YMMV / Elden Ring

#-A

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Why did Radahn and Malenia fight to begin with? It's not at all intuitive for them to do so given that their realms are on the opposite sides of the map, that Malenia had much easier targets to pick off (right between the Haligtree and Caelid are Liurnia, which is in a civil war, and Limgrave, which Godrick can barely hold against the local beastmen and brigands with his depleted skeletal garrison), and that Radahn had just been repulsed from the capital by Morgott. Was it a case of two half-siblings fighting for power, or a Rune Shard, as suggested by Morgott in the cutscene of his boss fight (but contradicting the fact that Malenia never took Godrick's Great Rune after defeating him)? Did Malenia think Radahn had kidnapped Miquella, thus sparking a fight? Or perhaps Radahn posed enough of a threat that Malenia felt she had to stop him? Did she invade Radahn's territory solely to get to Mohg's palace, a location directly underneath the Heart of Aeonia where Radahn and Malenia dueled,^note As in Miquella's cocoon is almost to the pixel◊ at the same location as the arena; both images have the same coordinates, one is the underworld and the other is the overworld. and a misunderstanding created the conflict? Another theory is that Malenia was after Radahn specifically to free the stars from his power (the stars control fate and Miquella needed them for a ritual). There are vague hints into why they fought to begin with, but it leaves it open for debating regardless. Another aspect to this duel is that both Radahn and Malenia are gracious to each other, with her allowing him to use his gravity magics and he allows her to retrieve her prosthesis. Is this simply Combat by Champion and these are the rules of engagement? Do they respect each other enough to allow this to happen despite the clear disadvantage? Or is it simply pride and a desire to showcase their own skills?
  • With the confirmation that Radahn has to be defeated in order to access the DLC, it's heavily implied Malenia fought him to free the stars as part of Miquella's plans.
  • Interpretations of Malenia's character depend heavily on details behind the infection of Caelid that are never elaborated upon. These include whether she knew that she'd infect the whole kingdom or just thought it would be localized to Radahn (as it only affects an area of a few meters when either she or Gideon use the Scarlet Aeonia in their boss fights), why this particular bloom was so disastrous when none of the others had comparable effects, when and why she fell unconscious, and to what extent the Rot's release was something she had to actively participate in versus simply being unable or unwilling to contain the apparently sentient force. The trailer depicting the event doesn't help much as she has no dialogue in it, and it offers details supportive of both views such as her jumping on Radahn right before the Scarlet Aeonia blooms and Radahn cutting off her prosthetic arm seconds before the event (the same arm which, in its description, is said to resist the Rot). Millicent's questline probably sheds the most light on the mechanics of her "blooming" but even then the process is extremely vague^note Millicent says that she "must return something to Malenia. The will that was once her own. The dignity, the sense of self, that allowed her to resist the call of the scarlet rot. The pride she abandoned, to meet Radahn's measure." Did she consciously "abandon" her resistance to the Rot, or was her will simply frayed over the years, hence why she apparently now doesn't have a "sense of self" and isn't "allowed" to resist anymore? Are the statements even meant to be literal given the clearly flowery wording? If they are, does Millicent even know what she's talking about, considering she's an amnesiac? and some of the implications given are mutually contradictory.^note For example, the Unalloyed Gold Needle needs to stay inserted in Millicent's flesh for her to bloom (if she dies without it she just leaves a regular corpse), yet its purpose is explicitly to hold back the Rot. To make things even murkier, said questline plus Malenia's boss fight all but outright state that, had she decided to just let Radahn kill her, the exact same thing would have happened anyway.^note The description for Millicent's Prosthesis, as well as Gowry's dialogue, state that she'll bloom if she's killed while simultaneously feeling a sense of great despair; this does indeed happen if you betray and kill her at the end of her quest. In Malenia's own boss fight, she blooms after seemingly dying in her first phase, and even after being put down for good at the end of her second, she still leaves another scarlet flower in place of a corpse...
  • In the trailer, what did Malenia say to Radahn in the seconds between her stabbing him and the Scarlet Aeonia blooming? We can't hear her, and can't even really get hints from her expression because she's perpetually stone-faced.
  • Why exactly the Tarnished would free the Three Fingers and inherit the Frenzied Flame. Did they listen to Shabriri's advice and do it to prevent Melina from sacrificing herself? Because they were tempted by the promise of power the Flame would grant them? Or simply out of revenge against the very land that exiled them in the first place? Do they consider it a Mercy Kill given how the Lands Between have completely fallen apart. The latter goes doubly so for the Prophet starting class, who foretold misfortune and were shamed and shunned for it according to their starting gear's description.
  • In the "Age of the Stars" ending, Ranni declares her intent to rule over an Age of the Stars, where the chill night encompasses fear, doubt, and loneliness — in vague terms which could come across as sinister. In one of her dialogues as a small doll, she also mentions wanting to remove the "certainty of the senses" without really elaborating. All that's made clear is how she wants to erase all legacy ever since Age of the Erdtree, and wishes to create a completely different order, leaving her ending plenty open to interpretation. This isn't helped by some implications that the English script for said ending may have been mistranslated, muddying the waters even further.
  • What exactly was the motive for Queen Marika to cause the Shattering in the first place? Even with certain revelations in mind about her split identity as Radagon, there is a common view among the fanbase that Marika grew increasingly frustrated with the machinations of Two Fingers and the Greater Will in controlling the Lands Between but other theories such as grief for Godwyn's death or simply a bid for knowledge/power have also come up as lore delving continues. Another element of intrigue in the matter is that her alternate self Radagon seems to want to repair the Elden Ring, making it difficult to figure out Marika's thought process in the leadup to the ring's destruction.
  • What is the deal with Marika and Radagon? Were they originally separate beings that have since merged, or were they always one? Did they start out as one, then separated, and are now reunited again? Is there a difference between them, or is Radagon just Marika in a different identity or vice versa? One of Melina's recovered fragments of Marika's dialogue has her talk to Radagon about "becoming one", while using an Incantation on a statue in Leyndell will cause it to reveal that "Radagon is Marika" — which can support any or none of the interpretations above.
  • Who is Marika? Even aside from the points above, everything about her is functionally a unknown, and she's Ambiguously Evil to the extreme. Is she a deeply callous and manipulative woman who treats everyone around her as pawns to reach her goals, including her own children, with no care for the suffering she causes? Is she emotionally broken from a long life and the loss of her son, causing her to act rashly and cause more damage in the process? Is she somwhere between, a woman who may have started out with good intentions but grew more jaded and callous over time? Any of them are perfectly possible interpretations, as are a dozen others.
  • Was Radagon's relationship with Rennala motivated by genuine love, or merely a shrewd political play on Marika's part? The fact that Radagon abandons his wife to return to Marika's side when it became more convenient for her to have him as her own consort seems to imply the latter, but it's possible that Radagon did so reluctantly or had no choice in the matter, as Marika has been known to treat her agents as tools without agency of their own. The fact that Radagon is an Unknown Character makes it very hard to know what his own feelings were in the matter.
    • Likewise, what is the Red Wolf's purpose in the Academy? Was it left by Radagon as a token of affection to Rennala, or, as suggested by TB Skyen, a warning to the Academy not to defy the Golden Order again? While it doesn't seem to be actively hostile to the sorcerers of Raya Lucaria, there are a lot of skeletons on the floor in its boss arena, which are unlikely to be intruders since it is fought in a hard-to-reach area...
  • What is The Greater Will? Is it an Outer God, or something more? There is evidence both that it isn't (namely that Miquella who is opposed to the Outer Gods is implied to use its power) and that it is (namely that the Frenzied Flame is clearly meant to be its Evil Counterpart to the point of having its own evil version of the Two Fingers and the Frenzied Flame is explicitly an Outer God) making it difficult to determine barring player interpretaion and potentially future DLC.
  • During his boss fight, Morgott refers to most of the other demigods by name and refers to them as "willful traitors all"... except that he seems to pointedly leave out his twin brother Mohg, despite the fact that Mohg very much has betrayed the Erdtree and is actively attempting to overthrow the Golden Order. Why is Mohg the only demigod Morgott doesn't consider a traitor? Is it out of a sense of misguided loyalty to the twin he spent so long suffering alongside? Does it have something to do with Mohg stealing Miquella out of the Haligtree, thereby sabotaging a different- and by all accounts more viable- attempt at replacing the Golden Order and the Erdtree? Or is Morgott even aware of what Mohg is currently doing in the first place?
• Aluminium Christmas Trees:
  • While definitely nowhere near as big, the worker ants with large heads do exist; their job in nature is to basically block enemy soldier ants from entering the colony and steal their larvae.
  • While the pronounced codpiece of the Banished Knights may certainly be bizarre, it's a common sight to sixteenth century European plate armors.
  • Jerren's armor set is apparently based on the garb worn by the landsknechte, Germanic mercenaries who went well out of their way to wear garish clothing as their field uniform because they were exempt from the time period's sumptuary laws. His weapon of choice, a Flamberge greatsword, was also one of the landsknechte's signature weapons.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • The main boss of Fia's quest line Lichdragon Fortissax receives a lot of build-up and has an appropriately cinematic battle with a strong move set. But the utter hassle required to reach him means many players end up doing so very late despite him being a boss scaled for the mid-game. The result is that he has an unusually high chance of simply being steamrolled because of his relatively low health (1/3 to 1/2 what is common for late game bosses despite being a giant monster); a common complaint among players online is that they killed him before his cool soundtrack even got to play in full.
  • After fighting your way though the brutal endgame bosses at the Mountaintop of the Giants and Crumbling Farum Azula and making your way to Leyndell Ashen Capital, the last boss before you fight Godfrey turns out to be... Sir Gideon Ofnir, a Squishy Wizard who can be easily stunlocked until he falls over dead. Granted, he's not a complete pushover, as he has the dreaded Comet Azur spell and can heal himself a bit with Crimson Elixirs, but considering the sheer hell you had to go through to reach him in the first place, he's hardly a challenge in comparison. It's especially underwhelming since this is meant to essentially be your final encounter with anybody from Roundtable Hold who's not Hewg or Roderika and is the culmination of all the information about the Shardbearers you fed Gideon over the course of your journey to become Elden Lord.
• Ass Pull: After making such a big deal of how isolated and impossible to reach it is, the game just teleports you to Farum Azula (a floating city outside of time in the middle of a never-ending storm) after Melina incinerates herself at the Mountaintops of the Giants. There's no explanation whatsoever for how you get there, or how NPCs like Alexander and Bernahl are able to follow you. Just a cut to black and you're there.
• Award Snub: Quite a few people were disappointed that Elden Ring lost “Best Soundtrack” to God of War Ragnarök at the 2022 Game Awards, particularly due to feeling that Elden Ring’s soundtrack was more memorable.
• Awesome Art: FromSoftware has never been a slouch in this, but Elden Ring's infusing High Fantasy into the mix results in breathtaking artistry; ranging from the gorgeous fields of Limgrave, to the foggy waters of Liurnia, to the nightmarish Boschian-esque hellhole that is Caelid (combining a desert region with a coral reef in terms of aesthetics is nothing short of inspired). Every time you enter a new area, you're bound to be given a vantage point just to admire the scenery. That's not even getting into the creature designs, which are similarly badass and terrifying. It even got a positive appraisal from ArtReview.
• Awesome Bosses: Has its own page.

B-D

• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Malenia, Blade of Miquella, at least from a gameplay perspective. While as a character she's very highly regarded, the fandom is overall split on her either being one of the single best bosses in the game in terms of spectacle, difficulty and wow factor, or a cheap, artificially-difficult slog that has a great boss concept ruined by Life Drain mechanics, ridiculous damage-to-Vigor levels of output (to the point players in endgame gear with the recommended Vigor level are regularly two shot) and extremely cheap and RNG-dependent attacks to rip through the player like butter before they can even get out of the way. She commonly ranks on multiple player's best bosses and worst bosses list for the above-mentioned reasons, which is not helped by the fact the boss would be patched and brought down in terms of difficulty ever so slightly, leaving many to wonder if she isn't a good boss undone by From being too overenthusiastic out of the gate with her or if she's fundamentally a flawed boss fight as a wholesale.
  • The Final Boss, the Elden Beast has proved to be one of the most divisive battles in the game. Following on the heels of the universally beloved fight with Radagon, Elden Beast is a much different affair, an Eldritch Abomination who fights with a vast arsenal of ranged spells and has the ability to reposition at a moment's notice to put distance between you and it. Most of the complaints directed against it revolve around its ability to dive through the floor and resurface far away from you, meaning much of the fight is spent chasing it down while it chains together extremely damaging spells that can at times feel impossible to dodge completely, and even when you catch up to it it's a dice roll if you can get more than one hit in before it repositions again. Its Elden Stars attack is particularly infamous for its highly accurate tracking and long duration, meaning you can get blindsided by other spells while trying to dodge the stars. The most contentious part though, is that if (or more likely when) you die against it, you have to go through the whole fight with Radagon again, itself a very difficult fight. About the only thing everyone can agree on in regards to this particular boss is that its presentation is outstanding, as it's widely considered one of the most visually beautiful bosses Fromsoft has ever made, and its OST is widely acclaimed as well.
  • From a lore perspective, Mohg got hit with this hard, despite being depicted as a Hate Sink. There are four camps. The first camp finds him to be deeply sympathetic due to his Dark and Troubled Past and find his goal to tear down the flawed Golden Order and replace it with something different something that they can get behind; some even go to the extent of giving him the Draco in Leather Pants treatment. A second camp loathes him entirely because of his lusting for Miquella, who is both his half-brother and stuck in the body of a child forever — given that he's also the only male so far that lusts after another male, this can also be seen by some as having some rather unfortunate implications in regards to the LGBT community. The third camp recognizes Mohg's more villainous traits and condemn them, but still find him to be a compelling and well-written character, since his backstory could be seen as a cautionary tale for those who have been discriminated against in the past. The fourth camp still recognizes how evil he is and find him to be a lot of fun because of it (see Narm Charm for further details on that one).
• Best Level Ever: Leyndell, Royal Capital is the game's largest and most complex Legacy Dungeon, and hands down one of the best parts of the game. A dazzlingly huge, opulent Citadel City built around the base of the Erdtree, it plays to all of Fromsoft's strengths in regards to level design, being highly nonlinear with many hidden paths that connect to other areas, meaning it's very easy to miss everything in the dungeon even over the course of multiple playthroughs. With the number of rooftops, backalleys, and hidden paths available to explore, all filled to the brim with powerful enemies, Leyndell feels like a proper city, and there's a sense of triumph as you fight your way through its streets and palaces, getting closer to the Elden Throne with every step. It's capped off with your final rematch against Morgott, who gives you one of the best fights in the game, and some major plot revelations that totally change the nature of your quest.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The encounter with the Fell Twins boss on the bridge to the Divine Tower of East Altus. Is it supposed to be a hallucination? Are you literally whisked away to some kind of demiplane to fight two Omen who are guarding the Great Rune of the famously Omen-hating Omen King Morgott? The fact that one of them has uncut horns and the other doesn't makes it seem like the fight is supposed to be somehow symbolic of the dichotomy between Morgott and his twin brother Mohg and their differing acceptances of their Omen heritage, but it's never explained in-universe why the Fell Twins exist or what they represent.
  • The Godskin Duo. Not only are they a mandatory fight with reused non-unique bosses which don't really make sense to be in the area that they're in, said area happens to be Crumbling Farum Azula, which is basically outright unreachable by anyone not already trapped there. The Godskin Noble and Apostle clash heavily with the Beastmen and Ancient Dragons surrounding them, and overall feel like an arbitrary Dual Boss fight added to the game to increase the number of required story bosses, especially since there's no nearby Story Breadcrumbs to elaborate on why the Godskin Duo exist.
• Breather Boss:
  • If you're a melee build, Rennala is one of the easier shardbearers. Since she's a comparative Squishy Wizard by boss standards, her magical attacks are powerful when they connect but if you can close the gap and stay in her face there's not much she can do for self-defense. This is doubly true if you also summon melee spirits (like, ironically, the pack of wolves Ranni gave you), who can help you stunlock her into oblivion thanks to her weak stagger resistance. Her first phase is also easily done by disengaging lock-on as you search for the scholar to hit. She's not as easy for magic builds, though, as she has a great magic resistance and brings out a lot of flunkies to confuse your lock-on.
  • Rykard is this game's Stormruler boss, much like the the Storm King or Yhorm the Giant. While not nearly as easy as the Storm King or Yhorm thanks to his much more varied and dangerous attacks and his health pool being large enough to allow him to survive several staggers, he's still a notable step down from Starscourge Radahn, and unlike the Stormruler, all the Serpent-Hunter's attacks do insane damage at long range even without any upgrades (and nothing's stopping you from taking it to Hewg and upgrading it further, doing even more damage), especially its Ash of War, which automatically staggers him. While he does do a lot of damage and has some truly brutal fire-based attacks, he's also very slow and easily telegraphed, and your auto-target automatically aims for his head.
  • Morgott is a mid-game boss in a late-game area. His attack patterns are actually fairly punishing but his relatively low health and lack of resistances means he tends to go down somewhat easily if you're properly-leveled; the Draconic Tree Sentinel you have to fight to get into Leyndell is actually about as difficult as him, having higher health, damage, resistances, and run speed (in exchange for slower attack speed and more predictable patterns). The "breather" part is in how defeating Morgott opens the way to the end-game zones, so after him (aside from some dungeon minibosses) it's That One Boss and Super Boss encounters all the way down.
• Broken Base: Despite the story making it very clear that Malenia and Radahn fought to a stand-still, debates still rage regarding who would have actually won that fight... and it can get heated really quickly. Even more so if the people partaking in the debate are hardcore Malenia fans who hate Radahn or hardcore Radahn fans who hate Malenia. Many who favor Radahn claim that he should have won because of his prowess in many combat-related areas, from weaponry to tactics, that he is explicitly described as the mightiest demigod in the setting, and that Malenia unleashed the Scarlet Rot out of desperation. People who favor Malenia tend to point out that Radahn couldn't get past Morgott's forces in Leyndell, that Malenia had never known defeat prior to meeting the Tarnished, and that her Scarlet Rot is so powerful, that it crippled both Radahn and his forces.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Two of the most despicable characters in the game are Seluvis and the loathsome Dung Eater for the horrid fates they knowingly inflict on others. Seluvis' questline allows the player to screw over both of them at once by agreeing to give his potion to Nepheli and then giving it to Dung Eater instead, turning him into a sentient puppet. This doesn't break Ranni's questline and rewards the player with a unique Ash summon.
  • If you've gone diving in side dungeons, especially in the Hero Graves, you're bound to face a lot of trouble from the chariots that run back and forth through the dungeon and threaten to flatten your character with very unfair Hitbox Dissonance. Fortunately, the same dungeons will eventually give you the opportunity to destroy them, and they won't come back on reloading, giving you free reign to explore!
  • After learning of all the atrocities that Marika and the Golden Order are responsible for, up to and including the state of the Lands Between, the fact that every ending allows you to completely screw them over in some way is nothing short of satisfying.
• Cheese Strategy:
  • Several bosses with dashing or swooping attacks can be baited off a cliff to a deadly drop. Other enemies can be lured into Bottomless Pits underneath elevator shafts. Significant examples are Flying Dragon Greyll (which is fought atop a bridge) and the Valiant Gargoyle Duo (which can be baited off a waterfall), Preceptor Miriam (who fights you in a tower with elevators) and the Crucible Knights armed with sword in both Stormveil Castle (which can be baited to fall into a elevator shaft) and the Siofra Aqueduct (which is fought in a room surrounded with bottomless cliffs behind it).
  • The Tree Sentinel is one of the toughest mounted bosses in the series thanks to a combination of high attack, speed, and defense stats. The Draconic Tree Sentinel amps those traits up as well as implementing fire and lightning elemental attacks and range to make fighting them more challenging and frantic for many players. Even then, players can kill them in a very underhanded tactic, namely by sneaking up behind them and casting the Poison Mist Incantation. With enough patience and time, players can spam the Incantation as much as they could until the Tree Sentinel drops dead, never having noticed the player and netting them a decent amount of runes to spend. This is far harder to pull off on the one in Crumbling Farum Azula, as there's no easy way to sneak behind him.
  • The Elder Dragon Greyoll is meant to be a rather challenging encounter. She can't do much to you on her own as she is largely trapped within the rot infesting Caelid, but upon being attacked she will call out for help and her dragon children will come running. Normally you are intended to defeat her not by attacking her (as her health pool is gigantic, bigger than anything in the game and would take up to 10 minutes plus of attacking her nonstop to deplete) but by killing her children, which will remove a chunk of health for every child killed. However, a much much simpler strategy is to get to her rear leg and attack her with a bleed weapon. As bleed deals a large percentage of damage when proc'd, it will cut right through her health, dealing over 10k damage per proc. And in that location, the dragon children won't be able to find you, allowing you to continually attack her without any concerns, bleed weapon or no. And thus you are able to obtain an effortless 78k runes at any point in the game.
  • A series of precise jumps with Torrent in Sellia allows you to get to the Nox Swordstress and Nox Priest Dual Boss without passing through the fog wall. Their AI won't trigger as you haven't walked through the fog wall, but they're fully vulnerable and can be beaten into submission without offering any resistance.
  • Starscourge Radahn is an extremely dangerous boss to fight conventionally, as almost any attack you do will pull aggro from the NPC allies. The solution? He's especially vulnerable to the Scarlet Rot status effect, so applying it (very easy to do with the Dragon incantation Rotten Breath) and running away is a very safe strategy to defeat him. You only have to apply it once each phase (it's cleared during the transition), then keep on resummoning NPC allies and he'll eventually perish. That said, his second phase can be effectively skipped with even less effort. After beating him down to about 50% of his health, Radahn launches himself up into the sky, only to come crashing down again like a literal meteor aimed right at the Tarnished, usually resulting in a One-Hit Kill unless properly dodged. However, if the player has previously lured Radahn close to the shoreline that borders his arena, they can wait for his landing at the very edge of the shore. He will then crash down right in front of the Tarnished, plummeting himself into the waters and dying immediately without dealing any damage at all.
  • The Mimic Tear, while no means a very difficult boss, does Exactly What It Says on the Tin and mimics you for its fight. Nothing is stopping you from stripping completely naked and unequipping all of your weapons and items before walking through the fog wall, then re-equipping it all after the Mimic assumes your utterly defenseless form. The Mimic Tear also gives as good as it gets. It deals less damage than the player but can be upgraded to a truly massive health pool. It also carries all of your equipped items, including those in your Quick Items tab. Since most bosses will slowly close on you at the start of their fight, you can even summon the Mimic and quickly change your equipment (for example, summoning it with the aggro-drawing Talisman Shabriri's Woe, equipped, then quickly swapping it to another, so the boss is more interested in the Mimic than you).
  • There is a specific, slightly elevated rock in the evergaol where you fight Alecto, Black Knife Ringleader that messes with her AI so long as she's on the lower elevation, where instead of attacking the player, she will passively and slowly attempt to move to the sides while locking on to them. So long as you can keep her on that spot, you are free to comfortably take her down at your own pace, unless she happens to use her jumping attack to get up to you immediately. Just be cautious not to fall off the nearby edge.
  • For all of his importance to the lore, and the complete hell you have to go through to even get to him, you'd think Lichdragon Fortissax would be an epic battle. However, for as dangerous as he is up close, if you engage him at range, he's an absolute joke. Since he moves very slowly (most of the time, he does have one airborne attack that let's him cross a fair distance, but its easily dodged), and most of his attacks have a shorter range than your basic longbow, it's very easy to beat him by simply leading him around in circles around his arena and pausing to fling a couple arrows at him every few seconds.
  • The invisible Black Knife Assassin in the Sage's Cave can be really difficult to keep track of without the Sentry's Torch. That said, spirits don't have that problem, and spells and skills like Glintblade's Phalanx can track even invisible enemies. Plus, the arena is small enough that area of effect attacks can also be used without using the torch.
  • Commander Niall at the top of Castle Sol is a tough foe, possessing strong attacks himself and summoning two spectral knights that can tank lots of hits and deal lots of damage. If all three gang up on someone they're certain to die in a manner of seconds. However, his knights are vulnerable to being charmed by the Bewitching Branch, and the infighting that ensues can make for a much easier time, since he'll have to focus on killing the knights over the player. He and his knights do enough damage to each other such that he can kill them before the effect expires, and the knights can shave off a lot of his health before they go down.
  • Mohg can fall victim to this thanks to some well-placed platforming right outside his boss arena. By jumping on the gravestones outside his arena you can shoot over the wall with a bow to hit Mohg from outside the arena. If you manage to stagger him, his AI will bug out when you enter the room and won't do anything as long as you don't stagger him again. While he is immune to actual damage with this strategy you can also use status effect arrows to either inflict poison or Scarlet Rot on him, this will cause damage and as long as he doesn't stagger you can kill him by this mean alone, it's just gonna take up to 200 arrows and about 10-20 minutes.
  • Malenia, Blade of Miquella, has rightfully earned her place as the game's resident Superboss, being a genuine nightmare to fight against and countering many of the cheaper tactics players can employ to beat most of the other bosses. Even most of the truly cheesy tactics against her still require good dodging skills and timing, with the exception of one that aims to abuse her greatest weakness, her relatively weak poise. For this strategy, the player will need Morgott's Cursed Sword, which can be acquired after defeating Morgott the Omen King long before even reaching Malenia, as well as the universally useful Mimic Tear spirit ash. The sword's weapon skill, Cursed-Blood Slice, is strong enough to briefly stun Malenia while also building up bleed. Therefore, pushing her into a corner to prevent her from escaping and then spamming this weapon skill together with a Mimic Tear that will alternate between regular attacks and also spamming the skill, players can essentially stun-lock Malenia during both of her phases while building up a bleed effect to take out massive chunks of her health, taking her out with relative ease as long as she does not manage to recover long enough to strike back, which leaves the Scarlet Aeonia attack at the beginning of her second phase as the sole threat to look out for.
  • Radagon is a nightmare to battle, and earns his spot as one-half of the Final Boss duo the player must defeat in succession before the Elden Beast. However, he has one pretty glaring flaw: running to his right side (the player's left) before he completes his animation of rising up and turning around to face them causes his AI to break and be rooted in place. If the player were to move, it would be fixed and he'd begin to fight proper — similarly, summoning a spirit companion would also do the deal. However, staying motionless and finding attacks that can deal great damage without much movement would allow them to take Radagon down while he just takes the punishment. Using the Comet Azur strategy as seen in the Game-Breaker page would be enough to wipe him out in one or two casts.
• Common Knowledge: The game spawned enough misconceptions in the fanbase that it has its own page.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • Even players who otherwise completely neglect Faith usually take the miniscule effort needed to level up the stat to 12 and grab the free Clawmark Seal at Roundtable Hold. The reason being that many very useful utility spells (like Magic Fortification, Fire Fortification, Heal, Divine Fortification, Bestial Vitality, and especially Flame Cleanse Me) are at or below that requirement and largely don't scale to Faith or even seal upgrade level at all, instead giving flat boosts. What, you don't want your Strength build to not worry about poison or rot for the entire game? You don't want the ability to swap a mere 18 FP for 600 (800 with a talisman) hit points, potentially your entire health bar at low levels? You don't want to negate a big part of the Final Boss duo's Holy-heavy move set for no cost?
  • It's very common for players who plan to use a Shield to simply stick with the Brass Shield for the whole game. Not only does it have the best Guard Boost of all Medium Shields (and even better than some Greatshields), meaning blocking attacks drains less stamina (which only gets better the further you upgrade it), it also can be obtained right from the beginning of the game at multiple locations in Limgrave if you're willing to farm for it, such as the Gatefront Ruins. Better still, it's one of the few shields that has no Ashes of War by default, meaning that the Ashes of your right weapon will be applied when the Ashes are activated, and most weapons have much more powerful Ashes than a Shield's options, especially for players without the reflexes to consistently land Parries. It also has relatively low stat requirements, with only 16 strength being needed to use it, meaning the majority of melee builds can easily equip it.
  • PvP-specific:
    • Jumping heavy attacks are easy to execute, lack the long windup of a charged heavy attack for similar damage, have invincibility frames, can cause you to avoid a significant number of enemy attacks while executing your own attack animation, and can bypass enemy guards. They're also easily buffed with the Claw Talisman and the Raptor's Black Feathers armor piece. If you come across a player using heavy weapons, like greatswords or halberds, expect to see them jump around a lot.
    • Expect to see a lot of players using katanas. Not only do katanas have a fast and flexible moveset paired with inherently high damage and scaling, but they also have a ton of other bonus features. They natively apply bleed, they can be easily powerstanced, they synchronize great with elemental buffs, and there are a ton of amazing unique katanas throughout the game world, especially the Rivers of Blood and Moonveil. Any player running Dex and Arcane will almost certainly be running katanas due to the sheer power they offer a player.
    • Bleed is such a Game-Breaker all on its own that even players who don't use katanas in PvP will almost certainly be using a bleed weapon of some kind. Even if their weapon doesn't have innate bleed, they've probably got a Blood infusion on it anyway, or make use of the Bloodflame Blade incantation. "Just use Bleed" is pretty much the first and last piece of advice anyone will offer players stuck at any part of the game (other than "git gud", obviously), as any boss not 100% immune to Bleed will melt like butter in a volcano, and most of the bosses that are immune aren't all that difficult to begin with, with the exception of the Final Boss.
    • A telltale sign of someone who's Min-Maxing is their use of the Veteran's Armor set (swapping the headpiece for whatever suits their build) as it offers the best poise-to-weight ratio.
    • The Great-Jar's trial involves duels with three "Knights of the Great-Jar" which take the builds and loadouts of players who have bested this challenge before. While the game tries to have some variation between each Knight, you'll be bound to see at least one of the popular PvP builds. This trial is better done offline than online, where the Knights each have a distinct playstyle.
  • There is a considerable school of thought that this is the root of Malenia's status as one of the hardest bosses in a game that prides itself on difficult boss fights. Unlike any other boss, Malenia's copious healing means she simply can't be ground down over time. Players trying to use a defensive strategy involving blocking, healing, and punishing selectively will find that she heals faster than they damage her, until they inevitably run out of flasks. Most guides are fairly consistent, advising the player to forsake any defense beyond armor and rolling and to focus on dealing physical or fire damage to her as fast as possible and using Hemorrhage and Frostbite procs for disruption. But the usual, "unga bunga" approach of blocking, parrying, and clobbering with a massive weapon will spell disaster at the slightest missed timing.
• Complete Monster:
  • Godrick the Grafted, formerly "Godrick the Golden", is a resentful descendant of Marika and Godfrey, and a vicious monster who helped the descent of the lands and in starting the vast wars that consume the world around them. Taking countless beings to "improve" himself, Godrick tortures and harvests the limbs to graft unto himself. Setting up Stormveil to lure in Tarnished that are worth harvesting, Godrick gleefully takes them and their parts, proclaiming he alone is lord of all that is golden.
  • Mohg, Lord of Blood, is a child of Marika and an Omen of cursed blood. Desiring to become the Elden Lord, Mohg establishes a cult to the Formless Mother consisting of nightmarish blood sacrifice to empower himself with the deaths of countless others. Mohg also harbors a dark lust towards his half-sibling Miquella, a god with the body of a child. Kidnapping and attempting to violate Miquella, Mohg murdered him with intent to revive him as the Elden Lord and reign through him with Miquella as a puppet.
  • The Loathsome Dung Eater is a Tarnished, hated and feared by all with good reason. A Serial Killer who spreads the Seedbed curse by torturing, mutilating, and defiling his victims, the Seedbed Curse keeps them from returning to the Erdtree and reincarnating. Having done this to thousands of others, the Dung Eater's goal is to spread the curse to the reforged Elden Ring and damn the entire world.
  • Preceptor Seluvis (or possibly the mysterious Pidia, should Seluvis be his puppet), is the assistant of Ranni, who desires to usurp his mistress in the worst way. Seluvis hungers for powerful people and creates a potion to break their minds so that they become his puppets and sex slaves with intent to eventually enslave Ranni. Seluvis even offers Ranni's body to the Tarnished in return for their service, in a fate considered far worse than death.
• Crack Pairing: Rennala/Marika is a reasonably popular pairing in the fandom, despite the former's husband Radagon leaving her for the latter. This is in part because Radagon is Marika herself, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by yuri fans.
  • There's also Godfrey/Radagon for the same reason, though this one is just as often played for comedy.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The state of Radahn's horse. A pitiful, emaciated, sick animal being forced to labor on by its owner would ordinarily just be unsettling. Except Radahn is a twenty-foot giant who is far, far too big to ride a regular horse, let alone one that is scrawny and dying. The fact that he thinks he's helping his faithful steed by making it run, and that he learned gravity magic partially because he loved his steed too much to get another, makes it too ridiculous not to laugh at. Even funnier is Radahn's moves during the battle, as the way he moves on the horse is almost equivalent to handbrake turns.
  • The Godskin Nobles (the elites of a cult dedicated to turning Demigods into Genuine Human Hide) have an attack where they massively inflate their fat-suits before trying to run the Tarnished over like a giant tyre. Yes, the game has an Inflating Body Gag made possible by a suit of human skin.
• Demonic Spiders: Has its own page. Naturally.
• Difficulty Spike: After completing Leyndell and moving into the Mountaintops of the Giants, the enemies you face from this point on become capable of putting out enough damage that they can easily one- or two-shot players with low Vigor. To put it in simple numerical terms: the game internally classifies enemies by a level which corresponds to their health and damage (but not their poise or damage absorption).^note Note the classifications are by enemy, and not by the area itself - if you use cheat engine to spawn a Haligtree Knight in Limgrave, for example, he'll be exactly as strong as he is in the Haligtree. For obvious reasons though, most areas use predominantly enemies of the same level. Note too that there isn't any Level Scaling, thankfully; which enemies are stronger than others is consistent, so that Haligtree Knight will be exactly as strong if you fight him at Level 1 as at Level 200. Most of the enemies in Limgrave, the Weeping Peninsula, and Stormveil (the beginning areas) are level 3, for example, so from a baseline of 1 they have x1.28 health and x1.2 damage. By comparison, most of the enemies in Liurnia, Caelid, and Altus (the mid-game areas) are level 8, so they have x2.41 health and do x1.83 damage, marking a roughly x2 health and x1.5 damage escalation from the early to mid game. Leyndell (including the Outskirts) and Mount Gelmir then escalate a bit more so most enemies are level 10, with x3.25 health and x2.28 damage. Things quickly escalate from there: the Mountaintops average level 13 (x4.84 health and x3.24 damage), Farum Azula level 15 (x6.56 health and x3.53 damage), the Consecrated Snowfield level 18 (x7.05 health and x3.75 damage), and the Haligtree/Elphael level 20 (x7.33 health and x3.8 damage). In other words, going from Altus to the Haligtree (about the same length, play-time wise, as going from Limgrave to Caelid or Liurnia) means the enemies have over x3 more health and over x2 more damage. Only the underground areas and some out-of-the way dungeons somewhat bridge this gap.
• Disappointing Last Level: General consensus is that the final third of the game, especially the Moutaintops of the Giants and Consecrated Snowfield, have a clear drop in quality, where gameplay gets increasingly unbalanced and progression becomes significantly more linear, although this is offset by a few high-quality bosses. Notably, a lot of the endgame zones are made of recycled assets^note And aside from the main ones, there aren't any new bosses to fight either. Black Blade Kindred, Night's Cavalry, Death Rite Bird, Leonine Misbegotten, Erdtree Avatar, Mimic Tear, Magma Wyrm, Dragons, Grave Warden Duelist, Red Wolf of Radagon, Loretta, Ancient Hero of Zamor, Veteran Commander, Godskin Noble, Godskin Apostle, and even Astel (among others) all get reused multiple times in the last few zones after having already been fought, potentially multiple times, prior to Leyndell. This is at its peak in the Haligtree and Elpael which have zero new enemies or bosses aside from Malenia herself. giving the impression of it as being rushed. That being said, Crumbling Farum Azula and the Haligtree are considered high quality and stand out late-game dungeons.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Most of the Demigods are receiving this due to their rich characterization, with their growing fanbases forgetting their initial character was drawn up by George R. R. Martin a writer famous for his Gray-and-Black Morality, alongside his heavily flawed heroes, which includes the Demigods themselves.
  • While he has undoubtedly many noble qualities, a lot of fans tend to portray Radahn as completely flawless despite the fact that he was just as guilty as the rest of the siblings in the wars that came after the Shattering, something Morgott calls him out on when you confront him in Leyndell. There's also the fact they ignore he's stated to be, like his idol, a blood-hungry Warlord.
  • Morgott is often treated by fans as the Only Sane Man and Token Good Teammate of the demigods, based on his tragic backstory, his status as The Good King, the speech he gives to the player right before fighting them where he justifiably calls out the greed and selfishness of his siblings, and the heavily sympathetic framing of his final moments and death. While Morgott's loyalty to the Erdtree is admirable, his background invites empathy, and he did come away from the Shattering with comparatively clean hands by not fighting in pursuit of personal power, it's often forgotten that he's just as responsible for the presently awful state of the Lands Between as his 'grayer' relatives, just in a different way. His blind devotion to the Erdtree, to the point of refusing to even consider defying it, and his proactive actions in killing any Tarnished who come to the Lands Between (either directly or via the Night's Cavalry who once served him and may still be carrying out his orders), have both made mending the Elden Ring and repairing the world impossible. Morgott is fully aware that he's ensuring the world's death by doing this, but he just doesn't have it in him to do anything else, being unable to conceive of a solution to the problem that doesn't go against his rigid faith, and therefore has resigned himself and the world to a slow, decaying demise, telling the Tarnished "we are all forsaken." In short, he caused just as much destruction as the siblings he calls out, he just did so more indirectly and under misguided intentions rather than explicit ambition, a caveat that does not erase the damage he winds up doing to the Lands Between. He also maintains the subjugation of groups not favored by the Golden Order despite being on receiving end of such cruelty, making him arguably worse than Marika.
  • Godfrey is well-regarded by the fandom due to his very courteous interactions with the player character, impressive martial accomplishments, and taking a moment to cradle Morgott's corpse as he dies. While he is a genuine badass and Noble Demon, it's often forgotten that Godfrey was also the empire's leader (alongside Marika) during its brutal period of expansion. The war he led against the Giants resulted in the near-complete genocide of the Fire Giant race and the enslavement of most of the Trolls (even though most of them allied with the empire). The game even draws attention to his questionable morality via a Sword Memorial in the Weeping Peninsula: "The siege of Castle Morne. A lone hero fights for his vengeance. Only to fall at the hand of Lord Godfrey." He never regrets his actions or expresses second thoughts about rulership being decided solely by who is the best killer.
  • Very unexpectedly, given his status as a Hate Sink and presentation in-game as a Complete Monster, Mohg has become this among certain circles. His memorable design, challenging and cinematically fantastic boss fight, chilling battle theme, and disturbing but fascinating backstory mean that there is certainly a large element of Evil Is Cool to Mohg's character. However, certain fans extrapolate from Mohg's backstory as a cast-out and miserably persecuted Omen that Mohg's intent in pursuing power is to free the oppressed Omen from their current predicament. Not only does this require an excessively generous reading of his stated aim to become the consort of a raised-to-Godhood Miquella, it ignores how, by kidnapping Miquella, Mohg cripples the efforts of someone who is already working to provide a haven for oppressed peoples across the Lands Between (Miquella's Haligtree is explicitly a safe haven to Misbegotten and Albinaurics and Miquella is known to favor the "meek and the low"). Mohg even explicitly preys upon the oppressed Albinaurics to corrupt them into his service, as shown by their role as fodder in his army.
    • Another aspect of Mohg that is romanticized is the attachment Mohg feels for Miquella, reframing it as mutual attraction or unproblematic adoration. This requires extensively downplaying how the kidnapping and possessiveness Mohg displays towards his comatose younger half-brother with the body of a young boy are framed in-game as Mohg's Moral Event Horizon that marks him as a Complete Monster, above and beyond his status as the leader of a violently sadistic and actively hostile Religion of Evil.
    • Some go as far as to claim that Mohg was charmed by Miquella to kidnap him to enact some plan involving his cocoon or to stay with Mohg willingly. Not only is there no proof of this in the game's text, it goes against everything Miquella as a character is and wanted. Mohg kidnapping him was the singular worst thing to happen to him: he was disconnected from the Haligtree, causing it to rot before it could finish growing and made him unable to complete his long-term goals of healing Malenia and creating a home for the low and meek; there is no reason Miquella would ever want to be with Mohg, a half-sibling who is unknown if he even knew existed prior to this event.
  • Lunar Princess Ranni's charming personality, importance to the plot, engaging questline, and touching relationship with her immediate family and servants has naturally captivated the fanbase. Yet zealous supporters like to portray her as the single unambiguously good Demigod left, whose ending may as well just be the Golden Ending with no strings attached and no risk of worsening the state of the world. They appear to downplay or even ignore that she needed to steal the Rune of Death so her soul could be free from the observance and control of the Greater Will, and that she enchanted the Black Knives' blades with it to enable them to kill Godwyn. Even if you ignore her flat-out agreeing with the PC's assertion that "you were behind the Night of the Black Knives" and instead head-canon that she didn't know who would be killed, she's still indirectly responsible for the death of innocent, beloved Godwyn, which lead to the Shattering, the Demigod civil war, and all the damage that caused. The manner of his death also directly resulted in a continent-wide disaster that disrupted the cycle of reincarnation and infected every area of the Lands Between with murderous respawning undead like the Putrid Corpses and Skeletons. She is also willing to make morally dubious alliances when necessary, such as allying with Rykard and enlisting the services of the vile Seluvis and giving him some allowance to indulge in his perverse hobby. Finally, she herself acknowledges the Age of Stars may be full of uncertainty and risk. It won't have the safe beauty and comforts of the Erdtree's age—for worse, or for better. Such is the nature of the freedom she values. And even her love of freedom tends to be overblown to turn her into a hero. There is controversy surrounding possible mistranslations making her desired world sound more evil than intended, but even with corrected translations her motivations and what her desired world actually entails are still vague at best, and a lot of fans love to abuse this ambiguity to fit whatever meanings they need to make Ranni look good. And while she does mention not wanting to be controlled by the gods, she only ever says this in reference to herself. At no point does she express any love or desire to help the rest of humanity.
  • Queen Marika is also subject to a fair amount of this, with many attributing many of the darker aspects of the Golden Order, such as the wars of conquest and genocide, along with the Fantastic Racism, as the fault of the Greater Will, and painting her as being forced to go along with it. Except, not only is it never stated that the Greater Will wanted her to do all of those things, the Golden Order is also explicitly regarded as a personal cult dedicated to Marika, making her the highest authority, and thus the one ultimately responsible. Furthermore, while most of her motivations are kept ambiguous, what little is revealed of her personality indicates her to be at minimum, a very ruthless and terrifying figure, as evidenced by the fact that Hewg is utterly terrified of her, and even Gideon is frightened by what he believes to be her will. Lastly, in regards to her parenting, most of what's shown indicates her to be an Abusive Parent to most of her children, with the exceptions of Miquella and Godwyn, as not only do none of her children mention her once in their dialogue or item descriptions, it's explicitly stated one of the reasons she summoned the Tarnished was to kill the demigods for failing in their task.
  • The Fire Giants as an entire race are sometimes subject to this, characterized as helpless victims of genocide by the Golden Order like the Wandering Merchants, and the Fire Giant which the player fights as a Designated Villain whom the player shouldn't even need to kill to use the Giant's Forge to burn the Erdtree. While the Fire Giant is definitely a tragic figure to due being the Last of His Kind, the Fire Giants were all explicitly minions of the Fell God, and while interpretations vary on whether that means that they were Always Chaotic Evil or merely pawns in Marika's conflict against the Outer Gods, they definitely weren't completely innocent as is sometimes asserted, as evidenced by the item descriptions relating to the people of Zamor.
  • The Frenzied Flame of all things has acquired this status to a certain degree. Namely, there's a notable portion of fans who seem to think the Frenzied Flame's endgame is to burn away the current world so as to clean the slate for a new life to be born from the ashes, free from the problems of the previous one. This is despite the fact that the game makes it explicitly clear that the Frenzied Flame views the very existence of individual life to be a mistake, and as per Hyetta's own words, it's plan is to ensure that life itself never emerges again. Meaning, even if new life were to pop up afterwards, not only would it not be part of the Frenzied Flames plan, it would actively go against everything the Frenzied Flame was trying to accomplish.

E-F

• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Living Jars, which are self-explanatory, instantly endeared themselves to the fanbase. One particular Living Jar is Alexander, a friendly pot warrior with a jovial personality similar to that of Solaire, Siegmeyer, and Siegward. Notably, the player finds Alexander in quite a pickle... or a literal hole in the earth in his case, much like the conundrums the knights of Catarina would find themselves in. The Tarnished can then dislodge him by smacking him hard enough with a weapon, which the guy takes like a champ and even gives a hearty laugh about after. While his fate is still tragic, it's softened by the fact that he goes out doing what he wanted: fighting like a champion. In a poll of players by Famitsu (Japan's biggest gaming magazine), Alexander was the second most popular NPC after Ranni, whose immense popularity cannot be overstated.
  • On the weirdly mundane side of the game, the Tortoises. Wandering around most of the map, the large Tortoises that make the Lands Between their home are beloved by the fandom for their sheer cuteness and friendly nature. Expect wherever they spawn to be littered with messages asking players not to harm them, and equating them to dogs.
  • And among the tortoises, of course, there is Miriel, Pastor of Vows, a tortoise priest NPC who provides the player with wisdom and guidance on the backstory, in addition to selling both sorcery and incantations. Unlike the other incantation teacher, who is something of a fundamentalist and will complain about every book you give him being heretical (though he'll still teach you their contents), Miriel responds to texts from other faiths with "let us both learn together", saying that the concept of heresy is nothing but a contrivance. Miriel's mitre has earned them the nickname of "turtle pope".
  • Blaidd, the Wolfman, a recurring NPC and major player in Ranni's storyline, has left a memorable presence. Apart from looking like a wolf-headed Guts, Blaidd proves himself a very amiable character, and he consistently proves himself the most competent ally during Radahn's boss fight. And many fans were saddened by being forced to put him down much later in Ranni's story. In Famitsu's poll he was the third most popular NPC.
  • Blackguard Big Boggart became quite beloved for his Hidden Depths, his extensive use of curse words, his quick amicability, his defense-boosting boiled shellfish, and how attractive he is without the mask. Protecting him from an awful fate is one of the more commonly-cited reasons for avoiding the Dung Eater's questline, be it ignoring the Dung Eater, killing him, or turning him into a puppet.
  • The Abnormal Stone Clusters immediately caught attention just for how weird they are, being snake-like golems made of stone spheres.
  • One of the most popular minor bosses is the Tibia Mariner. Sure, it's almost never much of a fight, but the whole encounter is loved for how bizarre it is. This is a skeleton riding a boat, which is also a ghost, wielding a massive alpine horn. With his limited attack patterns, fans have joked that he's actually more interested in just popping sick wheelies and tooting his horn than actually fighting you. Or perhaps that he's more powerful than he lets on since he often moves to sail on dry land.
  • Of the featured non-boss NPCs in the opening cinematic, the Loathsome Dung Eater is by far the most popular with fans thanks to the incongruous combination of his utterly atrocious and incredibly juvenile nickname and how proudly, unapologetically vile and horrifying a person he is.
  • Rya^*Or rather her true Zorayas form is extremely popular for being a minor NPC due to her sweet demeanor and the reveal that she's actually a part-snake Cute Monster in disguise (while also averting the usual Cute Monster Girl trope), whose form many fans found utterly adorable. In fact, many fans are way more interested in her compared to the actual Maidens in this series.
  • Millicent is another very popular NPC due to her long, world-spanning questline, her development from ill girl to Action Girl, and the role she plays in averting one of the game's two Downer Endings. There are two outcomes to her quest, but you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who chose to betray her, even though siding with her still has a tragic and bittersweet outcome. In the aforementioned Famitsu poll she was ranked as the fourth most popular NPC in the game, right ahead of Melina who is a much more prominent character.
  • Sorceress Sellen started out a well-liked but not super popular character after the game's launch; she's one of the first NPCs you encounter, she has an endearing Affably Evil personality, and she has a legitimately gut-wrenching ending to her sidequest. However, her popularity skyrocketed once modders took off her mask and discovered that she was very, very attractive. Fanart started pouring out of the woodwork shortly afterward; she's probably the only NPC more known for what she looks like without her headgear than with. Considering how often the series relies on helmets or hats to hide most of a character's features, it's telling how quickly she became popular.
  • Leonard the horse is widely beloved amongst the fanbase, even though he's a perfectly mundane horse with little real relevance, and even his name is only known from datamining. This is due to his relationship with his owner, General Radahn, which is often considered humorous and incredibly touching. The scrawny horse is far too small for his titanic demigod, resulting in a downright absurd Huge Rider, Tiny Mount image. Yet, Leonard shows genuine Undying Loyalty to Radahn and vice-versa to the point where they stick together even after Radahn has gone violently feral from Scarlet Rot. In a touching but hilarious example of Mundane Utility, it's also accepted that one of the reasons Radahn learned Gravity Magic was so that he could still ride his loyal steed, despite the massive disproportionate difference in size between them.
  • Also in Famitsu's poll was a ranking of the respondents' favorite bosses. The top three were unsurprising with the power trio of Radahn, Malenia, and Morgott^note Specifically his first fight, he still goes by Margit. but number four may raise some eyebrows: the Tree Sentinel. Yes, a starter boss with no dialogue or story relevance encountered handily outpolled guys like Godfrey, Mohg, and Rykard an hour into the game. It helps that he's visually impressive (a giant knight on a giant horse, wielding an enormous halberd in one hand and an even bigger shield in the other that doubles as a magic catalyst, wrapped in thick gold-plated armor and with enough physical strength to cause shockwaves with his blows and scythe through the scenery where you fight him), introduces the concept of overworld bosses and mounted combat, and is a major Wake-Up Call Boss who many players take pride in having eventually beaten.
  • Similarly, the Crucible Knights also made the top ten boss list, ranking above stronger, more plot-relevant, and more visually spectacular fights like Godfrey and Radagon.
  • Despite being an extremely minor Spirit Ash with no characterization or dialogue, Cleanrot Knight Finlay is extremely popular in fanfiction and fanart, especially with people who ship them together, for being her Undying Loyalty to Malenia after she was injured fighting Radahan and literally carrying her on her back all the way to the Haligtree while simultaneously fighting off attackers all the way.
  • Other than Finlay, several other extremely minor characters have been featured in fanfiction, not just as background characters but as the main ship (usually with the Tarnished). These include, but aren't limited to: Crucible Knight Ordovis (just a boss at the end of a dungeon), Black Knife Tiche (spirit ash identical to any other Black Knife Assassin), Elemer of the Briar (a recurring boss) and even the Tree Sentinel.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Melina has garnered a few as fans debate who or what she is. Ironically for one of the most important characters she is probably the one we know the least about.
    • A sizeable portion of the fandom has latched onto the idea that Melina and Ranni are one in the same, similar to Marika and Radagon, given the fact that Ranni has her right eye closed, while Melina has her left eye closed, with awfully similar markings under their respective closed eye. This is amplified by the fact that you can meet the two almost back to back, which, although likely coincidentally, sticks out for the timing. There's also the fact that Ranni knows of Torrent, and should the Tarnished meet Ranni at her tower, she'll be happy to see that the spectral steed is doing well as if sharing a personal connection with him, much like the one Melina has since she traveled with Torrent for an unspecified amount of time before Torrent picked the Tarnished as its newest master.
    • Another very strong theory is that Melina is Marika or created from Marika. Many believe that the mother Melina speaks of is very heavily implied to be Marika and the game files even refer to her as "Marika's Daughter", but there is no mention of a father; unlike all her other children that are quite clearly stated to either be sired by Godfrey or Radagon, Melina seems to be solely the creation of Marika. Add to this the fact that she was born at the foot of the Erdtree, a place no one but Marika can get to since the shattering, has incredibly intimate knowledge of Marika to the point of even quoting her private words, owns Torrent and is a spirit without a body, but on several occasions mentions her original body is burned and broken, has led fans to think that Melina is either Marika herself or a part of Marika given sentience. Another clue many use for the Melina is Marika theory is that when Melina dies in the battle with Morgott (or using cheese and killing her when she appears at grace), her body turns into a minor Erdtree.
    • Another theory that gained popularity due to the "Lord of Frenzied Flame" ending is that Melina is, or is related to, the mysterious figure known as the Gloam-Eyed Queen. Besides a few visual clues (the dusky-blue/purple color of Melina's perpetually closed eye in the "Lord of Frenzied Flame" ending), there is the fact that the Gloam-Eyed Queen was the original holder of the Rune of Destined Death and was even worshiped by the Godskin Apostles as a goddess of death. Melina's goal for her sacrifice is to return Destined Death to "everyone... indiscriminately" (though it should be noted that she only does so because it's the only way to burn down the thorns keeping the Tarnished from reaching the Elden Ring). In the same ending, Melina promises to deliver unto the Tarnished their Destined Death. This can work in tandem with the above-stated theory of Melina being Marika's daughter, as the Gloam-Eyed Queen was known to be an Empyrean, i.e. a child of a god capable of becoming a proxy for an Outer God such as the Greater Will: were Melina to be Marika's daughter, she would potentially be an Empyrean herself, sharing yet another similarity with the Gloam-Eyed Queen.
  • One especially bizarre theory that gained traction with fans was the idea that Godwyn the Golden always had a fish tail instead of legs instead of being the result of his body's corruption after his soul-death. The cutscenes never show Godwyn below the waist and he is also never seen standing, and that his fish tail was a result of him being born with Crucible aspects like his siblings who bore horns. Furthermore, when the player finds his corrupted corpse, his upper half has become monstrous and abnormal, but his fish tail still looks normal, implying the blight may not have caused it. Some have suggested that they intentionally avoided showing Godwyn's lower half. This thread makes an argument in its favor. Of course, dissidents to the theory point out the problem of how Godwyn fought dragons, if he had a tail instead of legs.
  • There's a lengthy spoiler-heavy essay that claims that the world of Elden Ring is actually a philosopher's stone. It then tries to describe events from the game's past and predict events in the game's future. It also gets into Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory territory when it describes Miquella as pretty much a direct Christ analogue who is coming back to save the world from death.
• Estrogen Brigade: While previous FromSoftware Souls-likes weren't unpopular with women, Elden Ring was the game to establish itself a consistent fanbase of female fans, mostly thanks to charming, sympathetic, and attractive male characters such as Blaidd or Varré, not to mention powerful (and morally dubious) female characters like Ranni, Marika, and Malenia; special mentions goes to Morgott, who shot up as the most popular Tarnished/OC x NPC ship in fanfiction and fanart, mostly with female Tarnished.
  • Also of particular note is Radagon who, despite not even having a single word of dialogue in the whole game, intrigued a lot of players and is one of the most shipped characters in fanworks with female Tarnished. Some fanworks even use him as an alternative love interest to Marika at the end of the game.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • The Loathsome Dung Eater is a revolting man with an incredibly stupid chosen nickname, but he's also a terrifying combatant with a badass weapon, and an extremely deep and memorable voice. Many players who laughed hysterically at his introduction have admitted to finding him oddly compelling, even disturbingly charismatic thanks to how much he seems to genuinely believe his depraved philosophy and how, in a game full of people who are lying to you about their true intentions, the Dung Eater is never anything but 100% honest and forthright with you about exactly what he plans to do to the world and why it's an incredibly bad idea to let him go.
  • Mohg, Lord of Blood, is one of the most unambiguously evil characters in the game, being a clear Hate Sink with numerous heinous crimes marking him as a Complete Monster. He's also a gigantically-tall warlock with claws, horns, fangs, wings, a single yellow eye, a beard made out of horns, a gold-accented black-and-red robe, and a flaming trident who is a master of a very uniquely fiery form of Blood Magic thanks to a pact with an Eldritch Abomination that requires carving wounds into the body of the being he draws his power from. He's got a climactic and very challenging boss fight, a truly chilling boss theme, and a fantastically unsettling voice. This combination of memorably excessive design and engaging gameplay makes Mohg both extremely awesome and very popular, such that he's widely considered one of the endgame's high points.
  • The Frenzied Flame is a force of primordial chaos that seduces those who have lost all hope into joining in its cause of burning down the world, and quite understandably the ending where you side with it is the least popular in the game. However, following its questline to the end exposes you to some truly dramatic, unique, and straight-up metal content. Its primary spokesman, Shabriri, is a Satanic Archetype par excellence who possesses the bodies of the dead so he can speak honeyed words to those they trusted in life and fool them into following his cause, and despite having only one conversation with the player, Shabriri is a genuine One-Scene Wonder due to his chillingly excellent dialogue and superbly unsettling voice acting, able to shift seamlessly between tempting comiseration and warped-yet-quiet instability, culminating in a truly unhinged shout that is as memetic as it is sincerely disturbing. The confrontation with the Three Fingers itself at the bottom of the Subterranean Shunning Grounds is a wordless, unbelievably sinister scene where your character utterly submits themselves to this Eldritch Abomination and becomes the Lord of Chaos in an Awesome Moment of Crowning, marked forever thereafter with scorched fingerprints and glowing yellow flaming eyes as a sign of your new role. The ending where it succeeds is an awe-inspiring Apocalypse Wow moment where the Erdtree is torn asunder and fire and fingerprint burns cover the entire earth, with your character being fully reborn as the Lord of Chaos and rejoicing in the destruction you've caused, with the only ray of hope being Melina's survival if you successfully prevented her Heroic Sacrifice. It's sobering, unsettling, and an undeniably spectacular finale for the game.
  • While Malenia, the game's Master Swordswoman Lady of War Superboss, is undoubtedly cool, she's not really evil enough to qualify for this trope, being somewhere between an Anti-Villain and a Hero Antagonist. 'Luckily', though, she's got a Superpowered Evil Side, the Goddess of Rot, which is about as stylish as an Omnicidal Maniac avatar of decay can be - an imposing Angelic Beauty carried aloft by wings made out of rotten butterflies and adding devastating but eerily beautiful flower-themed rot magic to her elegant and relentless swordplay.
  • Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy is second only to Mohg regarding vileness. He's responsible for the imprisonment and torture of thousands, and is widely reviled by almost everyone who dares to speak of him. He's also a gigantic Animalistic Abomination archmage with one of the most memorable creature designs in FromSoftware history, has a truly excellent boss theme and his fight is one of the most fun and memorable in the game. His title and goal, devouring the entire world is so unapologetically metal it's impossible not to be horrified and smile a little at the same time. All of this combined made Rykard one of the game's most beloved characters the fandom can't help but Love to Hate.
  • While how 'evil' he is has yet to be seen, Messmer the Impaler gained fans practically minutes after being revealed in the Shadow of the Erdtree gameplay reveal trailer for his incredibly cool and villainous design. It helps that he's surprisingly fair-faced and his snake familiars are...strangely adorable, with long noodle-like bodies, big beady eyes and mouths that look like dopey smiles, contrasting them heavily with the much more horrifying God-Devouring Serpent.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Yakul" for Torrent, the Spirit Steed, due to a similar "horned mount" concept.
  • Before her name was revealed, Malenia, the red-haired knight with Artificial Limbs, was commonly called "the Valkyrie" by fans, largely because of the distinctive winged design of her helmet. This also turned out to be used for her in-game; her prosthetic arm, which you can acquire as part of a questline, is called the Valkyrie's Prosthesis.
  • The enemy in a distinct round helmet, who was the subject of two prerelease screenshots was given the name "Jorge" by the fan base.
  • Due to his outfit resembling that a certain jolly old man in red, many have called Merchant Kalé "Santa Claus".
  • Many have taken to calling Miriel "Turtle Pope", because he is, well, a tortoise with a pope hat. Alternately, several mentions of "Dog Pope," have been seen around thanks to the playerbase's tendency to refer to the turtles of the setting as dogs.
  • The "Greatsword" Colossal Sword is sometimes referred to as Guts' Sword, partially due to both its weapon description being a Shout-Out, as well as better resembling the Dragonslayer than previous iterations.
  • Blackguard Big Boggart, who's encountered at Boilprawn Shack, is sometimes referred to as "Shrimp Bro" once it was discovered you can buy prawn from him after completing a certain chain of events.
  • Due to this game's legacy, many terms and mechanics that were translated over but retained the same identity are often referred to with their previous names. Therefore, Runes are still frequently called Souls, Sites of Grace are still bonfires, Incantations are Miracles, etc.
  • As an extension of the "John Darksoul" nickname from a previous FromSoftware title, the Tarnished sometimes gets called "Elden John."
  • The Godskin Duo are often insultingly referred to as "the Foreskin Duo" by fans due to them being both a very difficult and unpopular fight as well as their Body Horror designs which involve a lot of loose, hanging flesh.
  • Ghiza's Wheel, much like its spiritual predecessor, the Whirligig Saw, has been lovingly dubbed as "the pizza cutter".
  • The lobsters in Liurnia are called "railgun lobsters" because of their particularly long-range, accurate, and painful ranged attack.
  • Due to their T. Rexpy nature (e.g. giant head and tiny forearms), the giants dogs found in Caelid and the Mountaintop of the Giants are often referred to as "T-Rex Dogs". Their internal file name seems to indicate that the developers share this opinion^note As seen on this list.
  • "Burger Kings" ^note  in reference to the former mascot of the fast food chain for the sorcerers and spellswords in Raya Lucaria wearing the different variants of Glintstone Crowns, each of which being a stone helmet resembling a bearded man.
  • The Bestial Sling incantation earned the nickname "Pocket Sand" since it involves tossing a small cone of little rocks that can stun opponents out of their attacks.
  • General Radahn's horse, although never explicitly named in official media, has received the name of Leonard by fans after an internal AI variable name for Radahn's fight. It most likely stuck since the out of place nature of the name is fitting for such a ridiculous horse.
  • As part of his ironic Memetic Badass status, the Soldier of Godrick has become known as "Soldier of God, Rick" or simply "Rick."
  • Players that main Rivers of Blood are often nicknamed Jetstream Sam due to the weapon resembling his signature weapon, the HF Muramasa and his theme lyrics also contain the words "blood", quite fitting considering the weapon name and what it does.
  • Mohg's Bloodboon Ritual is usually called the 'nihil' attack, since that's what he shouts when he activates it.
  • Befitting his role as an expy of Siegmeyer/Seigward, Dark Souls' beloved onion-clad knight with a habit of getting stuck in pickles, the living jar Iron Fist Alexander is often affectionately dubbed "Siegjard."
  • Commander Niall is frequently called "Pyrocynical" due to "Niall" being a mostly uncommon name which his fans primarily associate with his real name, Niall Murphy.
  • Some fans have taken to calling Godfrey names like Chadfrey, Dadfrey and Daddy Loux due to his status as a Memetic Badass and the fact that the very first thing he's seen doing in the entire game is paying his respects to his son, Morgott.
  • "Bill Engvall" for Banished Knight Engvall, for obvious reasons.
  • The unnamed Crucible Knight who serves Tanith in Volcano Manor is usually affectionately referred to as "Gug", thanks to the second part of Max0r's incorrect summary of the game where he is dubbed as such.
  • By the game's final stretch, Sir Gideon Ofnir has gained the unflattering moniker of "The All-Coping" among fans due to his Memetic Loser status. He's also called the All-Spamming for his fighting style of repeatedly using various powerful spells against the player, since he can't run out of FP.
    Gideon: A man cannot kill a god. [Followed by the many, many examples of the Player Character doing so in the Soulsborne series]
  • Fans give the Boss Rush of Fia's Champions a more unflattering nickname as "Fia's Simps", because it was revealed that letting Fia hug you would add your player profile to the list of possible NPC summons in that boss fight.
• Fanfic Fuel: In keeping with From Software's stated intentions of "providing a world and narrative that the player can interpret for themselves," Elden Ring has generated a lot of fan fiction, far more so than the Souls series. The interesting but often vague backstory and world, combined with all of the potentially interesting characters who get very little focus in the game itself (especially the demigods who mostly get their boss fight and about a dozen lines each), invite a lot of this. In particular, there's an already recurrent Fandom-Specific Plot where the "good" demigods (e.g. Morgott, Malenia, Miquella, Radahn) avert the Shattering and instead team up to fix the many problems that were already plaguing the world. The fact that the demigods barely interact with each other in the base game despite being siblings also leaves much room for fans to speculate about their relationships.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • With fans of the Demon's Souls remake; when the latter declared that gameplay footage of Elden Ring lacked the visual fidelity of the Demon's Souls remake, Elden Ring fans fired back, arguing that ''Elden Ring'' has better art direction, and pointing out that Demon's Souls was a remake of a mostly-linear 2009 game with discrete levels, as opposed to a fully-explorable open-world game.
  • With Horizon Forbidden West, as a result of Elden Ring coming out a week after Forbidden West and overshadowing it in terms of attention and acclaim from audiences and critics. Further fuel was added to the fire when some developers at Guerrilla Games and Ubisoft started tweeting snarky potshots about Elden Ring between each other, implicitly comparing it disfavorably to their own games.
• Fanon:
  • Although backed by little hard evidence, the idea that Radahn is the oldest child of Radagon and Rennala, Ranni the youngest, and Rykard the one in-between is popular enough with the fan community to color discussions about the siblings. For example, Radahn's pursuit of strength, leadership, and the continuance of the Golden Order is framed as byproducts of a desire to better fulfill the expectations placed on the eldest child that Radagon molded the most (and it's evident from his helm that Radahn still respects his father.), while Rykard's blasphemy may be his way of distinguishing himself from his mighty brother and rebuking his father for abandoning the family. Ranni, whom Rennala affectionately calls "little", seems to have the strongest attachment of the siblings with her mother, which makes sense if her birth wasn't long before Radagon became absent in her life. None of this is concrete within the lore, but fans tend to run with it.
  • Seluvis being another puppet directly piloted by the seemingly innocuous Pidia. While the game never outright says anything on this subject, the number of notable connections between the two are many, and the fanbase has developed the theory to the point where many regularly speak of the two as if they're confirmed to be the same person.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Quite a bit of it.
  • Near the top of the list has to be Kale's cut quest. In short, there was originally going to be a quest line where you help him search for a caravan of his people that have gone missing. The search would culminate in him finding all his people slaughtered by the servants of the Golden Order due to a belief that they followed the Three Fingers. Upon seeing this, he's driven to madness and despair and decides that if the ruling authority will treat his people like monsters no matter what, then they may as well become monsters. He ends the quest by giving an impassioned plea to you to inherit the Frenzied Flame and burn away the world. The top comments to the video showcasing this are all some variant "this would've been amazing, why was it cut?", particularly because of Kale's superb voice acting and how much additional weight it gives to the background of the Frenzied Flame. In the final version of the game Kale has no interactions past Limgrave, making the fact that he has a voice, name, and implied relationships with other characters come across as inexplicable. The mass grave is also still present, but nothing leads you to it and no one's around to comment on it.
  • A very common complaint is that the game never allows you to avert the battle with Malenia by offering to cure her Rot and fix the Haligtree by bringing back Miquella (you're probably fighting her well after the game gave you the tools to do both),^note Namely: the Cocoon of the Empyrean Site of Grace (which brings you right to Miquella's cocoon after killing Mohg), the Site of Grace in Dragonlord Placidusax's chamber (where Miquella's needles can purge outer godly influence), and Millicent's dew-soaked Unalloyed Gold Needle. to the point that lampshading the arbitrariness of the fight's set-up has become a meme. Cut dialogue and cutscene assets though reveal that this apparently was an option in an earlier vision of the game, as Malenia has cut lines referring to you as a friend and referencing Miquella being back in the tree, while Miquella has his own ending narration, suggesting you could not only rescue him, but fully side with him. Many fans still hope these options are brought back in the DLC, as a Miquella-focused one has been heavily foreshadowed.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Surprisingly, many fans of Kirby and the Forgotten Land mingle with those of Elden Ring very well. Despite having opposite tones, Kirby's bright and cheerful atmosphere is a great relief from the dark atmosphere of Elden Ring. It helped that Forgotten Land released exactly one month after Elden Ring.
  • Similarly, there were a number of memes comparing the game to Stray shortly after that game came out. The fact that the two were the best reviewed games of 2022 despite their vast differences in tone and gameplay contributed to this, with many fans viewing the cute indie adventure game about cats as being an amusing antithesis to the triple A Nintendo Hard Dark Fantasy game.
• Fountain of Memes: Gideon Ofnir. Probably due to his distinctive voice and having the most dialogue of any character in the game, he's generated a lot of Elden Ring's memetic content. Examples of Gideon memes include:
  • "SIR GIDEON OFNIR, THE ALLLLLLLLLL KNOWING!"^note His introduction. The narrator really hams it up when reading Gideon’s title, leading to a tradition of typing out Gideon's full title in screaming All Caps when discussing him. His title and demonstrable ignorance of key plot points has also made it popular to depict him as a "lore YouTuber" obsessing over his own game's cryptic story, to no avail.
  • "Find the Albinauric woman."^ExplanationAn infamous line of dialogue from Gideon which starts Latenna's quest. Players frequently note the difficulty of actually finding her despite Gideon’s directions (meaning you'll be hearing this line a lot), and the fact that he’ll still repeat the dialogue even after you’ve found her.
  • "Tarnished. A word."^note A 4chan copypasta involving the otherwise serious and straight-laced Gideon talking about some Squicky subject matter involving dolls. Expect it to come up in any forum mentioning Gideon and Ranni in the same breath.
  • "I knew you'd come. To stand before the Elden Throne. To become Elden Lord. What a sad state of affairs..."^note Gideon is a boss fight and a rather underwhelming one for his place in the game, though if you can't take him out quickly he can prove unexpectedly challenging with his wide array of powerful spells. He also begins his fight with a long monologue. Thus it's become popular to make videos of players killing him mid-speech or to depict him going on his rant in unrelated circumstances. It's worth noting as well that, if attacked after a certain point in his monologue but before he's finished, Gideon will actually never attack you as long as you can stunlock him, effectively playing out the "killed mid-speech" version of the meme.
• Fourth Wall Myopia: Some players complain that Melina gets angry at you and refuses to speak to you ever again if you inherit the Frenzied Flame to spare her life by burning the Erdtree in her stead, because you can later purge the Frenzied Flame from yourself with Miquella's Needle, preventing any of the negative effects of becoming its host. A particular point of contention is that you can even have that item in your inventory when Melina makes her declaration, so she's supposedly being illogical for still insisting that you not use the Flame. The problem with that logic is that neither your character nor Melina have any way of knowing you can purge the Flame at that point in the game. The first item that might point you at Miquella's Needle is a merchant note from earlier in the game, and it does indeed say that the needle can ward off the outer gods and avert the fate of the Lord of Chaos... but when you actually get the needle (by trading it with Malenia's rebirth flower for her own Unalloyed Gold Needle), it does no such thing, because the needle is unfinished. In order for it to work you have to implement twisted time by using it in front of Dragonlord Placidusax, and there's no way to get to him until after you inherit the Flame, burn down the Erdtree, and cause Melina to leave. Furthermore, while the item's description tells you all of this, in-universe your character never even gets confirmation that they're supposed to use it this way. The only thing that would even lead you to connect the needle and Placidusax is that flower-Malenia gives you one of Placidusax's scales along with it in the aforementioned trade, which could be taken as a hint to go use the needle in his presence. Essentially you're risking the destruction of all life everywhere forever based solely on a vague hint and a hunch, which would be more than enough reason for Melina to disparage you even if it does end up working.
• Franchise Original Sin: A lot of the criticism parts of the game received were present in earlier titles, but were exacerbated due to the structure of the game:
  • One of the most criticized parts of the game are, by far, the sidequests, for a variety of reasons: them being hard to discover and even more difficult to figure out how to progress, with it being entirely possible to lock yourself out of them by complete accident and lose your rewards to them. This was always present in past Soulsborne games, but the open-ended nature of the game and the fact that you could accidentally trigger quests to advance without even realizing they existed made it far more noticeable and annoying.
  • On a related note, quite a few sidequests end rather anti-climactically with no real satisfying conclusion and/or with the character in question winding up dead for reasons beyond your control. This, of course, always happened in these games - for example, Patches' quest ending pretty much like it began isn't all that different from Patches' questlines in other games, which has basically no conclusion at all in Bloodborne, and Dark Souls III has a resolution with the character only available in the DLC of all places - if anything, Elden Ring's questlines actually tend to have clearer resolutions than the other games.
  • The game has a lot, a lot, of Dummied Out content - from entire bosses, to questlines, dialogues, item descriptions, enemies, and so on. This is standard practice for Fromsoftware games, with Bloodborne in particular having a similiar level of important stuff just not being in the game at all. What makes Elden Ring stand out was the sheer volume of said content, some of which have been eliminated from the game for reasons that we'll likely never know for sure, despite them being essentially completed.

G-M

• Game-Breaker: As with many Souls games before, it has its own page.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Considering the cultural basis of his people, Merchant Kale's name is likely derived from the Romani word kale, which means "dark" and is used as a self-designation by several Romani groups throughout northern Europe. The merchant model name in the game files is RedEyeGyspy.
  • The Carian royal family are probably named after the Carians, a subgroup of Anatolian Greeks most notable for originating the deity Hecate - the goddess of night, magic, witchcraft, sorcery, and the Moon.
  • Life in the Lands Between originating from a falling star sent by the Greater Will is most likely a reference to the theory that life on earth was seeded by meteorites.
  • Much of the game's lore makes more sense with basic understanding of alchemical myths, such as why Miquella is associated with unalloyed gold and covers all his followers (most notably his diseased sister) in the metal^note Because it never rusts (like Miquella himself), gold was held to be a sacred metal that could be imbued with special properties. It represented purity and perfection of matter and mind, and so ideal for the purposes of protecting the world from malignant divine influences as Miquella intends to. Gold is also associated with immortality, fitting for an eternally youthful god. and why Marika/Radagon is one being who is both male and female.^note The final result of the magnus opus is a product of the Red King (sulfur) and White Queen (mercury): the rebis, a divine hermaphrodite. The rebis is also sometimes◊ depicted being raised up by a dragon; Radagon/Marika is empowered by the Elden Ring, the consciousness of which (Elden Beast) takes the form of a dragon (it is in fact called "NebulaDragon" in the game files).
  • The Golden Order's symbol is possibly an inverted Philosopher's Stone.
  • The reason why even Demigods are affected by Scarlet Rot can be chalked up by the Outer God of Scarlet Rot just being that powerful, but it has a deeper symbolical meaning: the Rot is representative of the Shinto concept of kegare, spiritual and physical filth and corruption, and the Shinto gods, the Kami, must be protected from filth and corruption (for example, by being physically clean while visiting a shrine, or not visiting a shrine at all if a death has recently occured in the family) else they may also be defiled by it and cause misery and misfortune.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: According to From Software, over 90% of the player base comes from outside Japan, mostly the United States. This is in keeping with trends from the Souls series, but its popularity in the west might be even more disproportionate than those games; for example, Dark Souls III's initial sales were 50% North American, 33% European, and 17% Asian (including Japan). Its popularity among American audiences, even relative to the game's already-massive success, is so great that Elden Ring became the tenth best-selling game of all time in the country just a few months after it was released.^note Excluding FTP games; "premium" means "not free to play."
  • Character-specific example is Morgott/Margit in China: 70% of the fanfiction pairing him with the Tarnished on AO3 is written in Chinese and browsing his Twitter tag yields similar amounts of fanart by Chinese artists.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Flying enemies in general. Their trajectories are very unpredictable, making locking onto them mandatory if you want to keep track of where they are. However, if you lock onto them, the camera will usually spin around fast enough to make dodges very difficult as the orientation of the character will change extremely fast to keep facing the enemy. Worse, because of the orientation of the player changing so fast, it may result in the game not properly registering if their shield is properly facing the enemy, which may result in "glitched" damage of sort, where your shield is up, but the game doesn't acknowledge it. Dragonflies zip around you in circles so much you can't get a good hit in until they try to take a stab at you. The Warhawks from Stormveil Castle also not only hit really hard, but they have an attack where they do a fast-spiraling strike that the camera can't keep up with, and can easily cause the player to get hit.
  • Torch-wielding nobles are annoying even when riding Torrent, as their method of 'attacking' is stick the torch away from their person, and let the fire ward them off. A nuisance on their own, but when near other enemies, you will get dismounted very, very quickly.
  • Imps, found in many of the optional Catacombs and throughout the rooftops of Leyndell, are very irritating, often hiding just out of your view and dropping down from the ceiling to ambush you. They're surprisingly hardy due to being made of stone, are very agile, and their attacks are both damaging and cause bleed buildup, meaning getting caught in a combo can be quickly fatal even with high Vigor. The only saving grace is that they are very vulnerable to Crystal Darts, briefly stunning them and forcing them to attack anyone, even their own allies.
  • No matter what part of the game you're in, a pack of rats can become your untimely demise if you underestimate them, as they have an uncanny ability to break your poise, especially in large numbers.
  • You'll frequently encounter Marionettes across the game. These Multi-Armed and Dangerous enemies have four arms and use them to their fullest, be it smacking you silly with a flurry of blades or turning you into a pincushion while Dual Wielding lightbows. They may also "break" on occasion and briefly go berserk with their attacks. They don't take much to go down but if you get surrounded or ambushed by them they can shred your health.
  • Claymen, found in the underground river areas. They're slow, but powerful, and their skin is covered in thick clay, giving them sky-high defense - many bladed weapons simply bounce right off their bodies when attacked. They can be backstabbed and easily dodged, but they often group up by the dozen, especially in the Ainsel River. Some can poke you from long range with their spears, and some can conjure up exploding bubbles, but the ones that wield glowing daggers are arguably the worst, as they attack quicker, deal very high damage and can roll towards retreating players and catch them unawares. Due to the tedium of clearing out a whole crowd of them and their sluggish speed, it's better to just run past them.
  • Giant ants are found in some underground areas, like Ainsel River and Deeproot Depths. Wherever they occur, they're usually incredibly numerous. They also love to hang on walls and ceilings out of view. The workers are not especially dangerous on their own, but it's easy to run into an ambush and get overwhelmed. There are also flying variants.
  • Silver Tears in Nokron and Nokstella are extremely numerous. They come in several varieties. Basic Silver Tears can only muster a predictable projectile or melee attack, while other varieties are disguised, carry a shield that makes them resistant to frontal attacks, or release a charge of electricity upon death. The strongest are the Mimic Tears, which are basically NPC enemies in the guise of these guys. Their tendency to appear in large numbers and ambush the player make them pests, especially when groups surround powerful enemies.
  • Most Beastmen of Farum Azula are tough but fairly manageable, but the ones that toss bladed hooks at you from a distance are a huge nuisance. These projectiles deal a sizeable chunk of damage for how quickly they toss them out, have ridiculous tracking and are often tossed at you in pairs, meaning you might eat a hook even if you dodged the first one. The thing that makes these variants Goddamn Bats is that hook-wielding Beastmen are almost always paired up with other enemies, making it difficult to focus on avoiding both the maniacs swinging at you up close and the hooks flying at you from several dozen feet away.
• Goddamned Boss:
  • The two Astels are viewed as straightforward, but annoying bosses on account of their teleporting mechanic allowing them to quickly retreat to the opposite end of the arena, forcing another run up. In addition, it's really difficult to land a hit on them due to either their movements being really unpredictable without risking getting hit, or them using one of their area of effect attacks.
  • If the player is following the Volcano Manor assassination requests, Juno Hoslow can be quite the nuisance. He dual-wields the Hoslow's Petal Whips, which not only deal surprisingly high damage due to him being a late-game NPC, but also has him deal bleed damage, meaning that blocking is not an option. Furthermore, he can also spam Bloodhound's Step a lot, making hitting him harder. By that moment, players can easily kill him, but given his ability to dodge attacks easily, this can take a while. Patch 1.07 nerfed Bloodhound's Step, making it easier to hit him, but still annoying due to his whips.
  • Sir Gideon Ofnir is a mostly straightforward NPC boss fight, and the easiest of the mandatory late-game bosses given that he's preceded by Maliketh and followed by both Godfrey and Radagon/the Elden Beast. But thanks to his gimmick where he gets certain spells depending on which Shardbearers were slain, on top of being a Spam Attack focused spellcaster with infinite FP, he can go from being simple to very annoying as he constantly applies pressure thanks to a potentially huge arsenal of spells, all of which prevent the player from finding a good opening to beat him down. Should the player get all the Greater Runes, he's very likely to kill even strong players within a few attacks with no way to counter.
  • The Final Boss frequently dives under the water that makes up the floor of its arena and swims far away, requiring melee players to spend a great deal of time and stamina running after it as it peppers them with celestial magic from afar. It also flies away after some of its larger attacks to create further distance between it and the player, which means that, if you're limited to melee weapons or short-range spells, the majority of the fight is actually going to be spent chasing down the Final Boss.
  • The Tree Spirits are the most hated of the "generic" bosses; as huge twitchy monsters with vaguely defined shapes, they have huge hitboxes and are unintuitive to dodge. They're seldom particularly hard, but they're always very annoying. The worst is probably the one in Elphael that you need to kill to complete Millicent's quest, as you fight it on a small platform filled with Scarlet Rot, making it even harder to dodge and putting you on a de facto time limit to kill the thing before the Rot status effect drains all your health... and that's if it doesn't knock you off the nearby cliff first. It doesn't help that they rival Erdtree Avatars, Crucible Knights, Crystalians, and Night's Cavalry as the most common bosses in the game; there are 12 of them throughout the Lands Between, mostly identical in move set but each stronger than the last.
  • Similarly, the regular dragon bosses have drawn criticism for how similar they all are. Fighting Agheel in Limgrave is an exhilarating early game boss. The later versions...deal a different damage type with their breath weapon and have more hit points. The AI and tactics effectively never change.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • The game has a failsafe that prevents players from getting stuck by instantly killing them if they're trapped in the "falling" state for too long. This failsafe works for every entity, including bosses. There are stories of tough enemies unintentionally getting caught in a tree and dying from this failsafe.
  • As in previous FromSoftware games, the player can mash buttons to struggle out of some enemies' grab attacks, causing the enemy to drop them more quickly and resulting in less damage taken. For some reason, doing this to a Runebear causes it to phase straight through the floor. Provided there's no other floor beneath it, it will end up outside the map and die to the aforementioned failsafe. Considering Runebears are some of the most aggressive and tanky enemies in the game, not only is this far more effective than actually fighting them, but it's also just hilarious.
  • If Malenia is brought to the end of her first healthbar with a critical attack, such as through posture break or repeated parrying, there is a chance that she will begin phase 2 with very little HP instead of her usual 80%.
  • Using the Holy Ground skill after using Seppuku while wearing the Deathbed Dress causes your character to uncontrollably twitch until either effect wears off.
  • The v1.04 update introduced a bug where inflicting a damage-inducing ailment (bleed or frostbite) right as a boss changed phases caused them to instantly die rather than properly undergo their phase transition. This was most commonly observed on multi-phase fights with unusual health-loss mechanics such as the Fire Giant and Godskin Duo, where the bosses lost health in ways not present in other fights^note the Fire Giant loses a small amount of health when undergoing the phase transition unrelated to any damage that the player does, while the Godskin Duo have both individual health bars and a collective health bar, the latter of which is depleted as the individual health bars take damage. It was quickly patched out one week later.
  • One of the few ways to avoid the Draconic Tree Sentinel's targeted lightning is to be standing directly next to him, which makes the attack strike behind him. There's no clear reason for this aside from a targeting error.
  • v1.04 introduced a bug with the Gold Breaker skill from an endgame weapon that allows the player to fly horizontally for a long distance, crossing gaps that they normally cannot. That said, you'll need to have beaten the Final Boss to gain the weapon that allows this, so it cannot be used for much Sequence Breaking, but is still handy for reaching elusive opponents.
  • Although the circumstances surrounding it are still unknown, it is possible for the Regal Ancestor Spirit's teleport manoeuvre to malfunction and transport him out of bounds, wherein he's instantly killed by a failsafe.
  • Entering Rykard's boss room as soon as the "Invading another world" message is displayed, then grabbing the Serpent-Hunter as soon as possible before the loading screen hits, then returning to your world allows you to pick up a second one, which should be impossible due to the game preventing you from obtaining a second Serpent-Hunter even in NG+, but the glitch allows you get two of them, though unfortunately it doesn't affect the Great-Serpent Hunt skill against Rykard.
  • Zipping. While not fully understood, it is possible to jump arbitrarily long distances across the map while holding the guard and run buttons. And it's very, very easy to perform. With careful routing, it's possible to finish the game in as little as four minutes using this glitch.
  • For some reason, entering New Game Plus results in the player running around various swamps and lava without getting their movement impeded. This is most notable in areas where you cannot ride torrent, and makes navigation much more of a breeze.
  • By using Torrent to climb the cliffs near the Converted Tower, you can reach a small ledge that happens to be in the zone of a Stake of Marika up on the Moonlight Altar, allowing you to get up there without even starting Ranni's questline by killing yourself with self-damage. And since you aren't supposed to be able to get up there without doing the questline and collecting a bunch of items, Ranni will be up there even though she shouldn't be, having slain her Fingers with a blade she shouldn't have, and you can still marry her with the ring you shouldn't have. This means you can get the Dark Moon Greatsword pretty much immediately after starting the game and obtaining a way to deal damage to yourself (either Bloody Slash or Fetid Pots).
  • Margit and Mohg's Shackles work by sending out a non-damaging AoE attack in a very large spherical radius around the user. This can be used to raise/lower the fire/ice-breathing trap pillars in dungeons without needing to do the intended Corridor Cubbyhole Run or put yourself in the line of fire to shoot them with a bow. Of particular note is the one in Auriza Hero's Grave, which will spawn a third chariot in the middle of the large main room when raised, causing the other chariots to crash into it and be destroyed. Normally this requires dodging the chariots until you get almost to the end of the room, then drop down to a secret path, fight through a bunch enemies, and dodge another chariot in order to reach and hit the pillar. With either of the Shackles, you get to skip all that and destroy the chariots as soon as you enter the large room.
  • The Godskin Duo are actually supposed to have a counter to their crippling Sleep weakness by waking each other up if one is asleep and the other isn't. However, for some reason, the presence of the Banished Knights patrolling outside the boss arena causes this behaviour to bug out and not activate when it's supposed to. Killing all of the Banished Knights before fighting the Duo will fix it, but why would you ever want to fix it? If you simply want to see the behaviour in action without torturing yourself, the Godskin Apostle at Dominula will wake up any nearby Celebrants that you put to sleep and is much easier to deal with.
  • One particularly effective bug involves the usage of a self buff skill (commonly Golden Epitath's Last Rites skill), the Holy Ground skill on a small or medium shield, and the Crimsonwhorl Bubbletear on the Flask of Wonderous Physick. By activating Last Rites and then using Holy Ground (causing the player character to undergo a seizure), using the Physick while this is happening causes the Crimsonwhorl's effect (all non-physical damage types heals the player instead for 15 seconds) to remain active even when it would otherwise run out, effectively making the player invincible to non-physical attacks and nullifying the threat of non-physical sorceries and incantations (both of which only have a small amount of physical damage sources available between them).
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Godfrey's appearance as Hoarah Loux wound up looking very, very similar to Even Older Scott Pilgrim from Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.
• Ho Yay:
  • There are a fair number of people who view Malenia and Finlay as having this. While pretty much all of Malenia's followers are stated to have Undying Loyalty towards her, the fact that Finlay carries on her back, while she's leaking Rot, while at the same time marching all the way from Caelid back to the Haligtree (an area which should span dozens, if not hundreds of miles realistically), while at the same time fighting off enemies of all kinds, comes across as a just a bit intense for a purely platonic relationship.
  • The same thing could be applied to pretty much all the Cleanrot Knights, as being willing to serve under someone, knowing full well from the beginning that it will lead to you suffering from one of the most horrific fates imaginable, is pretty intense for a platonic relationship between soldiers and their commander.
• I Knew It!: Almost as soon as the game released, fans were speculating that Miquellla's cocoon in Mohg's boss arena would be used as a gateway to access the eventual expansion pack. Almost two real world years later, Miyazaki confirmed in an interview with IGN that this point would be used to access the Land of Shadow in Shadow of the Erdtree.
• The Inverse Law of Fandom Levity: Due to basically 1-to-1 inheriting the Dark Souls fanbase, this was only to be expected. Looking past even the veritable mountain of memes and jokes taking the piss out of the rather morose story and world, fans in general are very fond of making jokes about the Big, Screwed-Up Family that are Marika's children and love to portray them getting in petty domestic disputes with each other or imagining what they must have been like as bickering children. The characters also frequently get flanderized for the sake of comedy by the fandom (e.g Morgott having no identity out of hating Tarnished and Omens, Mohg's entire personality revolving around his lust for Miquella, etc.).
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: Spirit Ashes get this reception from a lot of players, who will go out of their way to avoid using them. While Souls Like RPGs lack a difficulty selection option, whether or not you choose to use and upgrade Spirit Ashes de facto acts as such in Elden Ring. Even ignoring Game-Breaker spirits like Black Knife Tiche or a well-built Mimic Tear that can practically solo most bosses when fully upgraded, Spirit Ashes tend to trivialize or massively simplify otherwise challenging encounters. It's the way they do this, though, that is so contentious: most of them do pitiful damage but have a ton of hit points themselves. So they essentially act as meat shields to draw enemy aggro and give you free hits, sometimes moving into outright A.I. Breaker territory with bosses that stagger easily and/or can't juggle multiple player-level attackers properly. As a result, defeating a boss with Spirit Ashes doesn't even really require you to learn its move set, it's more equivalent to bypassing the fight altogether. Duo bosses are held as exceptions for obvious reasons.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!:
  • For veteran Souls-like RPG, the game may be much easier than they are used to, but thanks in large part to its online hype and long anticipation, the game has attracted a lot more newcomers than previous titles, many of whom have never so much as touched a Souls-like RPG game before, which has led to many complaints. Gamers used to hack and slashing their way through games quickly find out that's not a winning strategy here, as even basic enemies require timing and patience to defeat. The lack of a clear goal, outside of following the grace sites vaguely pointing in a direction, has caused a few headaches as players wander into areas and bosses far too high leveled for them to defeat. The fact that there is no indication that some NPCs will require you to talk to them multiple times in order to obtain items from them or to complete sidequests. Speaking of which, the fact there is no actual way to track quests or even a quest log to tell you when you have started a quest has been a common sticking point for a few newcomers, as many end up missing out on items or helpful NPCs simply because they didn't know if they had started a quest, where to go for said quests, or even if they had completed a quest.
  • A common complaint among both veterans and newcomers is the enemy movesets. In every other FromSoftware RPG, enemies had limited movesets with obvious telegraphing and plenty of recovery, with their main advantage over the player being numbers and raw power — any player could finish the games as long as they didn't play like a moron and rush in without learning the timings. Elden Ring changes the dynamic significantly; enemies are not only faster and stronger than ever, but they have less recovery on their attacks, much more complex movesets with branching combo paths and delays in their attacks to catch panic rolls, and less telegraphing. The end result is a reaction-based combat system where you need quick reflexes to dodge attacks, rather than the trial-and-error studying of enemy moves of before, which can make combat more frustrating than previous games.
  • A complaint even among veterans is the above-mentioned Difficulty Spike after Leyndell, regarding both the bosses and the common enemies of the Mountaintops of the Giants and Crumbling Farum Azula. The sheer uptick in enemy health, damage capacity, and density can be seen as jarring after the comparatively even progression for the Shardbearers and their zones up to this point, and marks the spot where it becomes necessary to level Vigor up to 40 if you want any hope of not getting one-shot. Crumbling Farum Azula, in particular, is absolutely loaded with durable, deadly, densely-packed groups of difficult enemies in a way not seen in any other area save Elphael and the Haligtree. While FromSoftware games have never had easy lategame areas, Elden Ring's endgame has been called "overtuned" or at least too drastic of a jump compared to the rest of the game.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: A minor case, but after the Demon's Souls remake completely redid the sound design for magic and made it immensely satisfying, some players felt the classic magic noises used here just no longer have the same oomph.
• Junk Rare: At a certain point in the late game, the torrent of highest-level upgrade materials (Ancient Dragon Smithing Stones and Great Gloveworts) becomes useful only to a player who is using a rotation of 10 different weapons and Spirit Ashes, as most players will have solidified their build and figure out what primary weapons they want to upgrade to the maximum. This means that despite said upgrade materials being Legendary items they aren't really worth seeking out by around the time when the player reaches Farum Azula.
• LGBT Fanbase: Similar to the Estrogen Brigade detailed above, the game's garnered a significant queer fanbase, as not only are there many attractive characters of both genders, it's the first FromSoftware game to feature canonical homosexual relationships, specifically the female PC being able to marry both Queen Marika and Ranni in their respective endings. That and the true nature of Marika and Radagon's identiy has garnered a significant amount of attention among the trans, non-binary, and gender-fluid communities. Malenia, in a similar vein to Lady Maria before her, has also proven to be rather popular among lesbians, as strong, yet elegant women tend to be. It helps that there's a degree of potential subtext regarding her and Finlay.
• Love to Hate: Some of your adversaries are horrendously depraved beings, such as the Loathsome Dung Eater and Seluvis, but their well-written characterization, memorable moments, and fear factor they inspire make them very entertaining and well-received villains by critics and the fandom. Two of them, Godrick and Mohg, have exhilarating, intense battles that could make your victory against them very cathartic partly because you triumphed a battle against a demigod and because you've put an end to their evil, which has been going rampant since the Shattering.
• Memetic Badass: In a World of Badass like the Lands Between, a few stand above the pack.
  • Malenia's infamously difficult boss fight combined with her lore of being the World's Best Warrior despite having one limb and no eyes quickly made her one. Even non-gaming orgs like universities are getting in on it. This reputation is sustained by a flood of boss vs boss videos that became popular in the months following the game's release. Malenia always wins her match-ups (with the sole exception of Maliketh, the victor of that match-up usually coming down to the Home Field Advantage), usually with complete ease. Only three or four bosses are even capable of getting past her first phase on a semi-consistent basis.
  • Next to Malenia is Finlay, the Cleanrot Knight who carried Malenia from Caelid all the way to the base of the Haligtree after her duel wih Radahn. As most players have an idea of how far this, how long it would take to walk this and how much opposition a person would face doing this, so doing it while carrying an 8 foot tall demigoddess who is actively spreading Scarlet Rot makes her pretty damned impressive, and as such Finlay is widely considered an unstoppable badass, despite her Legendary Ash being the only reference to her (and it being a pretty mediocre Ash).
  • General Radahn pretty much immediately attained this reputation, both for his incredibly cinematic Climax Boss fight which basically amounts to a cross between a raid boss in an MMO and a mosh pit, and for his lore which involves him both being the only demigod able to challenge Malenia in combat, to being A Father to His Men to the point where they try to grant him an honorable death even after he went mad and started eating them, to learning gravity magic just to avoid crushing his beloved horse and then using that to hold all the stars in place. Gigachad edits of him started proliferating pretty much as soon as the game came out.
    Max0r: This man is skateboarding a horse and holding back the stars while killing everyone he comes into contact with. And he does it from the hospice.
  • In the real world, a player on PC named "let me solo her" has become something of a folk hero in the community for putting their summon sign down outside of Malenia's boss room and then, as their name states, killing her single-handedly, all while wearing no armor except the Giant Pot and just using dual katanas. It's gotten to the point where articles have been written about them in major gaming publications, along with loads of fan art from the community and an entire mod that adds him as a spirit summon. His fame is such that JT Music made an entire rap song in his honor.
  • Similar to Mist Noble from Sekiro, Soldier of Godrick is so laughably easy that fans like to joke about him secretly being the hardest boss in the game, far surpassing Malenia. Videos began proliferating of people attempting to fight him with overpowered builds, doing Scratch Damage at best, and then getting one-shotted by his very basic moveset. Fans also started joking about him having multiple phases with increasingly goofy variants on his name, such as "Soldier of God, Rick", "Rick, God Soldier", "Rick, Blade of God" and finally "Rick, God of Soldiers".
  • Maliketh, the Black Blade counts as one in in-universe, as it is made clear that all of the demi-gods were terrified of him and the power he wielded through the Rune of Death. He became one out of universe when hackers starting pitting him against other bosses and it was made clear his reputation is very well deserved: his acrobatic move set and the percent-based damage of his Black Blade means he crushes almost every single boss in the game in no time flat, having the second best win rate after Malenia (only she, the Godskin Duo, Fire Giant, and Godfrey are capable of beating him semi-consistently), Maliketh himself being the only boss who can potentially win against her.^ExplanationThe fight has some RNG dependent on choices the AI makes, but is mostly determined by the arena. If the fight is in Malenia's arena she consistently beats him, even prevailing in sets where he's massively buffed by getting to start with full health in phase 2. If the fight is in Maliketh's arena, Maliketh's the one who consistently wins, even if Malenia gets the same advantage of starting in her second phase. This is because Malenia's arena is more or less just a flat open field while Maliketh's contains many pillars within which give him extra maneuverability and attacks he does not have access to in other environments, while also tripping up other bosses' AI as he's able to clip attacks through the architecture.
  • Godfrey/Hoarah Loux is yet another example, being one of the primary contenders for World's Best Warrior in the setting, but unlike the others he was born as a man, not a god, and attained his position through his own strength and accomplishments. The fact that he was gifted a lion familiar as a means to hold him back from the full level of power and savagery he's truly capable of speaks to his prowess. The second phase of his boss fight, where he kills said familiar, rips his shirt off, and discards his ax to fight you unarmed, has been acclaimed as one of the most balls out brutal and relentless fights in the game. Comparisons of him to Senator Armstrong, Asura, and/or Heihachi started up pretty much immediately.
  • Kenneth Haight in-game is an impotently powerless nobleman, reduced to shouting for help from atop a ruin, who grudgingly accepts help from the Tarnished and is incapable of following-up on his promised rewards due to his castle being ruined. Despite this, his Small Name, Big Ego nature and Large Ham tendencies means that he is often jokingly portrayed as secretly being a strong warrior who simply refuses to lower himself to fighting someone as pitiful as Godrick and could easily take the throne of Elden Lord if he actually tried. Similarly, because he actually is crucial to getting Nepheli Loux enthroned as Lord of Limgrave, employs demi-humans knowingly, and waxes poetic about his own generosity (despite never actually being able to give the player much of anything notable in the way of rewards), Kenneth Haight is alternatively portrayed as a charismatic Monster Lord in command of legions of loyal followers who is nevertheless still vaunted for his lagresse.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Sir Gideon Ofnir has become one due to his boss fight, a rather basic NPC fight sandwiched in between two of the hardest fights in the game. Videos of him being killed in the middle of his monologue to you before he even gets a chance to retaliate are pretty common.
  • Seluvis has also become this, both for the fact that he is understandably hated by literally every character that acknowledges his existence and because there isn't a single scenario for his questline where something horrible doesn't happen to him.
  • Godrick the Grafted is a reasonably challenging boss encounter, but the fact that the game paints him as one of the setting's biggest and sorest losers who is Hated by All has not been lost on the fanbase. Nevertheless, his status as a complete loser is often exaggerated by the fanbase to comical extents, which is to mean not by very much.
  • The Draconic Tree Sentinel guarding the path to Leyndell in the normal path has inexplicably become the subject of bullying by proxy of various players taking the mickey out of others who chastise those playing the game with "easy meta builds" while they, themselves, use a cheap, minmaxed build, with the Sentinel being the target of an arms race of players one-upping each other on the most niche and ridiculous "overpowered" builds in the game. Even before this, optimal speedruns involve luring the Sentinel to a certain cliff, parrying him and smacking the horse to goad it to plummet into a pit, killing it instantly, drawing parallels to Dark Souls's Ceaseless Discharge, who can be cheesed much the same way.
• Memetic Mutation: As with the many Souls games before it, it has its own page.
• Memetic Psychopath: While it's clear that Marika is not winning any mother-of-the-year awards any time soon, the memes often escalate her overal treatment of her children as pawns to full-on Hilariously Abusive Childhood, depicting her as a hillariously apathetic parent who throws her children into the sewers at the slightest provocation.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The enemy getting staggered is accompanied by a resounding thud. It's your cue to go for a Critical Hit or a window to heal up, and it's always gratifying to hear in the middle of a tough fight. Then you encounter the mutant crows in Mohgwyn Palace, who will fake a stagger complete with the sound effect, then sucker punch you when you go in for the crit.

N-S

• Narm:
  • The introductory cutscene has the narrator describe a list of some of the notable figures of the world, most of whom sound fairly impressive, before hammily boasting of "THE LOATHSOME DUNG EATER".
  • Pidia’s death. If you choose to visit this character instead of Seluvis after completing the first part of Ranni’s quest, you hear him being murdered by his puppets. The voice acting for that scene is very… unconvincing, to say the least. Pidia genuinely sounds like he’s just being frightened and tickled rather than being brutally gutted. Even the subtitles don’t help, making his cries sound muted and silly (“Ahh. Eek.”)
  • How Hoarah Loux, Warrior pronounces his title, and the fact he is Suddenly Shouting, makes the cutscene... interesting.
    "Hoarah Loux, WOORIAAAAAH"
• Narm Charm:
  • General Radahn. Everything about him is completely absurd, from his gargantuan size on such a tiny mount, to his strange-looking gravity magic attacks, to the over-the-top nature of many of his most dangerous moves, making his fight as ridiculous as it is hard. And it's also incredibly fun and intense, with him perhaps being the first taste of what FromSoftware has in mind this time around for the scale and intensity Elden Ring wants to achieve.
  • The Dung Eater's name might be ridiculous, but the actual character is genuinely chilling and one of the most evil FromSoft NPCs ever, basically being a serial killer who defiles the corpses of his victims to inflict an awful curse that will separate them from the Erdtree and make them suffer for eternity. His plan is to have you use his rune to inflict this curse upon all mankind, dooming everyone to suffer forever.
  • Hoarah Loux pulling out pro wrestling moves like powerbombs is completely out of left field and also undeniably cool as hell, especially as just moments ago he was the regal Godfrey, speaking in Flowery Elizabethan English. In general, the sheer ferocity of his boss fight combined with the theatricality of his biggest attacks and the Mood Whiplash from his much more dignified first phase makes the whole experience equal parts hilarious and terrifying.
  • Mohg is a black, clawed, horned, fanged, winged, yellow-eyed, fourteen-foot demon in warlock robes who lives in an underground fortress flanked by a river of blood, wields a flaming trident, speaks Gratuitous Latin, opens portals into an eldritch realm to throw flaming blood at you, and calls himself the Lord of Blood. He has quite possibly one of the most over-the-top Obviously Evil character designs in fiction, sticking out like a sore thumb compared to the other characters, and could easily come across as completely ridiculous in another game. But his design is cool enough, his boss fight fun enough, his in-universe actions vile enough, and his theme memorable enough that he's instead widely regarded as one of the game's highlights.
  • Shabriri’s wonderfully enthusiastic performance is extremely hammy, and extremely beloved. The fact that his voice audibly cracks in the quote below might undermine his sinister vibe for some players, but it also makes him sound more unhinged.
    "Ahhhhhh, may Chaos take the world! May Chaos TAKE THE WORLD!!"
  • In the same vein as Mohg, Rykard is Obviously Evil to an almost unbelievable degree. He's a gigantic half-man half-snake abomination with a giant face on his underside and arms and legs placed haphazardly and asymmetrically along his serpentine body, giving him a clumsy, waddling gait as he moves around. He lives in a giant fortress in a volcano that seems to mostly consist of torture dungeons, many of his attacks involve him shooting tons of screaming skulls at the player, and he has an extremely bizarre voice that has been compared to Emperor Palpatine trying to talk while chewing. All of the above-mentioned factors have contributed to making him an extremely beloved Fountain of Memes with one of the most memorable boss battles in the game.
• Nausea Fuel: In Leyndell, Royal Capital, players can go down a well to enter the Subterranean Shunning-Grounds below the city to find what is arguably the single most downright disgusting area that has ever graced a FromSoftware game. It stands out among previous sewer levels by depicting a large city's sewers in a realistic way, in that everything is covered from ceiling to floor in nothing but feces, which for whatever reason also seems to be littered with decaying corpses and human bones. There's even brown slugs dwelling in there that almost look like poop. While none of this would come to light if the player traversed the area without a light source, with the entire level being covered in total darkness and crawling with Demonic Spiders, this is a foolhardy effort.
  • One of the Omens you encounter in the Shunning-Grounds is absolutely covered in these gnarled, mishappen horns. With half his body essentially being encased in bone. In addition to looking like he's in constant pain, once you get a good look at him and see just how messy his model is, it might actually make you sick. The worst part is that that horrible fate is the natural form of an Omen and they get their horns cut off at birth to keep from turning into that.
• Nintendo Hard: As expected from a FromSoftware game. Dynamic bosses and hard-hitting enemies are still a major element of the game, though the game's open world design and Torrent enables bypassing far, far more easily. However the challenges you cannot just bypass are even more unforgiving than in games past and full use of the game's new tools along with through exploration is key to making it through.
• No Yay: Mohg is basically the epitome of this. Being an explicit Depraved Homosexual in-love with his half-brother, who happens to be stuck in the body of a child.
• One-Scene Wonder: Shabriri only shows up optionally for one conversation with the player, but between his well written Affably Evil dialogue and fantastically unhinged voice acting, he's one of the game's most memorable villains.
• One True Pairing:
  • Fans ate up Malenia x Cleanrot Knight Finlay once it was revealed that it was the latter who carried the former's unconscious body all the way from Caelid to the Haligtree.
  • Of those concerning shipping the Tarnished, Morgott turned out to be the demigod most shipped with them, even outdoing fan-favorite Ranni.
• Player Punch:
  • Being forced to kill Blaidd, who was a kind and helpful ally beforehand, at the end of Ranni’s quest line after the Two Fingers drive him insane, especially since he is a major Ensemble Dark Horse.
  • Having to choose between allowing Melina to kindle the Forge of the Giants, fulfilling her purpose but costing her her life, or inheriting the Frenzied Flame to spare her and do it yourself but causing her to abandon you in disgust due to your betrayal. When you get close to the prison which holds the Three Fingers, Melina appears and begs you, with uncharacteristic desperation, to not proceed, pleading that you not take an action that will likely destroy the Lands Between. If you do so anyway, she'll abandon you in misery, wishing a tearful farewell to Torrent and expressing regret that she helped you at all. This is the only way to avert her death. Even if you only accept the Frenzied Flame to enter Farum Azula and then purge it with Miquella's Needle to avoid the outcome that Melina fears, she won't return to you. If you don't purge it, and become the Lord of Frenzied Flame, then you get to see Melina again... in The Stinger where a visibly burned Melina vows to hunt and kill you for destroying the Lands Between. Of course, you can avoid the latter by letting Melina sacrifice herself and ''then'' inherit the Frenzied Flame, but this is actually worse, since you posthumously render Melina's sacrifice completely worthless and make it so that there is nobody to bring you to justice.
• Popular with Furries: This is part of Blaidd’s popularity, as many furries find the tall wolf man very attractive, leading him to be one of the most commonly-drawn characters from Elden Ring. Maliketh, being another anthropomorphic animal, is similarly popular, as is Rya, though the "furry" part only applies to her true form as Zorayas, essentially being an Ugly Cute Cute Monster Girl.
• Porting Disaster:
  • The PC version is the least stable version of the game, with many players having various problems like heavy frame drops, issues playing with a keyboard and mouse, and various graphical glitches not found in console versions. The day one patch addressed some of the problems but introduced new ones as well. It also makes use of the infamous Easy Anti Cheat engine which has built up a reputation for being unreliable and causing all kinds of headaches, and that holds equally true here, from being either trigger happy or just outright keeping the game from running. A lot of the game's performance issues have also been attributed to it as well with the only real fix being to straight up disable it and play offline. Another factor in the game's poor performance on PC is that it is From's first DirectX 12 game. DX12 gives developers an increased level of control that can drastically improve performance, but when used improperly, this level of control can lead to poor performance, such as in this case.^note Most notably due to not taking shader compilation and the shader cache properly into account, which results in most stuttering happen due to the game having to process new shaders as they become relevant to the current in-game context at any one time. This is not a problem unique to this game or even DX12 either. Other games have had similar issues due to having to compile shaders to ensure compatibility with any given PC hardware configuration, and poor game development practice can lead to thousands of shaders to compile, especially if pre-compiling shaders isn't even done when player first starts the game. The main reason for this is that shaders are easier than ever to create even for non-programmers, which is good for ease of creation, but when you have various different shaders for all sorts of textures, the former tends to balloon significantly. id Software notably avoided this problem with Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal by being extremely disciplined with their shaders, resulting in barely around 100 shaders that need to be compiled in either game. The main reason shader compilation isn't a problem for consoles is because they only need to account for caches specific to these consoles, and can release these games with little issue. In preparation for the launch of the Steam Deck, Valve added some corrections to the Proton compatibility layer^note Which translates Windows-specific APIs like DirectX to Linux-support equivalents like Vulkan that were able to drastically improve performance, particularly by heavily optimizing how Proton handles the game's shader cache. Thankfully as of 1.4, most of the stuttering issues have been fixed, and the port is now in a decent state, but still with work to be done.
  • The Xbox One version is yet another instance of a game getting a passable One X port, but a severely mediocre port for the older versions of the system. Not only do you get the usual graphical cut-backs and sluggish frame rate, but enemy animations often take place at only half of the already-poor frame rate (something that can also happen on the base PS4 it should be noted, but at least there the issue usually clears up after a few seconds), creating an effect like something from one of Ray Harryhausen's cheaper films.
• Realism-Induced Horror:
  • Reading into the lore gradually reveals that the Lands Between's descent into a war-torn hellhole is primarily the result of a single dysfunctional family's issues spiraling massively out of control. The absentee parents? Attempted fratricide? Predatory, incestuous relatives? All of this happens every day, all over the world.
  • In a game full of grandiose villains like Godrick and Rykard, Seluvis stands out as a uniquely despicable figure because he is, at the end of the day, a garden-variety sociopath and Serial Rapist. Even his preferred method of disabling his victims — giving them a potion that turns them into a mindless doll under his control — is essentially just a fantasy version of slipping drugs into someone's drink.
  • Frenzied Flame Proscription, the prison of the Three Fingers, is made even more unsettling by the fact it's a mass grave left over from a genocide of a religious minority. The piles and piles and piles of desecrated corpses piled on top of each other pretty closely evokes imagery from real life genocides, especially since the Merchants are based closely on Romani people, who have historically been subjected to very similar treatment in many places.
  • The Albinauric Village is disturbing for much the same reason; a hidden refuge for a minority population that was found and brutally massacred by Gideon's men, it's hard not to think of real-life pogroms or the Holocaust while exploring it. The ground is absolutely carpeted with the dead and dying, bodies are strung up from trees and poles or piled onto massive pyres, and the air is darkened by smoke even in the middle of the day. Considering that the Albinaurics are a Fantasy Counterpart Culture for Jews, it makes the scene even more uncomfortable.
  • Mt. Gelmir is one of the most horrifying sights in the game for the simple reason that it's a very realistic portrayal of a war of attrition. The soldiers going mad and the piles and piles of starved corpses and desecrated scenery are all par for the course for such an occurrence, and it evokes similar imagery to that of France in World War I or the Vietnam War.
  • This is why Caelid is so deeply disturbing. It's, at heart, an uncomfortably authentic recreation of the effects of weapons of mass destruction. The malformed vegetation and wildlife aren't too far off from the ones in real-life nuclear disasters, especially those of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: A few of the game's questlines weren't completely implemented on release and weren't finished until the 1.03 a couple weeks after. One of these was Diallos's questline; its endpoint in the original release has him manipulated into joining the very cult that killed his friend, following their orders even as he laments how far he's fallen, disappearing without a trace once Rykard is killed, leading many players to consider him kind of pathetic. His full questline, however, has him moving to Jarburg seeking a gentler path and performing a Heroic Sacrifice attempting to defend it from poachers, to mixed success; the completed questline gave his character a much better received arc and generally redeemed the player base's opinion of him.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Malenia is often treated by several fans as an evil person for her actions, primarily her unleashing the Scarlet Rot to defeat Radahn, thus dooming Caelid to becoming the nightmare the player sees in-game. This is despite her having positive traits that make her as flawed as Radahn, with her use of the Scarlet Rot being flat-out stated in-game to have been a Godzilla Threshold moment, and suggests she did not intend the outbreak of the Scarlet Rot. Not to mention her status as leader of the Haligtree makes her borderline a Greater-Scope Paragon as the Haligtree faction is the only group protecting the Misbegotten and Albinaurics. Even Those Who Live in Death are allowed in the Haligtree without issue!
  • Radahn gets this a lot as well. (Which makes sense as he and Malenia are both fan-favorite characters, so everyone wants their preferred character to be the 'good' side of their duel). Radahn had plenty of flaws, but there are pretty strong indications he was overall a heroic figure. First, it should be noted the game actually does confirm his Starscourge Conflict was protecting people, though with the caveat that he was specifically defending Sellia, not necessarily the rest of the Lands Between. (Sellia was inhabited by Nox, who would have a reason to fear the Fallingstar Beasts who already destroyed one of their cities). No one in-universe (except Morgott) has anything really bad to say about Radahn. Even Ranni's allies like him even though they should be the only group to have a strong reason to dislike him as his gravity magic is stopping Ranni from reaching her destiny. He's certainly no saint, but the game does seem to consider him one of the lighter demigods in universe.
  • While she has certainly committed heinous crimes, many fans strip Marika of any sympathy she might have gained by creating (and possibly reviving and then guiding) the Tarnished, assisting Ranni in her theft of the Rune of Death, and trying to break the Greater Will's hold over the Lands Between.^note How sympathetic these events are can be rather debatable given there isn’t much concrete evidence of the how much of the Order’s tyranny falls on the Greater Will’s hands, that the Black Knife assassinations helped kickstart the war, and that the Tarnished’s goal can only seemingly be achieved by killing her children. Expect to especially see this interpretation pop up in fanworks centering around the omen twins, despite the indication that they had it a lot better than most of their kind. ^note The statement "Demigods, my children beloved" presumably includes them; their relatives know of them—Godrick has cut dialogue referring to the Omen King, and Morgott is implied to have somewhat better relationships with his surviving blood siblings than the rest, and the description of the Sentry's Torch and the fact that Mohg calls his dynasty Mohgwyn could be taken as a good relationship with Godwyn; judging by their various competencies, both twins were educated; Finally, cut dialogue from Godfrey indicates they were Happily Married and he was in on the whole plan, which would seem a bit weird if she despised the sons he loved.
  • Miquella is maligned by a small but vocal section of the fandom, who decry his Haligtree as a cult of personality taking advantage of those oppressed by the Golden Order. Some even claim he brainwashed Mogh to love him, something which is backed up by nothing except that he could theoretically have done so with his magic even though he has no reason to desire such a thing.
  • The Greater Will is also subject to a fair bit of this as well. While it's overall motivations are rather vague, it's often accused of being responsible for many of the less savory aspects of the Golden Order, such as their Fantastic Racism, particularly in regards to beings associated with the Primordial Crucible. This is despite the fact that not only is this never stated in any dialogue or item descriptions, the Primordial Crucible is explicitly the form the Erdtree took before the Golden Order, with the Crucible Knights incantations listed as Erdtree incantations. This makes it highly unlikely that the Greater Will disapproves of Crucible-affiliated beings. As an extension of this, it and the Erdtree are often described as invaders, forcibly usurping the previous order of the land, and replacing it with their own. This is despite the fact that it's directly credited by the Frenzied Flame itself to be progenitor of all life. The Golden Order itself is explicitly a personality cult dedicated to Marika^note It may have helped found the Order, but the basic principles it left were the Law of Causality, Law of Regression, and Marika being the one true god, meaning she is the highest authority recognized, and thus responsible for the policies enacted. Finally, Gold Mask, who's a radical Golden Order Fundamentalist, and thus probably the closest to being aligned with the Greater Will, explicitly decries the prejudice displayed by many members of the Golden Order as being the result of human fanaticism and the fickle whims of gods, not the Greater Will.
  • The Elden Beast also receives this treatment, as an extension of its position as prime servant the Greater Will. Many seem to consider it to be the Man Behind the Man to Marika, believing it to be the one directing her to conduct her various pogroms and persecution of "those without grace" like the Misbegotten and Omens. Except not only is this never mentioned in dialogue or descriptions, the Misbegotten and Omens stem from the Primordial Crucible which is explicitly just the form the Erdtree took before the Golden Order, and thus an extension of the Elden Beast itself, making it highly unlikely it has anything against them. Furthermore, it's only confirmed action during the game is it's punishment of Marika, which can be considered rather justified since 1) the Shattering she caused led to untold death and misery, and 2) it's status as the true form of the Elden Ring makes Marika's breaking of it an attempt on its life, making it's resulting punishment of her more akin to retribution for attempted murder or even outright self defense.
• Rooting for the Empire: A portion of the fanbase seems to prefer the Lord of Frenzied Flame ending because, other than Evil Is Cool, they seem under the impression that the ending somehow presents a better outcome than the others, or that the world is so bleak that causing the end of it might as well be a Mercy Kill. This is despite the fact that the ending is portrayed as not only you being overtaken by one of the most actively malevolent entities in the setting, but also a complete betrayal of Melina, the only person who has been at your side for and presented an entire World Half Full discussion on why you shouldn't get involved with the Frenzied Flame. Its status as a Downer Ending can't be more explicit in a game like this.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Upgrading generic weapons is disliked due to its resource-intensiveness compared to unique weapons. While unique weapons go up to +10 and a single Somber Smithing Stone per tier, generic weapons have 25 tiers and require 12 Smithing Stones from each of the first eight tiers to fully upgrade on top one more, for a total of 97 Smithing Stones, and that's discounting the Rune costs. Even once all the bell bearings are collected, this system punishes players who prefer generic weapons for reasons like builds or playstyles, as it's far more likely to have a fully upgraded unique weapon first. Plus, the game's freer approach to infusions through Weapon Arts contradicts this idea. Since you can't change the Weapon Art on unique weapons, it means if you want to use a weapon type with a certain element or ability, you have to grind a lot to get that specific weapon, especially if there isn't a viable alternative to it. Patch 1.03 alleviates this issue somewhat by making certain early-game vendors sell regular Smithing Stones (albeit in limited quantities), increased the Smithing Stone drop rate from enemies, and vastly reducing the purchase price of Smithing Stones across the board. Even then, it still takes far longer to max out a generic weapon than a unique weapon, when the latter can be brought up to the second last upgrade without even fighting via Sequence Breaking, and Patch 1.04 made this sequence break much more difficult to do, though still possible.
  • Torrent's middling posture is one addition that hasn't been well received due to the frustration it adds. Basically, if Torrent gets staggered, he will get desummoned and throw the Tarnished off. While that's not necessarily bad in and of itself, the recovery animation is long and lacks any Mercy Invincibility. While this is also true for most mounted enemies, the fact it can happen to the player is disliked because it is a near-guaranteed death. After all, the Tarnished has no other way of protecting themselves from potential death if this happens. This becomes an issue later on, as Torrent's posture seems to remain static rather than scaling as your character levels up, meaning late game bosses, most prominently the Fire Giant, can stagger Torrent in a single hit. While likely meant to balance mounted combat, the inclusion is widely hated for not being balanced around the player character's fragility, nor considering how much posture damage enemies can do, which sticks out when Torrent already can be killed requires a flask charge to revive.
  • The interface to revive Torrent is also widely disliked. It's a small menu with options for YES or NO to spend a flask to revive Torrent. The problem is that, if a player is trying to revive a dead Torrent, it's usually in the heat in the battle, where flipping through a menu is clumsy. To make matters worse, the menu defaults to NO, requiring YES to be selected and confirmed.
  • If you pull the lever to open the boss door in a catacomb dungeon, use a Stonesword Key, or light all of the fires required to fight one of the Ancestor Spirits, then a message will pop up on screen to inform you of this. It must be manually dismissed by pressing Y/Triangle, and as long as it's on the screen, you can't do anything except move. Pretty much every player has died at least once as a direct result of trying to fight something with one of these messages on the screen and finding to their surprise and confusion that they cannot attack, block, or dodge. Naturally, it got turned into a meme.
  • There's a brief lag between when someone is summoned for co-op and when their summoning sign is removed from the world. This can lead to "Unable to Summon Cooperator" error messages, and it can be frustrating trying to summon help if that dungeon is particularly popular for summons that day, since, by the time you see the sign, odds are good someone else has already used it. Outside Malenia's boss room is especially notorious for this.
  • The game's sidequests don't play very well with the open-world progression, and they tend to become Permanently Missable Content for the rest of the run if you push the main plot too far without advancing them in time. Multiple quests also intertwine, which complicates their Guide Dang It! nature. Not helping matters is that the NPCs themselves are pretty easy to miss in a vast environment and don't often say where they'll be going. While it's commonly understood that the deadline is after a major Point of No Return, other quests have different advancements or triggers and the fanbase is still trying to discover what happens and when with many conflicting reports.
  • Malenia's ability to heal from damaging the player is already a contentious inclusion, but her being able to heal even if the player has a 100% physical block shield, and from damaging Spirit Ashes, is an inclusion few players feel is fair due to it basically killing any use of shields and makes the use of Spirit Ashes pointless unless using Game-Breaker like the Mimic Tear or Black Knife Tiche.
  • Dying causes the time of day to advance. Normally this doesn't affect anything at all. Unless you're trying to beat a difficult boss that only appears at night, which means that every time you die, you have to sit at the grace, pass time to night, stand up, then sit at it again to refresh the world and get the boss to appear, which is extremely annoying to do.
  • Several storyline bosses are given longer dying quotes than others. This becomes a serious problem if the player and boss die at the same time; ordinarily, this would count as a player victory, but the longer quote means the GREAT ENEMY FELLED screen never has a chance to appear. Worse, the game is inconsistent on whether to play the boss's win or lose quote as one can easily override the other, meaning whether you've won can feel completely random.
  • Quite a lot of bosses are prone to so-called input-reading, where the enemy AI detects a certain input and can thus respond to it accordingly and immediately. This is most noticeable when attempting to drink from a flask or cast spells with notable animation time, as the ai will immediately respond to punish you. Some players have given this as one of their main points of criticism towards the quality of the game's bosses. It is argued that, while input-reading has appeared in previous FromSoft games, Elden Ring's bosses rely on it quite often and the mechanic often tends not to integrate naturally into their behavior. Some bosses may spend seconds walking towards you, only to immediately time a pin-point attack the moment you attempt to heal.
  • Enemies in the late game hit so hard that a minimum of 40 Vigor is required to avoid getting one-shotted by even basic enemies, much less bosses. This has understandably drawn the ire of veteran Souls players who are used to making nothing but Glass Cannons and rarely raising their Vigor above 20 if they even bother to raise it at all, since in the previous games almost nothing could really one-shot you no matter how low your Vigor was. The stat has been decried as being essentially a repeat of the universally-reviled Adaptability from Dark Souls II, being a stat that you need to invest heavily in just to make the game playable.
  • By the late-game, Great Runes are practically required to even survive due to the massive damage output, which is problematic for players that prefer to play offline, since, aside from the overworld and merchants, the only way to get them is to farm Rune Arcs from rats, which very rarely drop from them, and finding a convenient Swarm of Rats near a Site of Grace is rare. This has frustrated multiple players due to the late-game being almost unbalanced regarding players who don't use Great Runes.
  • Speaking of issues dating back to the original Dark Souls, Elden Ring's greater popularity has exposed a much wider audience to the series' unique approach to multiplayer. Allies must be summoned using different menus and consumables and can only be summoned by those who haven't beaten the area boss (potentially causing trouble for players who've killed an area boss like the Draconic Tree Sentinel but want help with a Field Boss like the Bell-bearing Hunter) and also allow Invaders to enter the world for impromptu PvP. Playing with specific people requires all involved parties to manually set the same password and look for each other's signs (the password doesn't apply to Invaders). This is in contrast to many games inspired by the Souls series that let players join through a standard lobby system using platform overlays like Remnant: From the Ashes.
  • How Item Discovery works here has been controversial. While this was a problem back in earlier Fromsoft games, it was relatively easy to mitigate with gear that could be acquired early. In Elden Ring, the only way to boost Discovery is to boost your Arcane stat, use Silver-Pickled Fowl Feet, or get the Silver Scarab, which is locked away in a hard-to-find and endgame area. Not to mention some important gear, such as the Brass Shield, have very low drop rates, meaning that if you aren't able to craft or purchase enough Silver-Pickled Fowl Feet or haven't leveled Arcane enough for getting certain items for their utilities, acquiring such items can take hours of grinding. Elden Ring also has more items that can only be acquired as random drops from enemies than every prior game combined, making Item Discovery's flaws a lot more noticeable, especially since a lot of those items (like the Noble's Slender Sword, Halo Scythe, or Longhaft Axe) are considered among the best of their class.
• Scrappy Weapon: Holy damage weapons falls off in the late game thanks to many late-game enemies and bosses possessing Holy Negation. Holy already has a lot going against it due to a lack of a status effect with percent-based damage tied to it, which cause cold and bleed builds to dominate the meta, and due to only dealing extra damage against undead, who are a very uncommon enemy type compared to the ones that Magic, Lightning, and Fire deal extra damage against (and to add salt, Fire also scales off Faith). But what really degrades it is that nearly every difficult boss and enemy in the game has above-average Holy resistance, including literally every single Remembrance boss with the sole exception of the Regal Ancestor Spirit who is weak to it (except it's also equally weak to Fire, so that's still not much of a reason to use Holy against it), as do a good portion of the regular enemies and all but one or two of the most common Recurring Boss types.^note Crucible Knights, Godskin Apostles, Godskin Nobles, Night's Cavalry, Crystalians, Erdtree Avatars, Tree Spirits, wyvern-type dragons, and Ancient Dragons (among others) get 40%+ resistance to Holy.
• Self-Fanservice:
  • Furry artists tend to give Blaidd a much cleaner design than canon—basically no one depicts the severe mange on his face.
  • Much of the fanart of Malenia makes her look more like the in-game statues and portraits of her (depicting her before the Rot had gotten too bad) than her model, toning down the Fan Disservice of her current rotted and blight-stricken body. Art that ignores or hand waves away the Rot (e.g. depicting her as cured) still tends to downplay her lean musculature in favor of enhancing her modest bust. Similarly, while it's unknown what her Cleanrot Knights look like under that armor, it couldn't look pretty underneath it all. But most fan artists tend to draw them pretty-looking, especially regarding Cleanrot Knight Finlay.
  • A decent amount of fan art interprets Ranni's current doll body as an organic, four-armed witch with voluptuous curves, rather than as a petite and delicate Soul Jar made of cords and visibly cracking underneath the robes.
  • While Radahn is a very muscular man, he was rather off-looking even before being afflicted by rot, having a disproportionately small head, somewhat stumpy legs (even before he lost his feet), and a face like a snarling ogre. Fanart, however, tends to portray him as a ruggedly handsome Hunk with more normal "strongman" proportions. To be fair, some in-game art (like the portrait in Volcano Manor does indicate that he used to look more like his siblings, and only turned into an inhuman mutant well into the Shattering.
  • Morgott is typically depicted in fanart with a more handsome, less gnarled face than he has in-game.
  • Radagon is often depicted as an effeminate Bishōnen due to his strange dualistic nature of also being Marika, while in-game what's left of him looks pretty masculine.
  • Queen Marika was fairly attractive, as one can assume from her statues. But her canon self pales in comparison to the curvaceous bombshell fan artists depict her as, especially since her current physical body is visibly shattered and cracked, missing one of her arms and her entire torso being essentially caved in.
  • A non-sexual example: The Elden Beast is an ancient eldritch entity, and looks the part; its design is even more off putting by the fact it has overtly human arms and legs on a non-human body. However, some fanart depicts the Elden Beast as a cute little critter with stubby arms and legs, and making it several times smaller in size. In the same vein, the fearsome Maliketh has frequently been depicted as a cute little puppy dog barely a fraction of his in-game size.
• Self-Imposed Challenge:
  • As usual, taking on the game as a level 1 Wretch, defeating bosses with great patience and exploiting openings in their attacks. Some even go the distance to eschew additional gear and upgrades.
  • Playing through the entire game without using summons remains a viable decision. A new wrinkle is added in the form of Spirit Ashes, which fill much of the same role as summons, and such challenge runs usually forgo these too. Since Elden Ring has a larger number of Dual Boss fights than in previous games by the developer, entering battles against two or more enemies with no one else to draw attention away from you can significantly add to the difficulty of a particular encounter.
  • Taking on Starscourge Radahn at early to mid-game level and without summoning any help. The central gimmick of this fight is that you can summon wave after wave of allies to distract Radahn's aggression, speed, and damage from yourself, with the latter being enough to take you out in only 2-3 hits if you face him when you're "supposed" to. Going solo means that all of that is focused on you, and only you.
  • Defeating Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy without using the Serpent-Hunter. This turns what is commonly (though not universally) considered one of the less-challenging bosses in the game into a brutally long Marathon Boss, since Rykard has a ton of health, is difficult to stagger without using the Serpent-Hunter's skill, has lava around his body which interrupts any melee attacks, and has his flaming skull barrage which forces you to play defensive and dodge rather than put pressure on him. Spellcasters have it a bit easier thanks to their ranged options, but anyone who wants to conquer this ordeal without casting will have to pull out their bow, lots of arrows, and get firing.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: Though the game is by no means easy, it is considered by many long-time Soulsborne players to be easier than previous games overall. The game's dungeon design is generally a lot less lethal than previous games outside of areas like Farum Azula or the Bonus Dungeon the Haligtree. And while bosses are generally equal or even greater in difficulty to previous games, the tools the player is given to even the odds make the game much more manageable. Particularly Spirit Ashes, many of which can be out and out Game Breakers. And due to its open-world nature, if you find you are struggling with a level or boss, you can go basically anywhere else to get stronger before coming back. All in all, while far from easy, Elden Ring is one of the most approachable Soulsborne games. While it is as hard or harder than its predecessors if played like them, the sheer number of overpowered new tools (most notably the ability to completely break progression due to the open world, the aforementioned Spirit Ashes, certain Ashes of War, and to a lesser degree the hemorrhage and frostbite status effects which can wreck anything with their percent-based damage and staggering) make what would've been standard options in prior games a Self-Imposed Challenge here.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Outside of canon pairings, the most popular person to ship with Marika is Rennala, a pairing that is never referenced as having met, and would most likely have a cold relationship if they did. The ship is largely based on the vague nature of Marika and Radagon, and could very well be canon if Radagon is merely Marika in disguise.
• Signature Scene: The first moments after the tutorial ends, when most players will destroy Soldier of Godrick, take a moment to marvel at the Scenery Porn, get called maidenless by Varre, and then probably get bulldozed by the Tree Sentinel before being cut loose to explore Limgrave and figure out where they want to go. This singular sequence is a Fountain of Memes on its own.
• Squick:
  • Mohg, Lord of Blood, has the hots for Miquella, wishing to make him his consort and elevate him to full godhood. Miquella is his half-brother who is eternally cursed to be a child.
  • Everything about Dung Eater. If the name wasn't enough to tell you how disgusting he is, he more than earns the title "Loathsome" from the introduction. His victims all have massive blood stains in the crotch area, he is found imprisoned in the Subterranean Shunning Grounds]], and his armor looks like a turd with corn sticking out.
  • Lady Tanith attempting to resurrect Rykard by eating his corpse so he can be reborn within her. Keep in mind Rykard is a serpentine abomination the size of a building.
  • Deathbed Companions "lie with" (which is an old-timesy slang for "have sex with") Champions, skim some of their life-force, then transfer all the accumulated life-force to a Noble's dead body. In the exact same way.
• Spiritual Adaptation: As with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, this could be the closest we get to a Princess Mononoke game, with the added twist of actively hunting down the spirits rather than trying to save them.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: As with prior Souls games, there's a population of veteran Souls players who accuse people who play the game but don't adhere to certain limitations on what items, builds, or tactics they use of "not playing the game as the developers intended." This has always been an issue with the online and NPC-summoning systems of the Souls series, but new tools in the form of Spirit Ashes, and a much wider variety of Game-Breaker equipment and spells, has exacerbated the rhetoric. This kind of elitism has existed since Demon's Souls, but became more noticeable with Elden Ring due to its enormous Newbie Boom, and while hyperbolic examples of it are sometimes treated as a meme (for example, arguing that pure Strength builds are the only true choice and anything else is inherently "easy mode," or that the use of necessary in-game features like the map or inventory means that one has "cheated"), there are still players who genuinely think this way.
• Stoic Woobie:
  • Malenia is a noble and revered warrior and mighty general who has nonetheless been decaying since birth due to being cursed with the Scarlet Rot in the womb. Her decision to resist it rather than ascend as its champion cost her an arm in childhood, and resulted in a progressively worse affliction to the point she's missing both of her eyes, her entire left leg, and half of her right leg by the time the game begins, with much of the rest of her skin scarred and her mind suffering constant assault under its influence. By the time you face her she's also lost both of her parents to the Shattering, her beloved brother Miquella to Mohg's predations, and has the Haligtree, the refuge of outcasts that she rejected a second chance at godhood to protect, slowly dying around her (along with her devoted subjects) due to Miquella not being around to sustain it (and help her repel her Rot) with his magic. You would never know all this just going by the way she acts, both because of her demeanor and because her extreme strength, speed, skill, and grace belies the fact that she's suffering at all. Even when you defeat her, she uses her last words to compliment you rather than despair at her own fate. Millicent's quest does throw her a bone by giving her possibly the only "good" ending of any of the demigods,^note Malenia is all but stated (and cut dialogue removes the "all but") to still be alive and awaiting rebirth in the flower she leaves after her boss fight. The description of the Unalloyed Gold Needle, infused with Millicent's "dew", directs the player to restore her "sense of self" by returning it to her, and doing so causes the flower to take it and engage a friendly trade, with the implication that she'll now retain her identity when she wakes up instead of being lost totally to the Rot. Additionally, the trade implies that she knows that only by going to Farum Azula can Miquella's needles permanently purge an outer god's influence, and you do in fact open the way to Farum Azula in every ending, opening the way for her being cured. On top of all that, you've probably located Miquella and killed his captor, opening the path to return him to the Haligtree post-ending - if DLC doesn't address that. but even if the best interpretation is true it took absolute hell for her to get there.
  • Morgott had to grow up in a sewer due to being born an Omen (which doesn't handicap him in any way; he's just maligned for being impure by the Golden Order), was subject to such extreme bigotry that he's internalized it and hates his own existence, and has spent his last years watching the kingdom he longed to protect disintegrate in the face of the Shattering his siblings' internecine warring. None of this stopped him from taking up his god's banner and laying a smackdown on half of said siblings to prove himself worthy of grace despite his origins. Yet the authority he put all of his trust in and did everything to serve continues to regard him as unworthy and is itself directly responsible for the ongoing death of his kingdom and the world, something he's fully aware of. Yet when Morgott briefly recalls his family members, his tone is more one of disappointment than anger,^note Except for Rykard. He clearly hates Rykard. while his attitude in his death speech is simply understated despair about how his god has chosen to forsake both him and everyone in the Lands Between.
    Remembrance of the Omen King: Though born one of the graceless Omen, Morgott took it upon himself to become the Erdtree's protector. He loved not in return, for he was never loved, but love it he did.
  • Maliketh is a pitiable Beastman who is hated and feared by all for holding the Rune of Destined Death and is completely in the dark of his half sister Marika’s machinations, being betrayed and abandoned by her. As a result, he went mad and began to insatiably hunger for Deathroot. If fed nine Deathroots and defeated, he apologizes to Marika for failing her even after her betrayal.

T-Z

• That One Achievement:
  • Legendary Ashen Remains. While the spirit ashes are hard to get, there are at least hints to their location that the player can potentially stumble into during their journey. Redmane Knight Ogha, on the other hand, is a bit trickier—the catacombs that house his spirit ashes are located in Starscrouge Radahn's boss area, which is a huge Guide Dang It! that a first-time player is heavily unlikely to find, since the Wailing Dunes appear to just be a giant empty field to fight Radahn in.
  • "Legendary Talismans" has a similar problem, with a much more out-of-the-way talisman than any other. Erdtree's Favor +2 is located in Leyndell, Ashen Capital (Leyndell buried under ash after defeating Maliketh), but not the main area that you spawn in and can explore. It's in a sealed-off portion of the ruined city only accessible by going back up the elevator in the Forbidden Lands, which absolutely no one is going to think to double-check for new loot as it's so out of the way. On top of this, the talisman is guarded by three endgame-leveled Ulcerated Tree Spirits, and there is no Site of Grace or Stake of Marika nearby, meaning if you die to one of them you'll have to take the Forbidden Lands elevator back up, walk across the bridge and take the other elevator back down all over again.
• That One Attack: Has its own page.
• That One Boss: Has its own page.
• That One Level: Has its own page.
• That One Sidequest:
  • Finding the location of where the Artist drew the "Redmane" Painting is considered to be Platform Hell. First, you have to go down a Minor Erdtree near Greyoll's Dragonbarrow, and since the nearest Site of Grace is located at Fort Faroth, if you haven't taken care of the Putrid Tree Avatar, they can potentially serve as roadblock to the location. Once you do deal with it, however, you'll find out that you have to make very precise jumps to even get down to the location. The end reward? An Ash of War that's completely worthless for non-Strength builds and is a poor man's substitute for Radahn's Rain, since Radahn's Rain fires more greatarrows and thus has better damage potential, though thankfully there's also a Rune Arc, though be wary that this will wake up a nearby Golem who will attack the player for doing so.
  • Ironically, Goldmask's Mending Rune is one of the easier ones to obtain, as all it requires is that you talk to him and Brother Corhyn a couple times. The only problem? One of these times involves you having to reveal to Goldmask that Radagon and Marika inhabit the same body, which it is not readily apparent how to even do and will likely involve a guide on the player's part; you have to cast Law of Regression in front of a specific statue of Radagon in Leyndell and then inspect the message on the ground in front of it. In addition to the confusing nature of this, Law of Regression happens to require a buttload of Intelligence, meaning the only way to even use if for many players will be to use two Larval Tears with Rennala.
  • Obtaining the Frenzied Flame ending is hard enough as it is, but getting out of it after being locked into the ending is somehow even harder. To even get out of it, players must finish the second part of Millicent's sidequest, which means clearing Castle Sol and both Brutal Bonus Levels, the Consecrated Snowfield and the Haligtree. However, the worst part is that you then have to defeat Malenia, usually considered the game's toughest boss^note thankfully, while the quest requires you to go into fellow Superboss Dragonlord Placidusax's boss arena, you don't actually have to fight him in order to get the key item needed for it. Many players outright say it's easier to just avoid getting the Frenzied Flame ending entirely or accept your newfound fate as a vessel for an Omnicidal Maniac rather than try to undo it.
• That One Puzzle: The Ordina Evergaol is considered by many to be the hardest Evergaol for all the wrong reasons. Unlike all other Evergaols which consists of boss fights, here you have to light up four torches through the city, and since it's an Evergaol, using Torrent isn't allowed here. This wouldn't be bad enough had it not for the Black Knife Assassins, who much like the Black Knife Assassin in the Sage's Cave, are invisible, and unlike them, because it's located in a Evergaol, you cannot use Spirit Ashes to cheese them, meaning that you have to bring a Sentry's torch if you want to see them, with the only saving grace that they don't respawn between Evergaol attempts. However, once you get past them, you have to deal with the Albinauric Archers, who unlike the Assassins, do respawn, making rooftop confrontations with them risky. All in all, you know what you're in for when Miquella's Haligtree requires a brutally hard Evergaol is this.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Many players felt that Melina was underused, especially in comparison to previous "level up ladies" from other FromSoftware games. There is a lot about her that seems interesting, such as her connection to both Queen Marika and potentially Ranni, her goal of making the Tarnished the Elden Lord at any cost, and the fact she is uniquely the only of her character type that can fight alongside you in battle, albeit only once. Despite all of this, you actually only interact with her a few times, many of which are missable due to the player needing to rest at specific Sites of Grace across the game (and then needing to notice that there is an option to talk to Melina, which can be missed due to being the second-to-last option on the Site of Grace menu), and most of the conversations focus around Queen Marika, with very little actual information or development concerning Melina herself. An even more contentious point, as detailed below, regards Melina's disappearance from the story and all but one of the endings even if her sacrifice is averted, which can come off as a missed opportunity for her to have a more direct role in the narrative or be a factor in the game's multiple endings.
  • Likewise, many players wish they could have learned more about Torrent, given he supposedly was the one who chose the Tarnished as his rider, and how both Melina and Ranni treat him with high regard. While you no doubt use him often to travel, you never learn anything about him nor interact with him in any other way; many have voiced their wish to be able to equip him with armor, for example.
  • Ancient Dragon Lansseax drew this reaction from players after it was revealed via item descriptions that she was not only intelligent but also had the ability to take human form to assist dragon-worshipping humans living in The Lands Between. The fact that the game went out of it's way to make it clear that she, and likely all ancient dragons, have the ability to do those things but then do nothing with it is seen as bizarre to say the least.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Should the player gain the Frenzied Flame and have Miquella's Needle (or gain it afterward, before choosing an ending), this allows them to suppress the influence of the Frenzied Flame and avert one of the game's Downer Endings. This presents the Tarnished with the possibility of using the Frenzied Flame to burn the Erdtree without sacrificing Melina, saving her from her apparent death when she sets herself aflame to do it herself, while also avoiding the negative consequences associated with the Lord of Frenzied Flame ending. In theory, this opens the possibility for Melina to return to the Tarnished once she realizes that they will not become Lord of Frenzied Flame, due to her initially leaving in disgust if the player has gained the Frenzied Flame by the time they reach the Forge of the Giants, due to believing that they will attempt to become Lord of Frenzied Flame. However, in practice, even if the player uses the Frenzied Flame to spare Melina from her sacrifice and then uses Miquella's Needle to avoid becoming Lord of Frenzied Flame, Melina does not reappear again and has no bearing on any of the other endings that the player can get after that point. She only reappears after the Forge at all during one variation of the Lord of Frenzied Flame ending, meaning that while it is possible to save Melina without becoming Lord of Frenzied Flame, in practice she effectively disappears from the story and the endings regardless of whether or not she sacrifices herself.
  • During the early game, you can encounter Yura, who tells the Tarnished about the Dragon Communion, but warns that, should you pursue the Communion, the power could overwhelm you, turning you into a Wyrm. You can even encounter said Wyrms, normal humans (and in one case a Troll) who were consumed by their draconic powers. This makes the player think they are going to get the ability to become a Draconic Humanoid, as with previous Dark Souls games. But nothing ever comes from this, and you never get the ability to transform into a humanoid Wyrm. In fact, the only appearance change you do get is when the Tarnished's eyes become draconic after consuming several Dragon Hearts.
• Tough Act to Follow: Elden Ring has received overwhelming, almost unanimous praise, is hailed as the start of a new generation of video games and is considered by many to be FromSoftware's magnum opus. Naturally, some are worried that they'll never be able to create anything to surpass it. Notably, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon was the first game they released after Elden Ring; and while seen as a perfectly good game in it's own right, it was still in the shadow of Elden Ring despite not even belonging in the same genre.
• Trans Audience Interpretation: Thanks to the extremely ambiguous nature of Radagon and Marika, such as the latter at one point transforming into the other, it is popular among queer fans to read them either as trans, either a trans man, a trans woman, genderfluid, or something else, or as a metaphor for breaking gender binaries. Their connection to Rennala, a character who can change the Tarnished's appearance, including gender, is frequently pointed to as support for this reading.
• Ugly Cute: Second-Generation Albinaurics look like the pudgy loser cousins of The Greys, with adorably huge, sad eyes and a tendency to travel around by cartwheeling. If they didn't spend most of their time trying to club you to death, you'd probably just want to give them a cuddle.
• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • In the Black Knife Catacombs, there exists three Commoners who can revive their skeletons infinitely until the Commoner summoning them is dead. This is the only dungeon that has these types of enemies, and it would have been an interesting way to encourage players to use anti-skeleton weapons and incantations, but it never sees use outside of it. Not to mention the dungeon is optional anyways, with the only reason players bother to enter it is because it's linked to Fia's and Ranni's questlines.
  • The entire Sleep magic school. Despite having a unique status effect and some items, only two weapons in the entire game (and their respective skills) use it, it can't be applied to any other ones, and only one very rare enemy can proc it on the player in PVE (that being a subvariety of Giant Crab found in Liurnia). This is especially weird considering that the bulk of organic enemies can be affected by it and have unique animations for when they are, which along with balancing their levels of resistance must have required a lot of work for an element that basically no one will use. You almost wonder why the put the status effect's designated cure item, the Stimulating Bolus, in the game at all.
  • Numerous areas in the game contain mounted siege equipment that enemies can use against the player, such as ballistae, catapults, and flamethrowers. While these have been present since Dark Souls II, in that game the player could both use them against enemies^*One boss fight, the Pursuer, actually has ballistae in his arena that if used properly can make the fight drastically easier and destroy them, here no such options exist. The only option the player has for dealing with them is killing their operators.
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • Preceptor Miriam is often mistaken for a man by players, largely due to it being hard to see her between her bulky outfit, the dark area you fight her in, and her tendency to one-shot you both at range and up close. It's also quite hard to read her name, considering the tiny text on the screen.
  • In the reveal trailer, the figure hammering at the anvil is seen from several angles, but identifying their gender proved futile, as they sometimes looked more masculine and feminine. This turns out to be intentional, as the trailer shifts between showing Marika destroying the Elden Ring and Radagon repairing it.
• Viewer Pronunciation Confusion: To this day, players are still confused about whether Mohg's name is pronounced "{Mɔg}" (as in "saw" or "awful") or "{Mog}" (as in "so" or "open"), since both are given as correct at different times. Varré pronounces it as the latter, but Mohg himself pronounces "Mohgwyn" as using the former, either implying that Varré doesn't know how to pronounce his boss' name or that Mohg doesn't know how to pronounce his own name, neither of which is good.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Large enemies can now destroy a substantial part of the environment as they thrash about, especially the overworld bosses. An early example happens when you fight Agheel in Limgrave. His thrashing about can cause him to fell all the trees in the area, while his fiery breath leaves areas temporarily scorched. It's quite a sight to behold.
  • The weather system produces some glorious effects, especially things like the fog rising out of Liurnia Lake or the golden leaves of the Erdtree falling like snow onto Limgrave or Leyndell.
• The Woobie:
  • Roderika was forced to leave her home when she was told she was a Tarnished, lost all of her companions to be butchered alive for their limbs, feels severe guilt because she was too cowardly to die alongside them as she wanted to willingly die, and her being a Tarnished was a lie as an excuse for her family to get rid of her as an undesirable.
  • Boc the Seamster is a demi-human who's been chased out of his home cave for being a seamster instead of a fighter, and gets beaten up again for trying to come back to reclaim his sewing kit. The only one who's shown him love so far is his late mother, and he longs to be reborn into a better-looking body so he won't get ostracized.
  • Rennala of the Full Moon is shown to be a broken shell of her former self. After her husband Radagon left her to marry Marika and the death of her daughter Ranni along with two of her sons going insane, she fell apart and locked herself in the library of Raya Lucaria with the only thing to comfort her being this amber egg she cradles in her arms.
  • Miquella was the kindest and most empathetic of the demigods and the only one not known to engage in morally ambiguous behavior. All of his known actions are completely benevolent: he abandoned his high position in the Golden Order to find a cure for his beloved sister Malenia's Rot sickness, toured the land disguised as St. Trina to spread magic that could give the common people relief from the Frenzied Flame, gifted his father Radagon incantations, tried to help his brother Godwyn die "a true death" to spare both him and the land from the horrors of the Death Prince, and grew the Haligtree, a potential replacement Erdtree that offered an accepting home to all those spurned by the current order. For all of this, he was cursed with eternal childhood and later kidnapped and violated by Mohg, with his cause falling to shambles in his absence. By the time the game begins, his sister is dying, the Haligtree is decaying, his brother is suffering, outcasts continue to be preyed on, and the Rot, Flame, and Undead all run rampant in the Lands Between. Fortunately, the player can fix some of those problems and locate Miquella after killing his captor, opening up the possibility of returning him home and fixing the remaining. However, you'd have to rely on DLC or post-endgame fanon as currently there's no option to do anything with this information in-game.
  • Godwyn the Golden arguably eclipsed even Miquella as the most beloved and noble of the demigods. He cared for his half-siblings, Miquella and Malenia, despite their curses and abandonment of the Golden Order. When the dragons and demigods entered war, he led the charge and prevailed and earned the fearsome Fortissax's undying friendship. This led to an era of peace between dragons and the kingdom of the Lands Between. And yet, due to the machinations of the Black Knife Assassins, Ranni, and perhaps even his mother, Marika, Godwyn was rewarded for all the good he had done for the world by being murdered. That would be tragic enough if the Cursemark of Death weren't split between him and Ranni's original body. Instead, Godwyn would meet a fate far worse than a true death: his body, still vaguely animated, became a horrific corruption upon the roots of the Erdtree and the world itself, reanimating the unwilling dead as monsters. A finger reader weeps and prays that the revered demigod may meet a proper death. At the same time, both Miquella and Fortissax devoted themselves to finding a way to end their brother and friend's indignity, to the point where proximity to his blight corrupting the ancient dragon still did not stop his efforts. Even Fia, who worships his current state as the Prince of Death, does so to provide the fallen god some measure of companionship and care for the dead who rise by his remnant power. Though he was once a demigod whose power was matched only by his benevolence, now he is nothing more than a sad mockery of the divide between life and death, with no hope of true death in sight.
• Woobie Species: The Fantastic Racism of the Golden Order has led to a few of these popping up in the Lands Between.
  • Albinaurics are a race of homunculi-esque beings who, being a form of life that didn't arise from the Erdtree, are considered heretical for their very existence and subject to the most ghastly forms of persecution imaginable across the continent. Rykard's dungeons are filled with Albinaurics who have been abducted, tortured, and kept in undying agony, possibly for centuries, Mohg uses them as Slave Mooks and forces incredibly painful mutations on them to make them more effective killers, Gideon orders an absolutely brutal massacre against one of the only independent settlements they have left merely on the suspicion that they might have an artifact he wants, and the rest of them live in small nomadic bands scattered across the world, vulnerable prey to whoever might find them. Their only solace lies in the Haligtree, which Miquella wanted to cultivate as a home for them and all others shunned by the Golden Order, and which Latenna's quest indicates is a sort of "promised land" for them, but with the young god's abduction, the Haligtree is a dying husk being steadily consumed by the Scarlet Rot. The fact that you can't find a single Albinauric in it when you reach it indicates that few, if any, managed to ever get there, with Mohg perverting Miquella's dream by using the comatose demigod to enslave refugee Albinaurics to his cause. It doesn't stop with the shit everyone else puts them through, as, at the very least, first-generation Albinaurics are born with an inherent defect that causes them to rapidly lose the use of their legs as they grow older.
  • Omens are children born to ordinary human parents with a "curse" that causes them to grow gnarled horns all over their bodies. Aside from one of Mohg's horns stabbing him in the eye, this doesn't physically or mentally impede them in any way. Before the coming of the Erdtree, it was considered a divine blessing from the primordial Crucible from which all life arose. However, the Golden Order views them as impure and has marked them for genocide. Omens born to commoners have their horns cut off at birth, which usually kills them, and the ones that survive get to be enslaved as Smash Mooks, given weapons which have been enchanted to disintegrate if they ever get any funny ideas about who to use them on. Omens born to royalty get to keep their horns, but are cast into the sewers — which are literally called the Subterranean Shunning Grounds — to rot, leaving them to grow into violent, simple beings who lash out at everything around them if they manage to live to adulthood. Not even the gods themselves are exempt from this treatment, as Morgott and Mohg can attest. In fact, they seem to have had it even worse than most. Instead of simply being chucked into the sewers and forgotten about, they were bound with magical shackles that kept them pinned to the floor while they were down there.
  • The Misbegotten are chimeric beings who, like Omens, are born from the influence of the Crucible, and so violate the will of the Golden Order by their mere existence. The best life they can hope for in this world is to be slaves, and every indication is that they live in completely wretched conditions, with their masters not giving a shit if they die. While most of the Misbegotten encountered in-game come across as feral monsters who attack sight, many of them, particularly in Leyndell and the Haligtree, are nonhostile until provoked and spend their time praying to statues of different gods. Hewg is also a Misbegotten, and one of your staunchest friends throughout the game, so they're intelligent, feeling creatures who do not remotely deserve to be placed at the bottom of the Golden Order's racial caste system. Considering their lot in life, it's no surprise that the ones who successfully staged a rebellion at Castle Morne showed absolutely no mercy to their captors.
  • The Merchants are a nomadic race who once had a large, complex society of their own called the Great Caravan. However, sometime in the distant past, they were all declared heretics by the Golden Order. In one of the ghastliest atrocities in the history of the Lands Between, the great majority of them were rounded up and buried alive in a mass grave deep beneath Leyndell. Their collective despair was so great that it ended up summoning the Three Fingers and the Flame of Frenzy into the world, both as a way to put themselves out of their misery and obliterate the world that did this to them. The remaining Merchants alive today are scorned outcasts and wanderers, unwelcome in most places due to them being spurned by the grace of gold, barely scraping out a living in some of the most hostile places on the continent. Kale, the first merchant you meet, explains that his people have been through so much hardship that it's permanently impacted their ethos as a race.
    Kale: We have a saying, we wanderers. Lament not your solitude. Expect no sympathy. No regard. Nothing.

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