I Cannot Wait To Hear What All The Lore Nerds Suppose About Shadow Of The Erdtree

Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree growth has probably the most easy FromSoftware story since Dark Souls. You enterprise to a forlorn land in quest of a lacking god, after which you find him. We’re not placing collectively a jigsaw the place all of the items have been scratched naked for a change, but it surely’s nonetheless a From story so there are many cryptic, complicated, and interpretive nuggets of lore constructed on the again of an unreliable narrator who speaks in riddles.

Spoilers for Shadow of the Erdtree.

I learn by means of each single merchandise description, soaked within the atmosphere, and tried to know how every droplet of lore flowed collectively. However I’m not the sharpest kukri within the Craftsman’s Shack. I simply grasp the apparent, like Messmer launching a fiery crusade in opposition to the Land of Shadow within the title of his mom Marika though he hates hearth, however the extra summary particulars elude me.

Having by no means reviewed a Soulsborne sport or DLC earlier than, it was unusual to seek out obscure references or what felt like enormous lore revelations with out a group to show to. We theorised amongst ourselves at TheGamer, but it surely’s not the identical as watching a whole lot upon a whole lot of followers sharing their concepts and piecing collectively what at first felt like unrelated threads.

The rampant hypothesis on who Gwyn’s forgotten son was, stripped from the annals of historical past, permeated all through the Darkish Souls fan base for years, and it was thrilling to look at new proof come to mild lengthy after the sport had launched. I’ve been eagerly ready for the growth to launch for that very same rush with all the new lore Erdtree brings to the desk.

In a tucked away, hard-to-find optionally available space accessed by means of the Shadow Preserve, you come face-to-face with a knight on horseback known as Gaius. Dig into his merchandise descriptions and you discover that he not solely led Messmer’s military, however was a childhood rival of Radahn who even taught him the gravitational method. It’s a enjoyable little connection that bridges the hole between Elden Ring and Erdtree, however I can’t fairly work out why he’d adopted Messmer to the Land of Shadow within the first place.

I discovered a word atop a tower that mentioned we stood on the heart of the Lands Between, so I attempted to overlay the Land of Shadow map on high of Elden Ring’s. It didn’t match. So the place does it match?

I need to hear what VaatiVidya thinks of how younger Radahn suits into this world. Miquella summons him as consort, and his armour tells us that he was beckoned after Malenia “let the rotflower blossom in Aeonia”, but when we kill him now, how does he exist in his future and our previous? I’ve so many questions on the Younger Lion, and what ‘consort’ even means on this context—with GRRM within the author’s seat, is that this one other Jamie and Cersei story, or one thing extra symbolic?

One other key piece of lore I didn’t have time to dig into correctly was the Rauh Historic Ruins, particularly who Rauh is. I’m additionally wanting to uncover extra of the Black Knights past the apparent homage to Darkish Souls—they’re Messmer’s second elite battalion, serving a commander known as Huw who betrayed his god and led a rise up that might see him sealed in an underground tomb.

It’s exhausting to disregard the imagery of fireside that surrounds these warriors, because the Black Knights of Darkish Souls had been charred as such by Gwyn’s flame. What did Messmer do to those males, and what sparked their rise up?

Shadow of the Erdtree adorns so most of the concepts in Elden Ring, from the Frenzied Flame to the Fingers, but it surely additionally introduces many extra fascinating concepts of its personal. I’d want so much longer than two weeks to unpack all of it, however with the mixed would possibly of the whole fanbase and so many devoted loreheads who’ve change into pillars of the group, I can’t wait to find extra concerning the Land of Shadow with everybody else now pouring in.