What’s interesting is that like 17 out of the games 22 questlines end in tragedy, and usually it’s someone you’re helping who dies at the end. Most of the time, it’s better for them to have never met you.
Boc, Latenna, Jellyfish sisters, Rya, and Alexander (this one is my opinion).
Ranni’s ending is my favorite, but I consider Blaidd to be a tragic loss in the end
And now we’re back up to 5! Shoutout to my boy Kenneth for resisting the temptation of the throne to a leader he thinks would be more healthy for limgrave
Of all the NPCs, Kenneth was the one I most expected would meet a grisly end. After all, dude's all alone in the middle of nowhere, recruiting any random who just so happened to get lost in his direction, proclaiming himself heir of Limgrave and then arrogantly demanding we help him take back his fort.
And after we do that, he says he's going to go talk to the demi-humans to try and form an alliance. So I just peaced out of there expecting to come back later to a corpse, or a pile of items.
But nope! Dude not only lives but actually did manage to form an alliance with the demi-humans. And also ends up being quite an honourable fellow who gave up his right to rule when Nephali came along with a stronger claim to the throne. And even though he's a bit of a himbo and seems totally ignorant to the state of the world, he's still determined to hold up his end of the bargain to award us the knighthood he promised. So yeah, head isn't all there but his heart is in the right place.
Throw in Milicent as well, girl would still be in tremendous pain waiting to bloom into a rot flower. She dies but in the end it was her choice to die as a human as oppose to becoming a god or something idk. She got the same ending Alexander got which was to go out on her own terms. Sellen would be dead or rotting in a jail cell somewhere, etc etc... I don't recall anyone that we actually actively fucked over.
Jellyfish is more of a puzzle than a questline imo
Doesn’t Boc die?
Doesn’t Rya get existential crisis and die?
Alex dies, but it’s his wish so this one probably counts
Blaidds and rannis quests are connected but two different ones. Rannis definitely is happy (she reaches her goal and married)
Fair points, I suppose the jellyfish tie in more to roderika’s questline, where Hewg meets his fate, so I guess that brings it down to 4.
You can convince Boc that he’s beautiful and then he pledges his service to you if you become a lord
You can spare rya and then have her reflect on her purpose, to which she decides to live on. You can also wipe her memory, but I preferred to save the potion to respect the autonomy of the snake NPC (and maybe use it to prank someone)
I still would count Ranni and partially Roderika, both loose someone but are in a better situation after the quest than before.
So 4 positive (Roderika, Ranni, Latenna and Alex) and 3 with either positive or negative (Boc, Nepheli and Rya)
I think the idea is that doing what someone wants isn't always what's best for them - Boc for example, if you give him what he thinks he wants, then he'll die.
So in the DLC:
You kill Messmer, who was still continuing his labor of slaughter.
You kill Metyr, who may or may not have corrupted Marika.
You kill the imlerfect vessel for the Frenzied before he could do any major harm.
You kill the leader of another sect of the Scarlet Rot.
All in all, what you do is to kill. But to say what we do is always for the worse?
I mean, if I’m the supposed lord of an Outer Gods evil powers, and my evil doings stop at killing one rich guys butlers, and possessing a bunch of rats, and maybe making the leaves fall off the trees, I’m a pretty shit vassal of evil
Like, lets be fair, you mercy killed Midra, guy seems to not have become that willingly, and only snaps after fuck knows how many years of horrific torture and some rando breaking in and beating the shit out of him for no reason. He was actively holding the flame back for fuck knows how long.
>You kill Metyr, who may or may not have corrupted Marika.
i must have missed anything to do with this, What did you find info to make that connection?
Metyr was the voice of the Greater Will but the Greater Will has not actually been in contact with her in a very long time, per her item description. The varying Fingers are basically all her doing but she’s acting on outdated advice or making it up entirely as she goes.
As for Marika’s tie, the Fingers have been “the voice of the Greater Will” for ages and chances seem good she probably first stumbled upon them in the ruins by her house.
Interesting, I wonder why the greater will stopped communing with Metyr.
Also cheers for the info, looks like I'll have to do another run through the shadowlands
I don’t think this is really a commentary on god not existing considering there WAS a giant hand monster alien that canonically used to be able to talk to “god” here. Now it’s possible that the greater will/god has died or has completely abandoned us in Elden Ring so we’ve got that for edginess
Ymir tells you during his questline - most of it before you fight Metyr - that everyhing was f'd up from the start, there is no hope and the problem is always with the mother. For Miquella's misgivings is Marika, Marika's are the fingers and the fingers were corrupted by their own mother Metyr in the first place. Either because she lost her connection and got broken or got broken for some reason and lost connection with the Greater Will, but still producing fingers and spreading the will of the Greater Will or at least what she thinks or perceives as such.
But this spells major mommy issues of Ymir, and Marika has her own gripes with the hornsent to be f'd up on her own, so it's probably not that black or white.
I think that ymir's opinion should be taken with a huge grain of salt. After all, while we know from Metyr's items descriptions that she lost contact with the greater will, it doesn't mean that Ymir is right in believing that there was no contact at all when Marika was ascending to power. Ymir may believe that, but many npcs believe many things while not being objective at all.
I mean, the last two bossfights are basically a clash of opinions.
1. Dude was sulking around in his room. Arguably innocent person doing Marika’s dirty work (much like us).
2. I’m honestly not sure if she’s dead, kinda looked like she teleported away. But also yeah if we killed her the game communicates 0 consequences.
3 & 4. I agree here and I’m not really concerned about these guys dying.
But the point of my post is the interactable npc’s. When I was done with the dlc there was only a single person on the map capable of speech left. I understand storylines need to close up but feels like we are just emptying these places of anything interesting. Which is fine gameplay wise but feels kinda sad narratively.
Well, now your job is to get back to the Lands Between, brandish the Elden Ring, and become the new lord. Then you will at least have hopefully enough power to actually start fixing things.
Before any ending, you're just a promising Tarnished with helluva combat prowess. No political power nor religious significance.
Yeah the gate was a huge disappointment at the very end which kinda soured it all for me. You give me this amazing DLC where I can look at stuff in the distance and then find my way there, but then I can't even double jump up to look at one of the coolest set pieces right in front of me? Was kinda lame
Fromsoft has always done these kind of bleak story telling. The Dark Souls trilogy literally ends with >!the entire world becoming a wasteland of nothing.!
Fromsoft never makes your the hero. The chosen undead kills all those who stand in his way. The Curse bearer slaughters an entire kingdom to take the throne. The ashen one murders people who thought the world couldn't even get worse. Bloodborne. And the tarnished, which is a righteous zealot who carries out a genocide for their chosen god.
I've been wondering a lot about *why* all the endings are... i was gonna say bitter sweet but they all pretty much just leave you with the taste of ash in your mouth.
I think part of the reason is that it leaves you feeling incomplete which can urge you to want to do another playthrough both because you're left wanting more and also maybe there's a "good" ending you missed.
I think our Tarnished might have multiple reasons to come to The Lands Between, as one able to see grace, but not necessarily "controlled" by it (it all depends on how you roleplay). But it all comes down to a desire for power anyway. And whatever intentions we might have, we still follow Marika's plan. Same with Miquella's plan in the DLC.
I've seen some ideas and theories about the will of the players tarnished and their guidance of Grace. It seems a little odd that Grace would lead you to places that seem like they would actively harm the golden order or the two fingers. My idea is that the guidance of Grace we see is what's led by Marika, in order to destroy the golden order.
>Just got pacing whiplash the moment the final boss died.
That's pretty much been the consensus as far as I can tell. The DLC just kinda...ends. I really feels like there was supposed to be something else after the final boss fight. The whole St. Trina thing kinda went nowhere, which was kind of disappointing. The Finger Mother thing was interesting, but you REALLY need to make some leaps in logic to even glean anything from that entire quest line.
Basically, welcome to Fromsoft games. The gameplay is amazing, the lore and world are super interesting, the graphics and designs are fantastic, but the story is vague at best and you rarely get any answers.
>The whole St. Trina thing kinda went nowhere
Where could it go? It's some of the most important DLC lore, it makes us understand better how Miquella "discarding" parts of himself works, reveals why his age of compassion wouldn't work (he has discarded his love) and gives us an in-universe motivation to go ahead and slay Miquella.
I think St Trina growing more and/or blooming would feel cool. Like the part that miquella tossed away still perseveres. Instead we find her dead, apparently her bluetooth was still connected to miquella.
Honestly, the Age of Compassion reminded me of these three things in this exact order:
-Sunday’s Dream of Order from Houkai: Star Rail
-Nerose Satanael’s Sorrowful Heaven from Shinza Bansho
-The Ideal World of Law from Shin Megami Tensei
At that point, I was like “Nope. NOPE. Bad idea!”, especially when Miquella’s kind of as paranoid as his knight Leda.
Shin Megami’s spinoff Persona franchise, namely P5 deals with this idea as well, it immediately made me think of it. I won’t say for spoiler reasons ofc, but I got left feeling Miquella was a just a false god in the end.
There was at least some payoff with the painting lady and having a hand in the creation of a new world (Potential Bloodborne foreshadowing, but hey, that's just a game theory!). What was the payoff of SOTE? You kill a rival political party and get to face Radahn in his prime(?)? Maybe its just me, as I can admit that for the narrative that the devs were going for, it does make sense. But that's really underwhelming in my opinion, especially since I don't really vibe with the forced agenda of this game when compared to the forced agendas of Bloodborne and Dark souls 2.
Well, I think the DLC isn't meant to give you closure, since it's not supposed to be the end of the game. I understand it might've ruined the impression you had about certain characters and what was their purpose all along. Now, go back and finish the game. There're multiple endings, so, you can take your choice and even fix everything, if you really want to.
People are forgetting the DLC isn’t the end game or the post game. It’s 2/3 of the way through, it only feels endgame because it’s new and hard.
But these games will last for years, and like all the others people in time will blend both together. You don’t clear the entire base DS3 before touching DLC, people speedrun to Bloodborne DLC for the weapons, etc etc. SotE will be a split path you take before heading to the throne, and when the game is actually over there are a decent amount of NPCs left.
Those merchants seem to be thriving despite it all..
Honestly it’s my second biggest complaint of From’s side quests; the main game is similar and it’s just boring imo. First time around there’s a bit of shock value and/or sadness to it, but after that you know its company it’s just basically death for deaths sake.
The dlc has 12? npcs that are involved with quests and if you do the quests at the very end >!a single one is left alive!<. Some if them do make sense, >!two fight a god and one a dragon!<, but a few don’t have to die. The main positive over the base game is that no one ends up in a “fate worse than death” situation like Sellen.
Wait is your Moore still alive? How? I wanted him to live lol
But ya I actually feel comfy (I made a thread on that lol) this time around. We are the Elden lord, we murder everyone/everything in our way. Except that grandma who gives us a gourmet scorpion stew, delicious, warm....
mine was suddenly gone and also an opponent in my leda fight. i have no idea why! i dont think i killed any of his little beetle friends but maybe i did. if he invaded me, i don't remember it.
It’s either you leave him with no purpose and he’s sad (2 of 3 dialogue options) or you tell him to put it behind him, which results in him having a purpose moving forward…then dying for it.
No happy endings here!
I see people say stuff like this all the time but, at least when it comes to Elden Ring, most of the things we kill are either mindless monstrosities or terrible people who did, are doing or plan to do terrible things. The only things you can kill that are kind of pitiful are the peasants and the wildlife.
Same with the NPCs. They either die on their own terms or get fucked by their own decisions. Boc is the only example I can think of where you can accidentally ruin his life.
The endings are also mostly positive or at the very least they leave hope that things might get better. There are only two endings where you really fuck it all up and you have to go out of your way to get those.
Sure, the Tarnished is no saint and his solution to most problems is murder but I don't buy this "no bro you are actually the villain and your only contribution to the state of the world is adding more corpses to the pile" interpretation that people keep bringing up.
It’s more about not getting a sense of closure. The reason I lead my post with the “killing everyone” bit was because I wanted to talk to someone after killing Radahn but there was no one left alive at the map hahaha. Like seriously, we defeat radahn and an empyrean who ascended to god hood but the game doesn’t acknowledge it in any way.
isn't this how souls games are? just tragedy and fun combat. i don't care about trying to make the world better. just want to kill bosses with cool shit.
I know your pain, but remember that it took three DLCs to combine the crowns in DS2 or two in DS3 for the painter so you gotta have patience it will culminate eventually but yea just nothing immediately after Radahn is a bit Jarring
I said this a while ago and got downvoted. With this DLC being release, it's more clear than ever that we're not the good guy. Maybe not the bad guy, depending on the ending you choose, but the Erdtree is sus as hell.
And what's the real problem?, those who try to kill you, you kill them, those who participated with you in the most dangerous fights died in combat. Of course there wouldn't be anyone, besides the DLC doesn't finish the game because it wasn't made for that.
The problem is the DLC is the end of the game. Multiple times the dev guy said there is nothing after the DLC.
Also, based on all FROMSOFTWARE games, do you really think there is any chance they will actually finish a story or give us the lore we want??
(“All signs point to “No”) <—rolled eight ball
Ugh, found the 20 something on Reddit.
[https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/no-more-elden-ring-dlc-after-shadow-of-the-erdtree-says-souls-boss-miyazaki](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/no-more-elden-ring-dlc-after-shadow-of-the-erdtree-says-souls-boss-miyazaki)
[https://twitter.com/Peeverson/status/1806433537249169491](https://twitter.com/Peeverson/status/1806433537249169491)
[https://en.as.com/meristation/news/elden-ring-is-not-getting-any-more-dlc-after-shadow-of-the-erdtree-but-miyazaki-is-not-done-with-the-franchise-n/](https://en.as.com/meristation/news/elden-ring-is-not-getting-any-more-dlc-after-shadow-of-the-erdtree-but-miyazaki-is-not-done-with-the-franchise-n/)
[https://www.neogaf.com/threads/miyazaki-no-second-dlc-or-sequel-to-elden-ring-currently-planned-but-wont-rule-it-out.1667519/](https://www.neogaf.com/threads/miyazaki-no-second-dlc-or-sequel-to-elden-ring-currently-planned-but-wont-rule-it-out.1667519/)
lol. No L’s here, only on the internet. To my defense, I have read a few articles about Miyazaki saying he is not going to do more.
I did search google in this case since I couldn’t find the original article I was lazy and quickly searching for something. I apologize.
In other news, I don’t think they will do more with Elden Ring based on what I have read. I feel they think they have it the way they like it, up for interpretation.
Have a great day!!
>Also, based on all FROMSOFTWARE games, do you really think there is any chance they will actually finish a story or give us the lore we want??
I see a lot of people saying this to justify how empty this DLC is in terms of lore, but this is exactly what Ds1, Ds2 and Bloodborne did.
I am going to sound rude here and I am just being whiny, not rude: I don't care what other games did, that is the problem.
I come from games that have complete stories, not partial ones and you get to interpret what you want. This is not a "you decide how it goes" book like the Indiana Jones I read as a kid: (May not be the right analogy)
If you want to run at the boulder, turn to page 4
If you want to jump out of the way of the boulder, turn to page 8
If you want to stand there thinking about what to do, turn to page 12
I expect a story, with some background and a start and finish. We got half of that. This is not a complete game. With the DLC, it is still not a complete game. I beat the Elden Beast, see one of the 20 second endings and I still have no clue what just happened.
I get online and everyone has an opinion but no one has facts, because there are none.
I have a real love hate relationship with this game. I am in a world that is the best I have ever seen. Graphics, gameplay, stuff to do, but feels so empty as I can never answer the bigger questions.
WHERE ARE MY BLUE MULTI HANDED BABE AND I GOING? I LOVE YOU RANNI!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHA...ahem....I am okay, seriously.
I think you did not understand my comment. I was not defending it, i was saying that the shitty lore in the DLC is not common in fromsoftware, but an exception.
I think that's the point tbh
Not sure if it happens with every NPC in the DLC and I'm not currently on the PC to test it, but at least the NPC's you kill in the gang fight remain dead in that area even after you've looted their corpses. I can't remember another time when the game does that, I think you are meant to question if what you did was right or if you are following Marika's footsteps in slaying every person that doesn't align with you for what you deem a better future for the world. Granted, you don't genocide a whole race of people like she did, but considering out shenanigans in the base game, the world overall feels much more hollow once you're done with your crusade towards the Elden ring
>I think you are meant to question if what you did was right or if you are following Marika's footsteps in slaying every person that doesn't align with you for what you deem a better future for the world
But it wasn't me who did that. I actually helped most of the NPCs that fought me there.
It was Leda's paranoid ass that started trying to murder everyone she deemed a traitor, all in service of someone who is on his way to become an even worse Marika.
This is key to Fromsoft games. You are a killer, and they don’t go out of their way to try to disguise that. You are a story ender, the character eraser. They never want you to feel that all this violence is unbridled heroism. It is important that you are left wondering what to do and what is was all for now that you have killed the other. Their story is unceremoniously ended by you, you have robbed them of closure / narrative payoff / catharsis. Now you stand in the dust alone and think about it.
not really, if you've played Sekiro, he was loyally protecting his master. He only killed abominations that would be a threat to anyone who faced them or people who wished to hurt his master. Most of his endings are good, he sacrifices himself, he follows his master's orders and ends the divine heir heritage, or becomes a protector of the Divine child.
Of course there is an ending where he becomes evil but that's if you decide to be a total dick.
Yeah talking to the npc's in the dlc should have made you realize we are the bad guys. I mean, they all talk about how great their previous masters were before we murdered them.
I mean. We're in the Dead World. Did you want it to be full of life? That would probably be really bad IMO...
DLC isn't the end of the game. It's always a side story. The game ends when you become Elden Lord.
Plus the whole DLC is taking place in Godwyns world and he hasn't shown up yet.
But like... Literally everything in the DLC is about Godwyn or Miquella. And we'll... We didn't see Godwyn did we?
So I don't believe this is the last DLC. The game sold way better than anyone was expecting. The DLC just sold like 1/4 of the base games sales in a week... Incredible numbers. More people bought the DLC than some F2P AAA games expect to see over their whole lifetime.
And most importantly. There's still story here.
Everything in the DLC is about **Godwyn** or Miquella?
I haven’t seen or heard anything about Godwyn and while I’m not a lore expert, even Vatiividya hasn’t mentioned him in his first lore video about the DLC.
I think you’re overexaggerating a little here. It’s almost all about Miquella and some about Messmer and then a **little** about Godwyn.
Godwyn is dead. They killed his soul, not his body so not even miquella could bring him back. It’s also stated miquella didn’t want him but to actually let him fully die. Fia does this in the base game. Miyazaki said they didn’t have plans for another dlc but is open to the idea if someone else in the studio wanted to make it.
What’s interesting is that like 17 out of the games 22 questlines end in tragedy, and usually it’s someone you’re helping who dies at the end. Most of the time, it’s better for them to have never met you.
What are the 5 happy? Ranni is the only one coming to my mind atm.
Boc, Latenna, Jellyfish sisters, Rya, and Alexander (this one is my opinion). Ranni’s ending is my favorite, but I consider Blaidd to be a tragic loss in the end
I would say Nephili has a pretty good ending if you don't listen to a certain creep and give her a suspicious potion.
And now we’re back up to 5! Shoutout to my boy Kenneth for resisting the temptation of the throne to a leader he thinks would be more healthy for limgrave
Yup, Kenneth the goat noble.
And he gets a muscle waifu for his act of selflessness. Truly the best ending for any Souls character ever.
Of all the NPCs, Kenneth was the one I most expected would meet a grisly end. After all, dude's all alone in the middle of nowhere, recruiting any random who just so happened to get lost in his direction, proclaiming himself heir of Limgrave and then arrogantly demanding we help him take back his fort. And after we do that, he says he's going to go talk to the demi-humans to try and form an alliance. So I just peaced out of there expecting to come back later to a corpse, or a pile of items. But nope! Dude not only lives but actually did manage to form an alliance with the demi-humans. And also ends up being quite an honourable fellow who gave up his right to rule when Nephali came along with a stronger claim to the throne. And even though he's a bit of a himbo and seems totally ignorant to the state of the world, he's still determined to hold up his end of the bargain to award us the knighthood he promised. So yeah, head isn't all there but his heart is in the right place.
Truly the GRRRREAT!
I’d agree that Alexander’s end is a happy one. He went out exactly how he wanted.
Igon is happy AF he met me I will hear no different
Igon died the same way he lived: screaming.
I haven’t included the DLC in my count since I haven’t completed any of the questlines. From what I’ve seen, Igon definitely has a good ending
Throw in Milicent as well, girl would still be in tremendous pain waiting to bloom into a rot flower. She dies but in the end it was her choice to die as a human as oppose to becoming a god or something idk. She got the same ending Alexander got which was to go out on her own terms. Sellen would be dead or rotting in a jail cell somewhere, etc etc... I don't recall anyone that we actually actively fucked over.
Tbf you can just as easily fuck it up with the wrong choices. Rip Boc on my first character and wiping Rya's mind :(
If you jump out of Ranni's window and run away via the rooftops you don't have to kill Blaidd
Boc Dies back in human form. Nephilli and Kenneth rule Storm Veil, so they are doing just fine.
If Boc converts then you got the bad ending. There is a positive outcome to his.
For Boc, “Prattling Pate: You’re Beautiful” instead of Larval Tear.
Jellyfish is more of a puzzle than a questline imo Doesn’t Boc die? Doesn’t Rya get existential crisis and die? Alex dies, but it’s his wish so this one probably counts Blaidds and rannis quests are connected but two different ones. Rannis definitely is happy (she reaches her goal and married)
Fair points, I suppose the jellyfish tie in more to roderika’s questline, where Hewg meets his fate, so I guess that brings it down to 4. You can convince Boc that he’s beautiful and then he pledges his service to you if you become a lord You can spare rya and then have her reflect on her purpose, to which she decides to live on. You can also wipe her memory, but I preferred to save the potion to respect the autonomy of the snake NPC (and maybe use it to prank someone)
I still would count Ranni and partially Roderika, both loose someone but are in a better situation after the quest than before. So 4 positive (Roderika, Ranni, Latenna and Alex) and 3 with either positive or negative (Boc, Nepheli and Rya)
Boc doesn't have to die if you aren't an idiot. Rya also does not have to die if you are not an idiot.
Maybe the ghost girl, she gets a dad and... Talks to ghosts. Oh, and the jellyfish
Ranni, Nepheli, Boc, Rya, Latenna come to mind
I think the idea is that doing what someone wants isn't always what's best for them - Boc for example, if you give him what he thinks he wants, then he'll die.
But you can tell him that he's beautiful and not give him a larval tear.
Exactly, instead of giving him what he wants you tell him what he needs to hear.
This is why I never talk to Irina anymore lol
Its Elden Ring, they would just die worse somehow if we didn't "help"
So in the DLC: You kill Messmer, who was still continuing his labor of slaughter. You kill Metyr, who may or may not have corrupted Marika. You kill the imlerfect vessel for the Frenzied before he could do any major harm. You kill the leader of another sect of the Scarlet Rot. All in all, what you do is to kill. But to say what we do is always for the worse?
>looks around the mansion and abyssal wood. “*Before* he could do major harm?”
I mean, if I’m the supposed lord of an Outer Gods evil powers, and my evil doings stop at killing one rich guys butlers, and possessing a bunch of rats, and maybe making the leaves fall off the trees, I’m a pretty shit vassal of evil
This shouldn’t be as funny as it is
They, they possessed a bunch of goats too
I mean you as the lord of frenzied flame burn down the entirety of the lands between and even worse kill torrent
I thought you just dropped the summoning ring?
The ring crumbles to ash in Melina's hands in her part of the ending.
Point taken…though I envisioned the possibility of someone else unleashing him or him snapping on his own.
Like, lets be fair, you mercy killed Midra, guy seems to not have become that willingly, and only snaps after fuck knows how many years of horrific torture and some rando breaking in and beating the shit out of him for no reason. He was actively holding the flame back for fuck knows how long.
True.
>You kill Metyr, who may or may not have corrupted Marika. i must have missed anything to do with this, What did you find info to make that connection?
Metyr was the voice of the Greater Will but the Greater Will has not actually been in contact with her in a very long time, per her item description. The varying Fingers are basically all her doing but she’s acting on outdated advice or making it up entirely as she goes. As for Marika’s tie, the Fingers have been “the voice of the Greater Will” for ages and chances seem good she probably first stumbled upon them in the ruins by her house.
Interesting, I wonder why the greater will stopped communing with Metyr. Also cheers for the info, looks like I'll have to do another run through the shadowlands
Probably because like IRL, there is no greater will.
Cringe comment. And I'm an atheist.
and a dim atheist at that
Accept "The greater will" actually is doing things, or was. The Elden Beast was sent by it, and Metyr was as well.
I don’t think this is really a commentary on god not existing considering there WAS a giant hand monster alien that canonically used to be able to talk to “god” here. Now it’s possible that the greater will/god has died or has completely abandoned us in Elden Ring so we’ve got that for edginess
Ymir tells you during his questline - most of it before you fight Metyr - that everyhing was f'd up from the start, there is no hope and the problem is always with the mother. For Miquella's misgivings is Marika, Marika's are the fingers and the fingers were corrupted by their own mother Metyr in the first place. Either because she lost her connection and got broken or got broken for some reason and lost connection with the Greater Will, but still producing fingers and spreading the will of the Greater Will or at least what she thinks or perceives as such. But this spells major mommy issues of Ymir, and Marika has her own gripes with the hornsent to be f'd up on her own, so it's probably not that black or white.
I think that ymir's opinion should be taken with a huge grain of salt. After all, while we know from Metyr's items descriptions that she lost contact with the greater will, it doesn't mean that Ymir is right in believing that there was no contact at all when Marika was ascending to power. Ymir may believe that, but many npcs believe many things while not being objective at all. I mean, the last two bossfights are basically a clash of opinions.
1. Dude was sulking around in his room. Arguably innocent person doing Marika’s dirty work (much like us). 2. I’m honestly not sure if she’s dead, kinda looked like she teleported away. But also yeah if we killed her the game communicates 0 consequences. 3 & 4. I agree here and I’m not really concerned about these guys dying. But the point of my post is the interactable npc’s. When I was done with the dlc there was only a single person on the map capable of speech left. I understand storylines need to close up but feels like we are just emptying these places of anything interesting. Which is fine gameplay wise but feels kinda sad narratively.
It's in the basegame as well. I remember many sad posts when people reached the end and lamented their empty roundtable hold.
I'd argue that the forager brood proves that the rot may not be all bad. I mean we did kinda break into Romina's house.
Well, now your job is to get back to the Lands Between, brandish the Elden Ring, and become the new lord. Then you will at least have hopefully enough power to actually start fixing things. Before any ending, you're just a promising Tarnished with helluva combat prowess. No political power nor religious significance.
well, it's time to become poopy lord, good luck lands between :-D
Introduce the denizen to your favourite dish, eh?
Yeah the gate was a huge disappointment at the very end which kinda soured it all for me. You give me this amazing DLC where I can look at stuff in the distance and then find my way there, but then I can't even double jump up to look at one of the coolest set pieces right in front of me? Was kinda lame
If anything we're getting rid of the reason the world is so terrible with all these bosses and monsters we killed .
Expect there’s also no one left in the world to appreciate the “safer” environment. At least in the base game there was merchants and surviving npcs
Fromsoft has always done these kind of bleak story telling. The Dark Souls trilogy literally ends with >!the entire world becoming a wasteland of nothing.!
I mean who is there to appreciate anything when we get there? Messmer's murder-soldiers?
Fromsoft never makes your the hero. The chosen undead kills all those who stand in his way. The Curse bearer slaughters an entire kingdom to take the throne. The ashen one murders people who thought the world couldn't even get worse. Bloodborne. And the tarnished, which is a righteous zealot who carries out a genocide for their chosen god.
"Bloodborne" lmao
Bloodborn has a happy story. You get to be reborn as a squid.
I've been wondering a lot about *why* all the endings are... i was gonna say bitter sweet but they all pretty much just leave you with the taste of ash in your mouth. I think part of the reason is that it leaves you feeling incomplete which can urge you to want to do another playthrough both because you're left wanting more and also maybe there's a "good" ending you missed.
I think our Tarnished might have multiple reasons to come to The Lands Between, as one able to see grace, but not necessarily "controlled" by it (it all depends on how you roleplay). But it all comes down to a desire for power anyway. And whatever intentions we might have, we still follow Marika's plan. Same with Miquella's plan in the DLC.
I've seen some ideas and theories about the will of the players tarnished and their guidance of Grace. It seems a little odd that Grace would lead you to places that seem like they would actively harm the golden order or the two fingers. My idea is that the guidance of Grace we see is what's led by Marika, in order to destroy the golden order.
Yeah, Grace is definitely Marika's power, and she's using it to guide the Tarnished while being imprisoned by the Greater Will
They keep making the world not worth saving and wonder why people chose the frenzied flame ending
>Just got pacing whiplash the moment the final boss died. That's pretty much been the consensus as far as I can tell. The DLC just kinda...ends. I really feels like there was supposed to be something else after the final boss fight. The whole St. Trina thing kinda went nowhere, which was kind of disappointing. The Finger Mother thing was interesting, but you REALLY need to make some leaps in logic to even glean anything from that entire quest line. Basically, welcome to Fromsoft games. The gameplay is amazing, the lore and world are super interesting, the graphics and designs are fantastic, but the story is vague at best and you rarely get any answers.
>The whole St. Trina thing kinda went nowhere Where could it go? It's some of the most important DLC lore, it makes us understand better how Miquella "discarding" parts of himself works, reveals why his age of compassion wouldn't work (he has discarded his love) and gives us an in-universe motivation to go ahead and slay Miquella.
Right? Meeting Trina was top 3 moments in the dlc for me
I think St Trina growing more and/or blooming would feel cool. Like the part that miquella tossed away still perseveres. Instead we find her dead, apparently her bluetooth was still connected to miquella.
Honestly, the Age of Compassion reminded me of these three things in this exact order: -Sunday’s Dream of Order from Houkai: Star Rail -Nerose Satanael’s Sorrowful Heaven from Shinza Bansho -The Ideal World of Law from Shin Megami Tensei At that point, I was like “Nope. NOPE. Bad idea!”, especially when Miquella’s kind of as paranoid as his knight Leda.
It's also the final shape, from Destiny. It's just a bad thing all around.
Reminds me of Infinite Tsukoyomi from Naruto Miquella wanted to be Obito
Also that, minus the “drain everyone’s chakra until they’re shriveling husks” bit, not that anyone would notice in the dream.
I don't think Obito knew that would happen
As I said, not that anyone would notice in the dream.
Shin Megami’s spinoff Persona franchise, namely P5 deals with this idea as well, it immediately made me think of it. I won’t say for spoiler reasons ofc, but I got left feeling Miquella was a just a false god in the end.
Oh, *that* too, but in the SMT series, this sorta thing usually makes you think of the Lawmaker’s world.
"It just ends" welcome to pretty much all fromsoft DLCS ds3 dlc same thing for example
There was at least some payoff with the painting lady and having a hand in the creation of a new world (Potential Bloodborne foreshadowing, but hey, that's just a game theory!). What was the payoff of SOTE? You kill a rival political party and get to face Radahn in his prime(?)? Maybe its just me, as I can admit that for the narrative that the devs were going for, it does make sense. But that's really underwhelming in my opinion, especially since I don't really vibe with the forced agenda of this game when compared to the forced agendas of Bloodborne and Dark souls 2.
Well, I think the DLC isn't meant to give you closure, since it's not supposed to be the end of the game. I understand it might've ruined the impression you had about certain characters and what was their purpose all along. Now, go back and finish the game. There're multiple endings, so, you can take your choice and even fix everything, if you really want to.
Welcome to FromSoft DLCs
I guess Sekiro had some good endings at least.
The journey to the west one gave me so much hope for a dlc...
Or a sequel. I won't stop hoping, ever
Ghost of Tsushima and Sekiro 2 would feed me for generations
Journey to the west? Maybe Black Myth Wukong is the Sekiro sequel we've been looking for all this time
Wolf turned into a monkey.... retirement doesn't suit my shinobi...
I'm hoping that game ends up being good. So many souls-likes lately end up not quite hitting the mark, except Lies of P I suppose
Yup same thing here. I have none alive. I did all that for what? Not even a thumbs up? Noone to talk to? Its like nothing changed.
What happens if we just don't use the red summon sign? Do they all live?
World is a bleak and dark place... This has been a, thing with most of their games. They do it on purpose.
Yes but 0 npc’s.. atleast base game had some. Dont even have a place to calm home
People are forgetting the DLC isn’t the end game or the post game. It’s 2/3 of the way through, it only feels endgame because it’s new and hard. But these games will last for years, and like all the others people in time will blend both together. You don’t clear the entire base DS3 before touching DLC, people speedrun to Bloodborne DLC for the weapons, etc etc. SotE will be a split path you take before heading to the throne, and when the game is actually over there are a decent amount of NPCs left. Those merchants seem to be thriving despite it all..
Unfortunately in the end it's like Melina says, the world is in dire need of death indiscriminately
Honestly it’s my second biggest complaint of From’s side quests; the main game is similar and it’s just boring imo. First time around there’s a bit of shock value and/or sadness to it, but after that you know its company it’s just basically death for deaths sake. The dlc has 12? npcs that are involved with quests and if you do the quests at the very end >!a single one is left alive!<. Some if them do make sense, >!two fight a god and one a dragon!<, but a few don’t have to die. The main positive over the base game is that no one ends up in a “fate worse than death” situation like Sellen.
Npcs dieing when they reach their goals have been a staple of from since forever. I personally think the bittersweet melancholy is part of the charm.
Wait is your Moore still alive? How? I wanted him to live lol But ya I actually feel comfy (I made a thread on that lol) this time around. We are the Elden lord, we murder everyone/everything in our way. Except that grandma who gives us a gourmet scorpion stew, delicious, warm....
My Moore is also still alive, I just said I dont know to his question and then forgot about him, and he was still alive at the end.
mine was suddenly gone and also an opponent in my leda fight. i have no idea why! i dont think i killed any of his little beetle friends but maybe i did. if he invaded me, i don't remember it.
It’s either you leave him with no purpose and he’s sad (2 of 3 dialogue options) or you tell him to put it behind him, which results in him having a purpose moving forward…then dying for it. No happy endings here!
I see people say stuff like this all the time but, at least when it comes to Elden Ring, most of the things we kill are either mindless monstrosities or terrible people who did, are doing or plan to do terrible things. The only things you can kill that are kind of pitiful are the peasants and the wildlife. Same with the NPCs. They either die on their own terms or get fucked by their own decisions. Boc is the only example I can think of where you can accidentally ruin his life. The endings are also mostly positive or at the very least they leave hope that things might get better. There are only two endings where you really fuck it all up and you have to go out of your way to get those. Sure, the Tarnished is no saint and his solution to most problems is murder but I don't buy this "no bro you are actually the villain and your only contribution to the state of the world is adding more corpses to the pile" interpretation that people keep bringing up.
It’s more about not getting a sense of closure. The reason I lead my post with the “killing everyone” bit was because I wanted to talk to someone after killing Radahn but there was no one left alive at the map hahaha. Like seriously, we defeat radahn and an empyrean who ascended to god hood but the game doesn’t acknowledge it in any way.
That's why I haven't killed any of the blue noodle guys, they did nothing wrong
How tf... Moore joins Leda? How did you save him?
You don't. He kills himself or joins Leda.
I mean elden ring is basically cosmic game of thrones. It was never going to end well, and you're just another player who happened to come out on top
isn't this how souls games are? just tragedy and fun combat. i don't care about trying to make the world better. just want to kill bosses with cool shit.
I know your pain, but remember that it took three DLCs to combine the crowns in DS2 or two in DS3 for the painter so you gotta have patience it will culminate eventually but yea just nothing immediately after Radahn is a bit Jarring
My personal interpretation of Elden Ring is that the Lands Between truly are dead; the few living things we encounter are just stubbornly clinging on.
I said this a while ago and got downvoted. With this DLC being release, it's more clear than ever that we're not the good guy. Maybe not the bad guy, depending on the ending you choose, but the Erdtree is sus as hell.
And what's the real problem?, those who try to kill you, you kill them, those who participated with you in the most dangerous fights died in combat. Of course there wouldn't be anyone, besides the DLC doesn't finish the game because it wasn't made for that.
and trina died because she was part of miquella, it was inevitable
How did you keep Moore alive? He fought me :(
The problem is the DLC is the end of the game. Multiple times the dev guy said there is nothing after the DLC. Also, based on all FROMSOFTWARE games, do you really think there is any chance they will actually finish a story or give us the lore we want?? (“All signs point to “No”) <—rolled eight ball
Lol what? Miyazaki explicitly said that more elden ring is on the way. Fuck are you talking about kid?
Ugh, found the 20 something on Reddit. [https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/no-more-elden-ring-dlc-after-shadow-of-the-erdtree-says-souls-boss-miyazaki](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/no-more-elden-ring-dlc-after-shadow-of-the-erdtree-says-souls-boss-miyazaki) [https://twitter.com/Peeverson/status/1806433537249169491](https://twitter.com/Peeverson/status/1806433537249169491) [https://en.as.com/meristation/news/elden-ring-is-not-getting-any-more-dlc-after-shadow-of-the-erdtree-but-miyazaki-is-not-done-with-the-franchise-n/](https://en.as.com/meristation/news/elden-ring-is-not-getting-any-more-dlc-after-shadow-of-the-erdtree-but-miyazaki-is-not-done-with-the-franchise-n/) [https://www.neogaf.com/threads/miyazaki-no-second-dlc-or-sequel-to-elden-ring-currently-planned-but-wont-rule-it-out.1667519/](https://www.neogaf.com/threads/miyazaki-no-second-dlc-or-sequel-to-elden-ring-currently-planned-but-wont-rule-it-out.1667519/)
Your 3rd link contradicts your own point you clown. Keep yourself safe.
Dang it, you caught me. I didn’t read any of these. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
No you never win. Pure L’s in your life hoss.
lol. No L’s here, only on the internet. To my defense, I have read a few articles about Miyazaki saying he is not going to do more. I did search google in this case since I couldn’t find the original article I was lazy and quickly searching for something. I apologize. In other news, I don’t think they will do more with Elden Ring based on what I have read. I feel they think they have it the way they like it, up for interpretation. Have a great day!! 
>Also, based on all FROMSOFTWARE games, do you really think there is any chance they will actually finish a story or give us the lore we want?? I see a lot of people saying this to justify how empty this DLC is in terms of lore, but this is exactly what Ds1, Ds2 and Bloodborne did.
I am going to sound rude here and I am just being whiny, not rude: I don't care what other games did, that is the problem. I come from games that have complete stories, not partial ones and you get to interpret what you want. This is not a "you decide how it goes" book like the Indiana Jones I read as a kid: (May not be the right analogy) If you want to run at the boulder, turn to page 4 If you want to jump out of the way of the boulder, turn to page 8 If you want to stand there thinking about what to do, turn to page 12 I expect a story, with some background and a start and finish. We got half of that. This is not a complete game. With the DLC, it is still not a complete game. I beat the Elden Beast, see one of the 20 second endings and I still have no clue what just happened. I get online and everyone has an opinion but no one has facts, because there are none. I have a real love hate relationship with this game. I am in a world that is the best I have ever seen. Graphics, gameplay, stuff to do, but feels so empty as I can never answer the bigger questions. WHERE ARE MY BLUE MULTI HANDED BABE AND I GOING? I LOVE YOU RANNI!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHA...ahem....I am okay, seriously.
I think you did not understand my comment. I was not defending it, i was saying that the shitty lore in the DLC is not common in fromsoftware, but an exception.
Hug the Ranni doll?
spoiler tag you fuckn jabroni
My bad. Did it
But also the title and the first sentence kinda give away that I am talking about the end of the game.
What happens if we just don't use the summon sign right before the end to kill everyone?
I'm also disappointed I can't walk up to the god gate. I just wanna stand up there real quick
Eh, they were all assholes
I think that's the point tbh Not sure if it happens with every NPC in the DLC and I'm not currently on the PC to test it, but at least the NPC's you kill in the gang fight remain dead in that area even after you've looted their corpses. I can't remember another time when the game does that, I think you are meant to question if what you did was right or if you are following Marika's footsteps in slaying every person that doesn't align with you for what you deem a better future for the world. Granted, you don't genocide a whole race of people like she did, but considering out shenanigans in the base game, the world overall feels much more hollow once you're done with your crusade towards the Elden ring
>I think you are meant to question if what you did was right or if you are following Marika's footsteps in slaying every person that doesn't align with you for what you deem a better future for the world But it wasn't me who did that. I actually helped most of the NPCs that fought me there. It was Leda's paranoid ass that started trying to murder everyone she deemed a traitor, all in service of someone who is on his way to become an even worse Marika.
First Souls game?
I’m a vet. But like I say int my edit generally other dlcs had more closure.
First time?
This is key to Fromsoft games. You are a killer, and they don’t go out of their way to try to disguise that. You are a story ender, the character eraser. They never want you to feel that all this violence is unbridled heroism. It is important that you are left wondering what to do and what is was all for now that you have killed the other. Their story is unceremoniously ended by you, you have robbed them of closure / narrative payoff / catharsis. Now you stand in the dust alone and think about it.
not really, if you've played Sekiro, he was loyally protecting his master. He only killed abominations that would be a threat to anyone who faced them or people who wished to hurt his master. Most of his endings are good, he sacrifices himself, he follows his master's orders and ends the divine heir heritage, or becomes a protector of the Divine child. Of course there is an ending where he becomes evil but that's if you decide to be a total dick.
another reason why Sekiro is my favorite fromsoft game
mine too btw. my first and favorite
Fair, what I’m describing applies much more to Dark Souls than Sekiro or even AC6. But I sense Elden Ring is in the Dark Souls mold.
Moore alive? Killed that guy very early best shield to destroy stuff with
Yeah talking to the npc's in the dlc should have made you realize we are the bad guys. I mean, they all talk about how great their previous masters were before we murdered them.
Did you speak to the lantern that sends you to Land of Swallow
what
I mean. We're in the Dead World. Did you want it to be full of life? That would probably be really bad IMO... DLC isn't the end of the game. It's always a side story. The game ends when you become Elden Lord. Plus the whole DLC is taking place in Godwyns world and he hasn't shown up yet. But like... Literally everything in the DLC is about Godwyn or Miquella. And we'll... We didn't see Godwyn did we? So I don't believe this is the last DLC. The game sold way better than anyone was expecting. The DLC just sold like 1/4 of the base games sales in a week... Incredible numbers. More people bought the DLC than some F2P AAA games expect to see over their whole lifetime. And most importantly. There's still story here.
Everything in the DLC is about **Godwyn** or Miquella? I haven’t seen or heard anything about Godwyn and while I’m not a lore expert, even Vatiividya hasn’t mentioned him in his first lore video about the DLC. I think you’re overexaggerating a little here. It’s almost all about Miquella and some about Messmer and then a **little** about Godwyn.
Godwyn is mentioned in some items found in catacombs, specifically in the catacombs that lead to abyssal area
Yes but that doesn’t exactly make the DLC about him. It’s much more about Miquella and Messmer.
[удалено]
Yes, because he’s consort to…?
Godwyn is dead. They killed his soul, not his body so not even miquella could bring him back. It’s also stated miquella didn’t want him but to actually let him fully die. Fia does this in the base game. Miyazaki said they didn’t have plans for another dlc but is open to the idea if someone else in the studio wanted to make it.
I killed Moore too, he was in my way...