was shattered."
"The tragic corruption of the Order has taken its toll."
"Across the realm, life lies in ruin. Fallen to pieces."
"Foul curses and misery spread, unabating."
"But the Greater Will has not abandoned the realm, nor the life that inhabits it."
"So it is that the Tarnished are guided by grace. Called to act."
"Brave Tarnished, your Great Rune is a handsome shard of the Elden Ring."
"Seek another of its kind."
"To become Elden Lord, and restore the Golden Order."

Metyr's staff later on confirms that the greater will has left the lands between but its highly debatable when that happened.

Staff fashioned from the tail-fingers of Metyr, the Mother of Fingers, and the microcosm raised aloft over the crux they form.
Catalyst for casting both sorceries and incantations.
The Mother received signs from the Greater Will from the beyond of the microcosm. Despite being broken and abandoned, she kept waiting for another message to come.

 

[Strange Fellow]

You have to assume that the player character has a basic knowledge of the world they're living in, and that includes the fact that the title of Elden Lord is up for grabs. Everyone knows that.

 

[Hell Swarm]

If the throne absolves the player of having to seek souls (in essence, if it lifts the curse) then that's fine, that's an end to the story. But nothing in the game says it does.

If you beat all 3 DLCs and go to vendrick's memory you can form a united crown that disables the hollowing mechanic. You can argue that is DLC and doesn't count, but it does completely validate the story of Dark souls 2. Vendrick never conquered the other kings to become the true king. You do and get an item that validates your entire quest.

And, to repeat myself once more, even if you want to completely ignore the death thing (even though I think it's pigheaded of you to insist that the cessation of natural death isn't a big deal), there remains the murderhobo thing. If the problem with the Lands Between is that it's in the ravages of civil war, your motivation to repair the Ring and become Elden Lord, stomping all your rivals in the process and ushering in a new reign, is perfectly rational.

The lands between aren't a From exclusive idea. I forget where it's borrowed from now but it is and you fail to understand even the basic story elements present here.

The rune of death is sealed, it has been sealed for quite some time. Death is impossible and having stolen a small amount of death a demigod was killed with it. Something considered impossible before that because death was not possible. The tree respawns you in a way never explained.

Secondly the lands between are not the only place on that planet or however they wish to shape the world. The lands between have all this going on but else where doesn't. The big ass tree and the Gods manipulating the land may have no impact on things beyond it. The lands between is a very small island compared to what else maybe out there. If I'm a tarnished living my life some where else what possible motivation do I have to go there except for a prophecy no one ever explains to you?

 

[Ravielsk]

Besides, that doesn't really have any bearing on my synopsis, does it? It's still broadly right.

Yes, but only in the sense that you are at some point told becoming the elden lord is a fix to... something. What exactly it will fix or how is it going to be fixed or what even are you going to do after is never touched upon or eve alluded to.

If the problem with the Lands Between is that it's in the ravages of civil war, your motivation to repair the Ring and become Elden Lord, stomping all your rivals in the process and ushering in a new reign, is perfectly rational.

Perfectly rational? Hardly. The tarnished are a group of people who were explicitly stripped of their grace(which btw is another thing that was basically never explained but lets not dwell on that) and banished from the lands to wage war in far away lands. Plus based on the intro(and nothing the fuck else because the game again never elaborates on this any further) the tarnished were not even allowed to die properly and are only now being revived by... someone again, not explained.

In essence you are playing as a poor sod that got kicked out from the lands between for unspecified reasons. Denied even proper death and now you are being called back to fix a fuck up caused by, as far as you can tell, the same queen bee that banished you in the first place. And you are not even trying to usurp her but to essentially marry her( remarry in the case of Godfrey).

 

[Ravielsk]

You have to assume that the player character has a basic knowledge of the world they're living in, and that includes the fact that the title of Elden Lord is up for grabs. Everyone knows that.

Fair point but still a fuck up on From's part. The game needs to at least explain the basics of its world and the nouns it uses to describe it otherwise its just a word salad that means little to nothing. My character knowing what is an elden lord and how the elden ring can fix everything is fine and dandy but somehow that knowledge needs to be passed onto the player as well.

Otherwise there is no story or narrative when the player has no way to interpret what the game is telling him. The characters may just as well be speaking in a made up language for all it matters.

 

[Strange Fellow]

If you beat all 3 DLCs and go to vendrick's memory you can form a united crown that disables the hollowing mechanic. You can argue that is DLC and doesn't count, but it does completely validate the story of Dark souls 2. Vendrick never conquered the other kings to become the true king. You do and get an item that validates your entire quest.

Fair enough then. I only finished the game in its pre-DLC state, never after playing the DLCs.

The lands between is a very small island compared to what else maybe out there. If I'm a tarnished living my life some where else what possible motivation do I have to go there except for a prophecy no one ever explains to you?

Why did William the Conqueror invade England? Why did Clint Eastwood get involved with the gangs in A Fistful of Dollars? Why is Donald Trump running for president?

In essence you are playing as a poor sod that got kicked out from the lands between for unspecified reasons. Denied even proper death and now you are being called back to fix a fuck up caused by, as far as you can tell, the same queen bee that banished you in the first place. And you are not even trying to usurp her but to essentially marry her.

My character knowing what is an elden lord and how the elden ring can fix everything is fine and dandy but somehow that knowledge needs to be passed onto the player as well.

Per the intro, the known state of things at the beginning of the game is that Marika is AWOL and her children (along with certain Tarnished of high renown) are fighting over who gets to be Elden Lord. The player character is aware of this because he lives in the world where it's happening, and the player is aware of this because he watched the intro cutscene. Again, we're circling back to: why does anyone seek power? The undeniable fact is that people have done it throughout history and it is the basis of many great stories.

 

[Vic]

Why did William the Conqueror invade England? Why did Clint Eastwood get involved with the gangs in A Fistful of Dollars? Why is Donald Trump running for president?

The 3 Ps: Pussy, Power and Pay.

 

[Hell Swarm]

The player character is aware of this because he lives in the world where it's happening, and the player is aware of this because he watched the intro cutscene. Again, we're circling back to: why does anyone seek power? The undeniable fact is that people have done it throughout history and it is the basis of many great stories.

Does the character see the cut scene? I don't think it's ever shown they're watching it. I think Dark souls 2 is the only one that shows the narrator talking to the character and that character acting what's said. I checked and it is, every other intro is a narrator over concept art or events the player could never have witnessed.

Elden ring's opening says grace made the player want to go to the Elden ring and become Elden lord. Says nothing about being a murder hobo

 

[Silverfish]

Everything FromSoft ever did was shit, across the board

Hey, we haven't gotten to 3D dot Game Heroes yet.

Then, about halfway though the game, your motivation suddenly changes to becoming the next monarch.

The Emerald Herald's first line of dialogue: "Are you the next monarch or merely a pawn of fate?"

The 2nd line of the DaS2 intro states souls can help you keep from going hollow.

"A place where souls may mend your ailing mind."

Yeah, but that is no basis for a story with a beginning and an end. Player arrives in Drangleic, consumes powerful souls for a while and then the game just sort of ends?

Depends on what version of the game you have. In vanilla, you burn up in the kiln of the first flame. In Scholar, the DS1 choice is offered again.

Why did Clint Eastwood get involved with the gangs in A Fistful of Dollars?

A Fistful of Dollars

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

There's nothing more frustrating than completing a dungeon, only to be rewarded with a mostly useless summon.

You get to know about the enemy you can summon a little more, sometimes it's the only way to learn a specific enemy's name, and that's enough. The same principle when you're finding a spell while playing a Quality build - you won't use it, but it has information about the world that you will learn

This is a bad analogy, because while a Quality build may not use a spell, the spell itself is at least useful as an item. The game balance is maintained, even if a certain item isn't meant for a certain build. It's still useful knowing it's there for a future playthrough, or if you decide to respec. It's far less frustrating finding something that's not for your character vs something that's just plain bad and will only waste space in your inventory.

Also, I will repeat what Hell Swarm said: LOL a name and a description is a reward now?

But even if I agreed with your point, wouldn't it still be better if you got the name and the description AND the summon was actually useful as well?

Virtually every build in the game can make good use of summons, so having a lot of nicely balanced ones would significantly improve the gameplay for every single build. Which would be amazing. Instead, we have a mountain of crap and a handful of usable options.

The deep lore of post-it notes and absolutely no story as to why you have to murder every creature in the world. A tale truly worthy of toilet paper.

To be fair, the "read item descriptions bro" rhetoric used for virtually every DS game is a cope used by idiots to defend the game's lack of actually good lore. A way to defend a bunch of vague item descriptions that say almost nothing about a larger world we know next to nothing about. Almost the entirety of the "deep lore" has been pieced together from vague descriptions and the occasional piece of environmental storytelling, and we actually know next to nothing because FROM hasn't said anything significant about the world in any of their games.

At most, we get vague and nearly useless item descriptions like "A headpiece worn by the knights of yadayada, who would occasionally do suchandsuch. Boosts fart damage negation".

Souls games are decent at explaining the moment-to-moment story (often they will just have a character exposition-dump the story on you, like Kingseeker Frampt), but their lore is absolutely awfully told. Playing soulsbourne games for the lore is like watching porn for the story, and anyone who makes gameplay arguments for lore reasons is an idiot.

DS lore just kind of sucks. The game tells us virtually nothing, everything else is guesswork, which just comes across as lazy. I know that's not a popular opinion, but it is the truth.

If you think DS has good lore or that item descriptions are important, I'm sorry but you fell for the memes. Now go watch some Youtuber """"explain"""" the lore over 20 minutes of speculation because we're given absolutely nothing to go on.

There's no point collecting all the grave wax when we're only going to be using the Mimic Tear and 1-2 other summons for the whole game.

Just because you did that, doesn't mean everyone did that. It's a pretty big distinction.

You do know what an optimal strategy is, right?

 

[Hell Swarm]

Hey, we haven't gotten to 3D dot Game Heroes yet.

From only published the game in Japan. They have no connection to it other wise. It's why it's a GOOD GAME unlike From's GUTTER OIL GARBAGE GAMES.

Depends on what version of the game you have. In vanilla, you burn up in the kiln of the first flame. In Scholar, the DS1 choice is offered again.

Can't you walk in DaS2 base game? I might be remembering wrong. I haven't beaten it many times. The last bosses kinda suck and I'm happy to stop once I get to the giant memories. All the good bits are done by then.

DS lore just kind of sucks. The game tells us virtually nothing, everything else is guesswork, which just comes across as lazy. I know that's not a popular opinion, but it is the truth.

I enjoy watching lore videos but they're all just fanfics. Souls games are video gamey games and pretending their deep is just sad. It's why so many of us are upset they refuse to improve the video game aspects.

 

[Silverfish]

Can't you walk in DaS2 base game?

No, vanilla only has the throne ending.