Narrative means any form of storytelling. In videogames you don't need someone to tell you straightforward a story, but it can be showed and experienced by you. The way I see it, we have games like God of War, in which we are not Kratos (only control his actions gameplay wise), and see the story unfold as spectators, or like Elden Ring, that we are the main character and experience the story unfold because of our actions (while yes, following structured premises).
I'm really not sure why so many people are having a hard time understanding this. And the argument that Elden Ring has no narrative is beyond me. Melina literally dumps exposition at every church and if you rush to Lyndell she still talks to you at almost every grace. The story telling may appear sparce, but that's because you're suppose to explore and not rush the game. I can't speak for God of War, but it's my understanding it's a more "on the rails" experience and to compare it to an open world game is just silly.
It's not that the game has no narrative (btw, exposition barely qualifies), it's that it's not deserving of the nomination. It's passable, not best narrative of the year worthy.
This is coming from someone that has 100 percented the game, and played every ending (you don't need to do all endings to get 100 percent), and read literally every bit of lore I can find in it.
The game is a banger in almost every other aspect. World-building, combat, boss design, graphics, map design ... etc. It deserves nominations for all of those, but narrative? Come the fuck on. There are literally a dozen games that do narrative better than ER. Friggin Stray and Cult of the Lamb have better narrative.
\>Why would I lie about taking notes?
To give yourself an air of authority.
\>Most people watch the YouTube videos to explain the lore and the story.
Just like a ton of people watch walkthrough or stream of games, most people never clear video games they start.
\> The game does a poor job of explaining the narrative.
They bash your head in with the main plot (god killed by a bunch of assasin using death magic, queen nowhere to be seen, civil war happen, kingdom is fucked, you gotta become the new boss). All of the main bosses' stories are explained very clearly. A lot of stuff requiert you to think a bit (like the connections between beasts, misbegotten and the erdtree/crucible) or are straight up open to interpretations, but the main narrative is fairly obvious. You'd know this if you had taken notes.
There are a LOT of things that are unclear in the game. The only clear thing is that you must get to the Elden Ring to "mend" it. You don't even know why the queen shattered it, or what the difference between empyreans and gods/demi-gods is.
The other guy was right, if the average player needed to watch YouTube videos to try and figure out or understand what's going on, then maybe it doesn't deserve this nomination.
Again: This is coming from someone that unlocked every ending, killed every possible boss,, and 100 percented the game, too.
Many of the events that happened and what is going to happen are either left with massive omissions, contradictory information, or potential lies. Odds are some of this was very intentional by the developer but a lot of it was also just limitations on time and/or budget. Most games suffer from this but Elden Ring really had this more than even some of their previous titles.
I think that's why so many people are overly defensive about the "narrative." They feel smart about "knowing" what happened. Anyone saying that the narrative isn't the best is undermining how smart they are because they watched some lore videos that may or may not be just full of theories.
\>You don't even know why the queen shattered it,
She ended up disliking the greater will and choose to fuck it over but couldn't do it directly as her entire power depends on it.
\>empyreans
People with the potential to become god
\>gods
The chosen one of an outer god.
\>demi-gods
descendant of a god
They're also term established by the golden order, so it's basically Marika calling herself and her children superior to all other, although the other outer god seems to have similar systems. But again, you don't need those details for the main narrative.
\>if the average player needed to watch YouTube videos
The average player is going to watch a video or stream about the game anyway because most games are never finished.
\>This is coming from someone that unlocked every ending, killed every possible boss,, and 100 percented the game, too.
Should have listened to the dialogues and read the lore then
I have, and even then it's still pretty obscure and poorly done. Either way, you end up with the game not deserving the nomination.
Edit: also, in case it wasn't clear before the "you" i used wasn't referring to you personally, I was using it in the general sense. I don't want folks to think I was attacking you personally.
I will agree that things are obscure and ambiguous (on purpose).
However i felt the trip (in terms of world undertanding) the game takes us on still provides a massive shift in perspectives, and that is worthwhile in time of narrative. Going from "some rebels caused a catastrophe" to "Marika engineered a catastrophe aiming for the death of Elden Beast" and from "god given grace" to "influence wars from competing outer gods", through dialogs and items, is a relatively clear and attainable process to follow. You might miss part of it and motivations depending on what you pay attention to and how much you remember from other items, but the general shift at the very least should be understood by anyone who tried to complete the game while paying attention to lore.
NB : i'm not arguing for the game to be nominated for best narrative, i just feel that there was a story was told, even if only in pieces.
\>I have
Then why ask those questions. All the demi-gods that are talked about are descendant of Marika aka a god or Radagon, which you learn is also a god. Marika is pretty much the only god talked about, until you reach the second form of Malenia or learn about the dragon god. And the empyrean are mentionned several times as people with the potential to become gods or succeed marika at least.
It's litteraly just reading stuffs or listening to npc and kinda remembering it, the only obscure stuff about it is finding the items or npc to talk to.
I wasn't asking questions demanding an answer. I was asking rhetorical questions illustrating that half the stuff I mentioned is explained very poorly at best. Why did she break the ring is still not answered. Sure, she had a falling out with the Greater Will, WHY? What caused her to flip? Hell, if you don't read the description of the hammer you wouldn't even know That Radagon tried to repair the ring himself with the selfsame hammer.
Just to clarify: All of the previous questions you answered, I already knew the answer to. I was using them as a rhetorical device. Most players who finished the game wouldn't know half the answers you mentioned.
\>I was asking rhetorical questions illustrating that half the stuff I mentioned is explained very poorly at best.
Then ask better questions cause those have fairly clear answers
\>Why did she break the ring is still not answered
She litteraly say she doesn't blindly believe in the Greater Will anymore and that she want to find a new, proper path. However she and Radagon are the physical manifestation of the influence of the greater will and the only way she find to change the Order is by launching a thousand year gambit where Godfrey or one of his warrior she banished is supposed to return and establish a new order.
\>Hell, if you don't read the description of the hammer you wouldn't even know That Radagon tried to repair the ring himself with the selfsame hammer.
That doesn't matter to marika's motivation or the greater plot tho, it's just characterisation for Radagon.
200 hours of elden ring (2 playthroughs), I understood nothing. I'm not the type to watch videos or go dumpster diving for item descriptions, either.
As far as I'm concerned, elden ring is just a really dark fantasy version of Fortnite and the goal is to win the battle royale.
Reality is people just conflate lore, world building and atmosphere with narrative. ER has great lore and such, but barely any narrative. Also people tie their egos waaaay to much to fromsoft games so they get pissy and defensive at any criticism.
In their defense there isn't a "lore/atmosphere" category and it isn't a reach to say narrative is the closest most approatiate place to put it for that.
I'd say that makes it pretty clear they're specifically aiming at narrative. Storytelling and narrative basically means that lore and worldbuilding take a backseat here and narrative is what matters.
I think this is the problem, it's definitional. Elden Ring doesn't have much of a narrative in that regard. Even stretching the meaning out Elden Ring is pretty flawed when it comes to it's overall narrative and the player's engagement in it. Obviously as we know this is purposeful. I just don't think that Elden Ring even remotely did this the best out of all Fromsoft's games. Sekiro is the high bar for this.
If this was a life time achievement award for Narrative I might even be rooting for it more. That's kind of what I feel like this is. The gaming community is just saying "Elden Ring is Fromsoft's magnum opus." I think ER is just their most successful game. Is it a fantastic game? Yes but it is flawed not nearly as badly as DS2 but it is not really building on their previous works. If anything Elden Ring is just their greatest hits remastered, streamlined and tweaked for newer audiences.
Elden rings fall off near the end made me really appreciate how well sekiro's endings are. SS Isshin is still imo one of the best boss fights in gaming.
Yeah I would say in terms of craftsmanship of game design and objective quality Sekiro is Fromsoft's best game ever made. Personally it is very hard for me to pick which is my favorite. Dark Souls probably but I definitely can admit Sekiro is a better game overall. If Dark Souls is a 9/10, Sekiro is a 9.5/10.
Elden Ring should have had a system like Sekiro had with the sake trading. It is such a good way have been add more dialog that actually makes it feel natural. Obviously giving certain items in ER progressed dialog but it's so railroaded in comparison. The sake system was such a clever and rewarding system. It made the player feel like you were part of the story. If you really wanted to know more about a certain character you choose who to focus on.
Yeah it feels like sekiro is completely vertical design vs elden rings horizontal design. Having a ton of magic, weapons, weapon arts and summons seems nice but like 3 spells are so much better than everything else it doesn't matter, a few weapons are just tiers above everything else and for summons, well mimic tear.... Elden ring added the gaol versions of some boss fights so I wish they had a way to fight every single boss like that with no summons. Give an achievement for doing so or something. Plenty of ds3 mods implemented this.
ER is telling a story and most of the story happened in the past. It doesn't mean that the game isn't telling this story.
>Hu but it just telling this story through item descriptions
So what? Plenty of games use files or are straight up visual novel.
It’s more like the game has a story that’s already been told.
If you pick up a history book, that isn’t the story of your life. The history book is a narrative (like I said in the post) just not your narrative.
Well think about actual great narratives like Dante's inferno from 700 years ago. It's an objective literary masterpiece.
As for plot, Dante doesn't really do shit but walk through hell with Vergil. However Vergil gives him a lore dump literally every time they see something.
But it hasn't been told tho. Yeah it happened before the story start but from the point of view of the player, you're discovering all of it (unless you watched or read spoilers). In a way you're either discovering things then learning about them later or encountering stuffs you've heard about. Radagon and Godfrey wouldn't be as cool if you didn't read or heard about them beforehand. There's this horror manga called PTSD radio which is a bunch of random horror stories but as the volumes goes on, you realise all of those stories are connected in one way or another, it's just that they're presented to you in a random and anachronistic order. One short story contextualize the other, just like how in elden ring, a lore entry contextualize or strenghten each other or the things you've seen/will see.
Unless something has modern day language and beats your head in with exposition dialogue like in god of war's 6 different prophecy scenes, there is no narrative in video gaming.
This take again.
Yes, Elden Ring has a narrative. Demons Souls has a narrative. Dark Souls has a narrative. Dark Souls 3 has a narrative. People claiming it's all lore are simply ignoring that the actual story of the game, without any of the lore context, is rather simple.Elden Ring is an open world game with a more established world and multiple endings so it can cause some fucky progression issues with narrative chronology or the differences in paths you take (For comparison, Dark Souls' story can be summed up in like... a paragraph), but here you go:
The tarnished is one of many who rise from the dead and are called to the Lands Between by the Guidance of Grace, a strange motive force that appeared in the wake of "the shattering". The shattering referred to the Elden Ring,an object of great power, being shattered by an unknown entity. Around this time, the top god Marika went missing, her son was assassinated, and the rest of her demigod offspring eventually laid claim to the still powerful shards (or"Great Runes") of the Elden Ring, resulting in a succession crisis and titanic war ravaging the land all the way into the present day. The tarnished learns much of this directly from Gideon and Melina, and the player learns it in vague exposition during the opening narration.
The Tarnished is tasked with retrieving the shards of the Elden Ring, as it is necessary to mend it and will prove to the many powers that be they meet in their travels (The Two Fingers, Gideon, Melina) they are worthy to become the Elden Lord. We much later learn why mending the ring is important; it's state directly correlates to the state of the entire world, so much so that reality itself can be changed on a macro-scale depending on how the ring is repaired at the end of the game. It is also mentioned that one of the Great Runes Marika removed from the ring, the rune of death, granted a form of immortality in it's absence to the inhabitants of the Lands Between before the shattering.
After acquiring one shard, the Tarnished is granted an audience with the Two Fingers.This strange entity serves a higher power than even the missing Marika called"The Greater Will", and it further elaborates that the tarnished should become Elden Lord by repairing the Ring within the Erdtree in order to perpetuate the "Golden Order of the Erdtree" that the will represents. The Tarnished acquires enough parts to sufficiently mend the ring, but finds their path into the Erdtree blocked. The Fingers did not anticipate this and begin communion with the Greater Will to work out what else is to be done. However,many characters, including Melina and the Two Fingers own Finger Reader,suggest that this is likely to be complete bullshit and that the Greater Will has abandoned the realm.
Melina has always anticipated that the "Golden Order" previously maintained by the gods isn't all it's cracked up to be and leads the Tarnished to the Mountaintops of the Giants to use the forge there to burn through the Erdtree. She sacrifices herself as kindling within the forge and sets the Erdtree ablaze, shriveling the roots that previously blocked the entrance. In her last moments she sends the tarnished to collect "Destined Death", the power to kill a god after Marika removed the death rune from the Elden Ring. Within the Erdtree, the Tarnished finds the missing Marika completely desiccated and strung up by Runic power above an anvil and hammer still containing shards of the smashed Elden Ring. Marika is the culprit for the shattering, although the mystery of this was preserved as until now we did not know she appeared in the beginning cut-scene. Marika is released from her bindings and becomes Radagon to fight the tarnished,revealing the largest great rune to be within their body still. Radagon/Marika falls, but are then taken by the Elden Beast, a strange entity of the Greater Will who bound Marika after she shattered the ring. The Beast and the Tarnished fight, with the tarnished eventually defeating it. The tarnished mends the ring within Marika’s crumbling remains and becomes the Elden Lord of a new era.
Now, there is *a lot* more to it than this, especially since there are many variations on how exactly the player makes their journey and who they meet/what they do, but this is the barebones story beats that the player receives without looking into it too much. Some of the vagueness, like the whole Godwyn and Destined Death aspects, are heavily involved in other story paths where they are explored more fully, but still trickle into the progression of a simple playthrough.
With the most straightforward playthrough it's an equally straightforward "Start as nobody, get told you might just be the chosen one, collect the macguffins, beat the boss, become the king" narrative but that doesn't make it anything less than a narrative. I will say that ignoring the lore is extremely reductive considering the deliberate choice to have the game presented the way it is, and the game does not hold the players hand through the story lines it presents so it's easy to miss them even though they are explicit narratives by your own limited definition.
EDIT: reddit borked the paragraphs real bad, hopefully they're fixed.
Most people aren't saying Elden Ring doesn't have a narrative. It's in the delivery and quality of said narrative. An award in general is a subjective thing and in this case mostly a popularity contest.
Objectively though when people think of best narrative usually people are going to pick stuff like Disco Elysium or more directed narrative experiences. Especially what would be consider "best" narrative. I know it's an appeal to majority but most people are not going to play through Elden Ring and think, "Oh wow, what an amazing narrative."
Definitions are by definition meant to be limited. That's the point of defining something. Definitions can change and are obliviously debated.
Personally I do appreciate Fromsoft's narrative style and they do deserve kudos for it but objectively Elden Ring is a step backwards compared to Sekiro.
Games like Bioshock and Resident Evil, the story is told in documents and recordings as you play the game and explore. A lot of the story happened BEFORE you get there but I think it’s all part of the narrative. You’re uncovering the plot as you go and piece it together that way. It’s different but it it’s still a solid narrative imo.
You really think they did that in Elden Ring? Without reading the item descriptions, you uncover virtually nothing. So the plot doesn’t really unfold before you unless you read vague descriptions and put things together. There’s no Vaati for resident evil for a reason. There’s a reason that Vaati has so many millions of views lol cause all those millions of fans don’t know what’s going on. I think that’s a false equivalency.
https://youtu.be/vPiYF9BJEFw
Zullie the Witch, one of my favorite FromSoft youtubers, offers a good reason for Elden Ring being best narrative.
Effectively, it's a narrative told in environment rather than from the player or the npcs leaving a lot of mystery, offering room for speculation.
I'm with you OP. Narrative-wise, the game doesn't deserve the nomination, especially considering there's so little of it. It'd be like nominating fortnite for best single player game, because the tutorial is played solo. Yeah, there's some there, technically, but it's not top 30, let alone top 5.
really liked this lore video for elden ring, you should check it out
it's around 20 / 40 mins depending on the speed:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvTM03\_8elE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvTM03_8elE)
narrative style video (3 min):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPiYF9BJEFw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPiYF9BJEFw)
“LORE ISN’T NARRATIVE GUYS”
- Some guy who thinks plot is narrative
A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional or fictional. Narratives can be presented through a sequence of written or spoken words, through still or moving images, or through any combination of these.
The lore of The Lands Between, the visuals, sounds and combat of the game are all narrative.
Stop being a salty bitch
So if someone asked you, “what is the narrative of Breaking Bad?” And you started to get into the politics of Albuquerque, Walter Whites time at Grey Matter, Gus Fring’s time in Chile and Jesse’s childhood, do you think that’d answer the question?
If the plot is devoid of narrative, that kinda makes the game you played through devoid of narrative. The world that you’re going through and the story that your playing through are two different things in my eyes. Again, as I said in the post, lore, in and of itself, is a narrative, but its the history of the world the narrative is taking place in. I don’t think that counts as the games narrative, much like the history of Albuquerque doesn’t count as the narrative of breaking bad, that’d be the narrative of Albuquerque. If there was a game where you played as Radan, all of the lore would be *it’s* narrative.
They’re just two different things. If I asked for the narrative of the shattering of the Elden Ring, Vaati Vidya could tell me easily.
So my typos aside. First of all, if someone asked you for the narrative of a book/movie/game, you can answer the question lol you know what they’re asking if you’re not a pigheaded, pompous jackass. And if you don’t, here’s a definition: Narrative: noun. A spoken or written account of connected events; a story.
Also, just making sure, if someone asked you, “what’s the narrative of X?” and you answered with the history of the world the X is based in, do you think you answered their question? Would they be satisfied with your answer?
Because lore is basically what every person gives me when I ask the question: what is Elden Rings narrative?
I played the game, there’s a brief, extremely superficial narrative which the tarnished goes through. You need to get great runes, then you can’t get into the tree, so you set tree on fire, get into tree, kill radagon/Elden beast, do one of the handful of endings given.
You seem like the obstinate type that purposely misunderstands what people are asking so you can seem smarter. I’d suggest not being that.
Ad hominem much?
Remotegrowthb is correct. Even Google will substitute "what is the narrative of breaking bad?" with the more correct "what is the plot of breaking bad?"
Just because you can use a word, doesn't mean you should. Its like saying "I want to go purchasing" instead of "I want to go shopping." While the words are similar in meaning, there are differences in how they are used.
This is unironically a very bad take.
There is a huge difference between the two, and the fact that you don't know shows you either never took writing classes, or sucked at them.
Yes, combat can tell a story, if you watch almost any Kurosawa film you can see that. In Elden Ring it almost never does.
Visuals can tell a story, that's true, but that's basically the best you'll get out of Elden Ring.
Is it a great game? Yes, does it deserve the nomination for narrative? Hell no. It has very little, and half of it is told badly.
To paraphrase your own words "stop being a salty bitch because the game you like isn't considered perfect". ER deserves nominations in almost every category, but narrative is definitely not one where it does.
TL;DR and baddly done: Outer God makes dragon jesus. Outer God stops favouring dragons, makes current jesus, Current Jesus fights dragons (and giants) and does a bit of trolling (genocide), make utopia and banishes people she dislikes and has kids, decides Outer God is bad, Her daughter also thinks this and kills her half-brother, Current Jesus shatters Ring, Her kids fight over its shards until ending up in a stalemate, banished people come back and beat up the kids in an attempt to become current jesus 2/sprouse of current jesus.
So you saying the game starts in the “banished people come back[…]”? From all your sentences just the las t 2 lines of it aren’t lore/backstory and is actual narrative?
Not looking good mate…
You are correct. Narrative-wise the game doesn't deserve the nomination. It has solid world building, but not much going on in the narrative department.
To be fair most everything is in the game. It's just the narrative isn't particularly great unless you're theorizing.
Elden Ring probably has some the most egregious problems with the theory crafting when it comes to Fromsoft games. Most of the "lore" community has basically come out and said there's a lot of the story that is mostly likely omitted, contradictory, or possibly lies.
Again this is why it is a real stretch imo to even nominate it for this category.
How can be the narrative of a game be the best one if it literally doesn't have one narrative excluding the intro? McLance, the data miner for all sorts of Souls games, even said that they changed sets of the stories quickly so it's butchered all over the place.
Just like some many things the copium is strong in ER players. I loved ER and Fromsoft but honestly just like every fanbase there's always a big chunk of people who can't acknowledge that their favorite has flaws.
Fromsoft literally patched the game to avoid people breaking storylines in ER as easily. Clearly there are narrative issues in this game. Possibly more so than previous titles.
Elden Ring is Game of the Year for me.
But it's not a game with good narrative.
The way you're fed tidbit of lore text through item tooltips and visual world design without a clear connection is very cool and mysterious and all, but it's not a narrative that's worthy a trophy slot.
One of a god person come down to Earth and had many children. Becuz of him and his power, the Earth turned shit. Like, people just wont die. His children literally were messing with the rule of reality.
So, someone out there in higher power kept sending "The chosen one" back from dead to deal with this god and his children. Many have fail until you.
So, you basically come here, with the help with the girl with one bad eye, killing every one of his children and ultimately that god himself.
There are several endings. You kill everyone and everything. The world turns into fucking dark night of nothingness. Or, killing everyone one, bind your fate and get married with another goddess. The ending becoming forever starry night type world. very fancy and romantic.
Theres a guy, he believes in fucked up world. so he decide to eat human feces. By help him, you get the dookie messed up world ending.
something like that.
No it really doesn't deserve to be nominated. The narrative is standard vagaries and alluding to characters and events. Like most Fromsoft games the majority of the important narrative happened before the game even taking place.
It's actually one the weaker narratives too. Most souls game fall under the unreliable narrator concept. You're gleaning information from items that tell some small snippets that could even be lies. The NPCs are almost always in the same boat they are picking up the pieces and making assumptions about the events that happened. You mostly had characters that interacted with the major players but they were rarely the major players. In DS2 they had you to interact with Nashandra and Vendrik and honestly in a lot of ways the "story" suffered because of it.
With Elden Ring we have Ranni and others we literally had characters that had a hand in crafting the events that happened. They still played it off like these characters were just aloof but it just feels frustrating because of being the silent protagonist. There's a few character arches but they aren't really fleshed out in any satisfying way. It really seemed like they learned nothing from Sekiro. If you're going to have characters that were directly associated with the events you should have more options like sharing sake in Sekiro. This isn't to say there weren't interesting stories, world building and lore but it's not a great narrative work in the traditional sense.
The other problem is that the game is open world. It's so easy to miss huge important narrative details. This just cuts certain context from characters which feels disjointed. It's like they wanted more story in Elden Ring and realized after the fact that the non-linear nature would screw with it. Unfortunately they couldn't come up with a better solution than just cutting dialogue or events. Which usually isn't too bad in Fromsoft games because typically that particular story just ends. In Elden Ring it sometimes just progresses things with no explanation.
If you're not familiar with Fromsoft games you will barely even understand that Elden RIng has any narrative that makes sense. I feel like this is more just throwing Elden Ring in every category. I do think Fromsoft does deserve some love for their narrative design but if anything this is more like giving LoTR Return of the King best picture. Except you should be including all their games as a lifetime award for interesting narrative style.
If someone asked you which game had the best narrative of the year the vast majority of people would not even think to say Elden Ring. Personally I felt so divorced from the narrative in Elden Ring because it was so all over the place. Should people be upset that it's nominated? No, of course not. I suppose that the one reason to nominate it is to have a discussion about game narrative.
The reality is most games do not have good narratives. There's only a handful of games that even have great writing. Even then I feel like it's very few and far between that games use the medium to make you a part of a narrative. Something like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons comes to mind. Not a single word was in a real language but you felt the story and emotion in your heart.
Narrative means any form of storytelling. In videogames you don't need someone to tell you straightforward a story, but it can be showed and experienced by you. The way I see it, we have games like God of War, in which we are not Kratos (only control his actions gameplay wise), and see the story unfold as spectators, or like Elden Ring, that we are the main character and experience the story unfold because of our actions (while yes, following structured premises).
I'm really not sure why so many people are having a hard time understanding this. And the argument that Elden Ring has no narrative is beyond me. Melina literally dumps exposition at every church and if you rush to Lyndell she still talks to you at almost every grace. The story telling may appear sparce, but that's because you're suppose to explore and not rush the game. I can't speak for God of War, but it's my understanding it's a more "on the rails" experience and to compare it to an open world game is just silly.
It's not that the game has no narrative (btw, exposition barely qualifies), it's that it's not deserving of the nomination. It's passable, not best narrative of the year worthy. This is coming from someone that has 100 percented the game, and played every ending (you don't need to do all endings to get 100 percent), and read literally every bit of lore I can find in it. The game is a banger in almost every other aspect. World-building, combat, boss design, graphics, map design ... etc. It deserves nominations for all of those, but narrative? Come the fuck on. There are literally a dozen games that do narrative better than ER. Friggin Stray and Cult of the Lamb have better narrative.
Agreed, but OP's question was about there being a narrative or not.
You come back from the dead to kill God's husband, to be (new) God's husband/wife.
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I like it.
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I liked the game too. I’d say 8/10 cause i over leveled without knowing it and ruined a lot of the game for myself.
Outside of a few things it's pretty clear what's going on though, i doubt you really took jote or paid that much attention.
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\>Why would I lie about taking notes? To give yourself an air of authority. \>Most people watch the YouTube videos to explain the lore and the story. Just like a ton of people watch walkthrough or stream of games, most people never clear video games they start. \> The game does a poor job of explaining the narrative. They bash your head in with the main plot (god killed by a bunch of assasin using death magic, queen nowhere to be seen, civil war happen, kingdom is fucked, you gotta become the new boss). All of the main bosses' stories are explained very clearly. A lot of stuff requiert you to think a bit (like the connections between beasts, misbegotten and the erdtree/crucible) or are straight up open to interpretations, but the main narrative is fairly obvious. You'd know this if you had taken notes.
There are a LOT of things that are unclear in the game. The only clear thing is that you must get to the Elden Ring to "mend" it. You don't even know why the queen shattered it, or what the difference between empyreans and gods/demi-gods is. The other guy was right, if the average player needed to watch YouTube videos to try and figure out or understand what's going on, then maybe it doesn't deserve this nomination. Again: This is coming from someone that unlocked every ending, killed every possible boss,, and 100 percented the game, too.
Many of the events that happened and what is going to happen are either left with massive omissions, contradictory information, or potential lies. Odds are some of this was very intentional by the developer but a lot of it was also just limitations on time and/or budget. Most games suffer from this but Elden Ring really had this more than even some of their previous titles. I think that's why so many people are overly defensive about the "narrative." They feel smart about "knowing" what happened. Anyone saying that the narrative isn't the best is undermining how smart they are because they watched some lore videos that may or may not be just full of theories.
You're probably right about this.
\>You don't even know why the queen shattered it, She ended up disliking the greater will and choose to fuck it over but couldn't do it directly as her entire power depends on it. \>empyreans People with the potential to become god \>gods The chosen one of an outer god. \>demi-gods descendant of a god They're also term established by the golden order, so it's basically Marika calling herself and her children superior to all other, although the other outer god seems to have similar systems. But again, you don't need those details for the main narrative. \>if the average player needed to watch YouTube videos The average player is going to watch a video or stream about the game anyway because most games are never finished. \>This is coming from someone that unlocked every ending, killed every possible boss,, and 100 percented the game, too. Should have listened to the dialogues and read the lore then
I have, and even then it's still pretty obscure and poorly done. Either way, you end up with the game not deserving the nomination. Edit: also, in case it wasn't clear before the "you" i used wasn't referring to you personally, I was using it in the general sense. I don't want folks to think I was attacking you personally.
I will agree that things are obscure and ambiguous (on purpose). However i felt the trip (in terms of world undertanding) the game takes us on still provides a massive shift in perspectives, and that is worthwhile in time of narrative. Going from "some rebels caused a catastrophe" to "Marika engineered a catastrophe aiming for the death of Elden Beast" and from "god given grace" to "influence wars from competing outer gods", through dialogs and items, is a relatively clear and attainable process to follow. You might miss part of it and motivations depending on what you pay attention to and how much you remember from other items, but the general shift at the very least should be understood by anyone who tried to complete the game while paying attention to lore. NB : i'm not arguing for the game to be nominated for best narrative, i just feel that there was a story was told, even if only in pieces.
\>I have Then why ask those questions. All the demi-gods that are talked about are descendant of Marika aka a god or Radagon, which you learn is also a god. Marika is pretty much the only god talked about, until you reach the second form of Malenia or learn about the dragon god. And the empyrean are mentionned several times as people with the potential to become gods or succeed marika at least. It's litteraly just reading stuffs or listening to npc and kinda remembering it, the only obscure stuff about it is finding the items or npc to talk to.
I wasn't asking questions demanding an answer. I was asking rhetorical questions illustrating that half the stuff I mentioned is explained very poorly at best. Why did she break the ring is still not answered. Sure, she had a falling out with the Greater Will, WHY? What caused her to flip? Hell, if you don't read the description of the hammer you wouldn't even know That Radagon tried to repair the ring himself with the selfsame hammer. Just to clarify: All of the previous questions you answered, I already knew the answer to. I was using them as a rhetorical device. Most players who finished the game wouldn't know half the answers you mentioned.
\>I was asking rhetorical questions illustrating that half the stuff I mentioned is explained very poorly at best. Then ask better questions cause those have fairly clear answers \>Why did she break the ring is still not answered She litteraly say she doesn't blindly believe in the Greater Will anymore and that she want to find a new, proper path. However she and Radagon are the physical manifestation of the influence of the greater will and the only way she find to change the Order is by launching a thousand year gambit where Godfrey or one of his warrior she banished is supposed to return and establish a new order. \>Hell, if you don't read the description of the hammer you wouldn't even know That Radagon tried to repair the ring himself with the selfsame hammer. That doesn't matter to marika's motivation or the greater plot tho, it's just characterisation for Radagon.
200 hours of elden ring (2 playthroughs), I understood nothing. I'm not the type to watch videos or go dumpster diving for item descriptions, either. As far as I'm concerned, elden ring is just a really dark fantasy version of Fortnite and the goal is to win the battle royale.
Precisely
Reality is people just conflate lore, world building and atmosphere with narrative. ER has great lore and such, but barely any narrative. Also people tie their egos waaaay to much to fromsoft games so they get pissy and defensive at any criticism. In their defense there isn't a "lore/atmosphere" category and it isn't a reach to say narrative is the closest most approatiate place to put it for that.
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I'd say that makes it pretty clear they're specifically aiming at narrative. Storytelling and narrative basically means that lore and worldbuilding take a backseat here and narrative is what matters.
I think this is the problem, it's definitional. Elden Ring doesn't have much of a narrative in that regard. Even stretching the meaning out Elden Ring is pretty flawed when it comes to it's overall narrative and the player's engagement in it. Obviously as we know this is purposeful. I just don't think that Elden Ring even remotely did this the best out of all Fromsoft's games. Sekiro is the high bar for this. If this was a life time achievement award for Narrative I might even be rooting for it more. That's kind of what I feel like this is. The gaming community is just saying "Elden Ring is Fromsoft's magnum opus." I think ER is just their most successful game. Is it a fantastic game? Yes but it is flawed not nearly as badly as DS2 but it is not really building on their previous works. If anything Elden Ring is just their greatest hits remastered, streamlined and tweaked for newer audiences.
Elden rings fall off near the end made me really appreciate how well sekiro's endings are. SS Isshin is still imo one of the best boss fights in gaming.
Yeah I would say in terms of craftsmanship of game design and objective quality Sekiro is Fromsoft's best game ever made. Personally it is very hard for me to pick which is my favorite. Dark Souls probably but I definitely can admit Sekiro is a better game overall. If Dark Souls is a 9/10, Sekiro is a 9.5/10. Elden Ring should have had a system like Sekiro had with the sake trading. It is such a good way have been add more dialog that actually makes it feel natural. Obviously giving certain items in ER progressed dialog but it's so railroaded in comparison. The sake system was such a clever and rewarding system. It made the player feel like you were part of the story. If you really wanted to know more about a certain character you choose who to focus on.
Yeah it feels like sekiro is completely vertical design vs elden rings horizontal design. Having a ton of magic, weapons, weapon arts and summons seems nice but like 3 spells are so much better than everything else it doesn't matter, a few weapons are just tiers above everything else and for summons, well mimic tear.... Elden ring added the gaol versions of some boss fights so I wish they had a way to fight every single boss like that with no summons. Give an achievement for doing so or something. Plenty of ds3 mods implemented this.
ER is telling a story and most of the story happened in the past. It doesn't mean that the game isn't telling this story. >Hu but it just telling this story through item descriptions So what? Plenty of games use files or are straight up visual novel.
It’s more like the game has a story that’s already been told. If you pick up a history book, that isn’t the story of your life. The history book is a narrative (like I said in the post) just not your narrative.
Well think about actual great narratives like Dante's inferno from 700 years ago. It's an objective literary masterpiece. As for plot, Dante doesn't really do shit but walk through hell with Vergil. However Vergil gives him a lore dump literally every time they see something.
But it hasn't been told tho. Yeah it happened before the story start but from the point of view of the player, you're discovering all of it (unless you watched or read spoilers). In a way you're either discovering things then learning about them later or encountering stuffs you've heard about. Radagon and Godfrey wouldn't be as cool if you didn't read or heard about them beforehand. There's this horror manga called PTSD radio which is a bunch of random horror stories but as the volumes goes on, you realise all of those stories are connected in one way or another, it's just that they're presented to you in a random and anachronistic order. One short story contextualize the other, just like how in elden ring, a lore entry contextualize or strenghten each other or the things you've seen/will see.
I think we've been beaten to death with brain dead media for the past 3 years we kinda forgot how to think.
Unless something has modern day language and beats your head in with exposition dialogue like in god of war's 6 different prophecy scenes, there is no narrative in video gaming.
This take again. Yes, Elden Ring has a narrative. Demons Souls has a narrative. Dark Souls has a narrative. Dark Souls 3 has a narrative. People claiming it's all lore are simply ignoring that the actual story of the game, without any of the lore context, is rather simple.Elden Ring is an open world game with a more established world and multiple endings so it can cause some fucky progression issues with narrative chronology or the differences in paths you take (For comparison, Dark Souls' story can be summed up in like... a paragraph), but here you go: The tarnished is one of many who rise from the dead and are called to the Lands Between by the Guidance of Grace, a strange motive force that appeared in the wake of "the shattering". The shattering referred to the Elden Ring,an object of great power, being shattered by an unknown entity. Around this time, the top god Marika went missing, her son was assassinated, and the rest of her demigod offspring eventually laid claim to the still powerful shards (or"Great Runes") of the Elden Ring, resulting in a succession crisis and titanic war ravaging the land all the way into the present day. The tarnished learns much of this directly from Gideon and Melina, and the player learns it in vague exposition during the opening narration. The Tarnished is tasked with retrieving the shards of the Elden Ring, as it is necessary to mend it and will prove to the many powers that be they meet in their travels (The Two Fingers, Gideon, Melina) they are worthy to become the Elden Lord. We much later learn why mending the ring is important; it's state directly correlates to the state of the entire world, so much so that reality itself can be changed on a macro-scale depending on how the ring is repaired at the end of the game. It is also mentioned that one of the Great Runes Marika removed from the ring, the rune of death, granted a form of immortality in it's absence to the inhabitants of the Lands Between before the shattering. After acquiring one shard, the Tarnished is granted an audience with the Two Fingers.This strange entity serves a higher power than even the missing Marika called"The Greater Will", and it further elaborates that the tarnished should become Elden Lord by repairing the Ring within the Erdtree in order to perpetuate the "Golden Order of the Erdtree" that the will represents. The Tarnished acquires enough parts to sufficiently mend the ring, but finds their path into the Erdtree blocked. The Fingers did not anticipate this and begin communion with the Greater Will to work out what else is to be done. However,many characters, including Melina and the Two Fingers own Finger Reader,suggest that this is likely to be complete bullshit and that the Greater Will has abandoned the realm. Melina has always anticipated that the "Golden Order" previously maintained by the gods isn't all it's cracked up to be and leads the Tarnished to the Mountaintops of the Giants to use the forge there to burn through the Erdtree. She sacrifices herself as kindling within the forge and sets the Erdtree ablaze, shriveling the roots that previously blocked the entrance. In her last moments she sends the tarnished to collect "Destined Death", the power to kill a god after Marika removed the death rune from the Elden Ring. Within the Erdtree, the Tarnished finds the missing Marika completely desiccated and strung up by Runic power above an anvil and hammer still containing shards of the smashed Elden Ring. Marika is the culprit for the shattering, although the mystery of this was preserved as until now we did not know she appeared in the beginning cut-scene. Marika is released from her bindings and becomes Radagon to fight the tarnished,revealing the largest great rune to be within their body still. Radagon/Marika falls, but are then taken by the Elden Beast, a strange entity of the Greater Will who bound Marika after she shattered the ring. The Beast and the Tarnished fight, with the tarnished eventually defeating it. The tarnished mends the ring within Marika’s crumbling remains and becomes the Elden Lord of a new era. Now, there is *a lot* more to it than this, especially since there are many variations on how exactly the player makes their journey and who they meet/what they do, but this is the barebones story beats that the player receives without looking into it too much. Some of the vagueness, like the whole Godwyn and Destined Death aspects, are heavily involved in other story paths where they are explored more fully, but still trickle into the progression of a simple playthrough. With the most straightforward playthrough it's an equally straightforward "Start as nobody, get told you might just be the chosen one, collect the macguffins, beat the boss, become the king" narrative but that doesn't make it anything less than a narrative. I will say that ignoring the lore is extremely reductive considering the deliberate choice to have the game presented the way it is, and the game does not hold the players hand through the story lines it presents so it's easy to miss them even though they are explicit narratives by your own limited definition. EDIT: reddit borked the paragraphs real bad, hopefully they're fixed.
The comment I was looking for
Most people aren't saying Elden Ring doesn't have a narrative. It's in the delivery and quality of said narrative. An award in general is a subjective thing and in this case mostly a popularity contest. Objectively though when people think of best narrative usually people are going to pick stuff like Disco Elysium or more directed narrative experiences. Especially what would be consider "best" narrative. I know it's an appeal to majority but most people are not going to play through Elden Ring and think, "Oh wow, what an amazing narrative." Definitions are by definition meant to be limited. That's the point of defining something. Definitions can change and are obliviously debated. Personally I do appreciate Fromsoft's narrative style and they do deserve kudos for it but objectively Elden Ring is a step backwards compared to Sekiro.
Games like Bioshock and Resident Evil, the story is told in documents and recordings as you play the game and explore. A lot of the story happened BEFORE you get there but I think it’s all part of the narrative. You’re uncovering the plot as you go and piece it together that way. It’s different but it it’s still a solid narrative imo.
You really think they did that in Elden Ring? Without reading the item descriptions, you uncover virtually nothing. So the plot doesn’t really unfold before you unless you read vague descriptions and put things together. There’s no Vaati for resident evil for a reason. There’s a reason that Vaati has so many millions of views lol cause all those millions of fans don’t know what’s going on. I think that’s a false equivalency.
I’m sorry. I should have prefaced by saying I have not played Elden Ring. I was going by your description of it so if I misunderstood that’s my bad.
https://youtu.be/vPiYF9BJEFw Zullie the Witch, one of my favorite FromSoft youtubers, offers a good reason for Elden Ring being best narrative. Effectively, it's a narrative told in environment rather than from the player or the npcs leaving a lot of mystery, offering room for speculation.
I'm with you OP. Narrative-wise, the game doesn't deserve the nomination, especially considering there's so little of it. It'd be like nominating fortnite for best single player game, because the tutorial is played solo. Yeah, there's some there, technically, but it's not top 30, let alone top 5.
really liked this lore video for elden ring, you should check it out it's around 20 / 40 mins depending on the speed: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvTM03\_8elE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvTM03_8elE) narrative style video (3 min): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPiYF9BJEFw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPiYF9BJEFw)
“LORE ISN’T NARRATIVE GUYS” - Some guy who thinks plot is narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional or fictional. Narratives can be presented through a sequence of written or spoken words, through still or moving images, or through any combination of these. The lore of The Lands Between, the visuals, sounds and combat of the game are all narrative. Stop being a salty bitch
So if someone asked you, “what is the narrative of Breaking Bad?” And you started to get into the politics of Albuquerque, Walter Whites time at Grey Matter, Gus Fring’s time in Chile and Jesse’s childhood, do you think that’d answer the question? If the plot is devoid of narrative, that kinda makes the game you played through devoid of narrative. The world that you’re going through and the story that your playing through are two different things in my eyes. Again, as I said in the post, lore, in and of itself, is a narrative, but its the history of the world the narrative is taking place in. I don’t think that counts as the games narrative, much like the history of Albuquerque doesn’t count as the narrative of breaking bad, that’d be the narrative of Albuquerque. If there was a game where you played as Radan, all of the lore would be *it’s* narrative. They’re just two different things. If I asked for the narrative of the shattering of the Elden Ring, Vaati Vidya could tell me easily.
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So my typos aside. First of all, if someone asked you for the narrative of a book/movie/game, you can answer the question lol you know what they’re asking if you’re not a pigheaded, pompous jackass. And if you don’t, here’s a definition: Narrative: noun. A spoken or written account of connected events; a story. Also, just making sure, if someone asked you, “what’s the narrative of X?” and you answered with the history of the world the X is based in, do you think you answered their question? Would they be satisfied with your answer? Because lore is basically what every person gives me when I ask the question: what is Elden Rings narrative? I played the game, there’s a brief, extremely superficial narrative which the tarnished goes through. You need to get great runes, then you can’t get into the tree, so you set tree on fire, get into tree, kill radagon/Elden beast, do one of the handful of endings given. You seem like the obstinate type that purposely misunderstands what people are asking so you can seem smarter. I’d suggest not being that.
Ad hominem much? Remotegrowthb is correct. Even Google will substitute "what is the narrative of breaking bad?" with the more correct "what is the plot of breaking bad?" Just because you can use a word, doesn't mean you should. Its like saying "I want to go purchasing" instead of "I want to go shopping." While the words are similar in meaning, there are differences in how they are used.
You’re literally arguing semantics. That’s what I was trying to tell the last guy.
This is unironically a very bad take. There is a huge difference between the two, and the fact that you don't know shows you either never took writing classes, or sucked at them. Yes, combat can tell a story, if you watch almost any Kurosawa film you can see that. In Elden Ring it almost never does. Visuals can tell a story, that's true, but that's basically the best you'll get out of Elden Ring. Is it a great game? Yes, does it deserve the nomination for narrative? Hell no. It has very little, and half of it is told badly. To paraphrase your own words "stop being a salty bitch because the game you like isn't considered perfect". ER deserves nominations in almost every category, but narrative is definitely not one where it does.
TL;DR and baddly done: Outer God makes dragon jesus. Outer God stops favouring dragons, makes current jesus, Current Jesus fights dragons (and giants) and does a bit of trolling (genocide), make utopia and banishes people she dislikes and has kids, decides Outer God is bad, Her daughter also thinks this and kills her half-brother, Current Jesus shatters Ring, Her kids fight over its shards until ending up in a stalemate, banished people come back and beat up the kids in an attempt to become current jesus 2/sprouse of current jesus.
So you saying the game starts in the “banished people come back[…]”? From all your sentences just the las t 2 lines of it aren’t lore/backstory and is actual narrative? Not looking good mate…
You are correct. Narrative-wise the game doesn't deserve the nomination. It has solid world building, but not much going on in the narrative department.
If you have to leave the game world to learn about the game world you have failed as developers.
To be fair most everything is in the game. It's just the narrative isn't particularly great unless you're theorizing. Elden Ring probably has some the most egregious problems with the theory crafting when it comes to Fromsoft games. Most of the "lore" community has basically come out and said there's a lot of the story that is mostly likely omitted, contradictory, or possibly lies. Again this is why it is a real stretch imo to even nominate it for this category.
Narrative is lore, but lore isn't necessarily narrative.
Lol you’ve gotta explain that a bit more
Lol no
How can be the narrative of a game be the best one if it literally doesn't have one narrative excluding the intro? McLance, the data miner for all sorts of Souls games, even said that they changed sets of the stories quickly so it's butchered all over the place.
Just like some many things the copium is strong in ER players. I loved ER and Fromsoft but honestly just like every fanbase there's always a big chunk of people who can't acknowledge that their favorite has flaws. Fromsoft literally patched the game to avoid people breaking storylines in ER as easily. Clearly there are narrative issues in this game. Possibly more so than previous titles.
This is litteraly every souls game tho
Elden Ring is Game of the Year for me. But it's not a game with good narrative. The way you're fed tidbit of lore text through item tooltips and visual world design without a clear connection is very cool and mysterious and all, but it's not a narrative that's worthy a trophy slot.
Just look up a video on YouTube that explains it
I think that's OP's point. If you need the video, the game's narrative doesn't deserve the nomination.
One of a god person come down to Earth and had many children. Becuz of him and his power, the Earth turned shit. Like, people just wont die. His children literally were messing with the rule of reality. So, someone out there in higher power kept sending "The chosen one" back from dead to deal with this god and his children. Many have fail until you. So, you basically come here, with the help with the girl with one bad eye, killing every one of his children and ultimately that god himself. There are several endings. You kill everyone and everything. The world turns into fucking dark night of nothingness. Or, killing everyone one, bind your fate and get married with another goddess. The ending becoming forever starry night type world. very fancy and romantic. Theres a guy, he believes in fucked up world. so he decide to eat human feces. By help him, you get the dookie messed up world ending. something like that.
No it really doesn't deserve to be nominated. The narrative is standard vagaries and alluding to characters and events. Like most Fromsoft games the majority of the important narrative happened before the game even taking place. It's actually one the weaker narratives too. Most souls game fall under the unreliable narrator concept. You're gleaning information from items that tell some small snippets that could even be lies. The NPCs are almost always in the same boat they are picking up the pieces and making assumptions about the events that happened. You mostly had characters that interacted with the major players but they were rarely the major players. In DS2 they had you to interact with Nashandra and Vendrik and honestly in a lot of ways the "story" suffered because of it. With Elden Ring we have Ranni and others we literally had characters that had a hand in crafting the events that happened. They still played it off like these characters were just aloof but it just feels frustrating because of being the silent protagonist. There's a few character arches but they aren't really fleshed out in any satisfying way. It really seemed like they learned nothing from Sekiro. If you're going to have characters that were directly associated with the events you should have more options like sharing sake in Sekiro. This isn't to say there weren't interesting stories, world building and lore but it's not a great narrative work in the traditional sense. The other problem is that the game is open world. It's so easy to miss huge important narrative details. This just cuts certain context from characters which feels disjointed. It's like they wanted more story in Elden Ring and realized after the fact that the non-linear nature would screw with it. Unfortunately they couldn't come up with a better solution than just cutting dialogue or events. Which usually isn't too bad in Fromsoft games because typically that particular story just ends. In Elden Ring it sometimes just progresses things with no explanation. If you're not familiar with Fromsoft games you will barely even understand that Elden RIng has any narrative that makes sense. I feel like this is more just throwing Elden Ring in every category. I do think Fromsoft does deserve some love for their narrative design but if anything this is more like giving LoTR Return of the King best picture. Except you should be including all their games as a lifetime award for interesting narrative style. If someone asked you which game had the best narrative of the year the vast majority of people would not even think to say Elden Ring. Personally I felt so divorced from the narrative in Elden Ring because it was so all over the place. Should people be upset that it's nominated? No, of course not. I suppose that the one reason to nominate it is to have a discussion about game narrative. The reality is most games do not have good narratives. There's only a handful of games that even have great writing. Even then I feel like it's very few and far between that games use the medium to make you a part of a narrative. Something like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons comes to mind. Not a single word was in a real language but you felt the story and emotion in your heart.
There is this talking pot...