Elden Ring is in desperate need of a lore book that breaks down specifics in the story and history of the Lands Between. While going through the full playthrough, gamers are sure to pick up a ton of information about this vast world, especially when it comes to important characters such as Queen Marika and her Elden Ring lore. However, it seems near impossible to grasp the fullness of everything the game has to offer, so having an official source of information related to lore would benefit Elden Ring.
Throughout Elden Ring, there are many ways that players can understand events that have happened in the past and are currently taking place. The most practical way is to talk to all the NPCs the game has to offer and exhaust their dialogue options. There are a lot of them, and they offer explanations about many things in the Lands Between; some Elden Ring NPCs even have sad stories that players will want to pay attention to. Cutscenes also provide basic information into Elden Ring lore, but nothing very specific, and these may often leave players with more questions than answers.
Elden Ring's vast world and story elements can become confusing to follow at times, and it would help to have a lore book that provides a deeper analysis of the game's history, regions, and characters. Before the launch, The Overture of Elden Ring was published by Yen Press, and it served as a decent prologue book for understanding the Lands Between and some of its fundamentals. The methods of storytelling that FromSoftware has put into the game so far are good, but now that it's been out for a little while, having more detailed sources for the fans who want to dive deeper would be of immense benefit, especially given that more questions are popping up constantly now that the game has released.
An Elden Ring Lore Book Needs To Cover The Shattering
There are still so many unknown details related to the history of the Lands Between - most notably the Shattering. An Elden Ring lore book can fix that. The Shattering's events provide the baseline context for everything that has come to fruition up until the point of Elden Ring's protagonist coming into the picture. While the game does give some basic understanding of the past in the opening cutscenes, and later through NPC dialogue, particular parts are still confusing, such as how long ago the Shattering actually was. A lore book could lay out an entire timeline for the Lands Between, starting from the moment Queen Marika took power; this would help to further understand how and when important decisions had an impact and began major change. The Lands Between isn't the same place it once was (however long ago), so having an in-depth understanding of its chronology would help to fill in the existing gaps.
Another important aspect that a lore book could cover is the regions within Elden Ring. Limgrave, Liurnia, Caelid, Altus Plateau, and Mountaintops of the Giants are the five primary areas that players can traverse, but there's even more than that. Each region has its unique style and theme related to the lore of Elden Ring. Like many of the other aspects of Elden Ring, completing questlines, talking to NPCs, and even traveling around in these regions help players piece together a puzzle of what that area is and how it came to be that way. However, like the timeline of the Lands Between, trying to put everything together in a coherent manner can be a difficult task, and a lore book that collects item descriptions and dialogue could give players a much clearer look at how places like Caelid came to be the way they are.
Lastly, along the same lines of historical chronology and regional specific culture, characters are the most important part of the game's lore, and a book can most certainly go into detail about every important person that the protagonist has a chance to meet. Elden Ring has some of the coolest characters in recent memory, but their background and role in the Lands Between are even more interesting than their looks. NPC characters can be understood to a fair degree already by exhausting their dialogue options or completing optional quests for them, as this works to progressively reveal a grander story about their pasts and motivations. However, some elements of their personal stories are easy to miss, and they don't always connect back to the Shattering in a precise way. A lore book could make their individual timelines a lot clearer.
An External or In-Game Elden Ring Lore Book Would Both Work
Many game studios have written and published copies of lore books that people can purchase and read separately apart from the game. This is one route that FromSoftware can take with Elden Ring's Dark Souls-styled world. Given the massive success of the game's launch, fans would likely continue to support Elden Ring if quality content were to continue releasing. Even if that added content is simply a book that provides more in-depth details about the Lands Between - a world that so many have come to love - it could keep players engaged in the community. It makes sense that FromSoftware wouldn't publish a lore book prior to Elden Ring's launch, as it would have ruined the incentive many players would have to explore and learn more about the world, but even if it chose not to publish one post-launch, there are other options.
An element that most open world RPGs have adopted is a journal and codex option in their menus, and Elden Ring could do the same. While this addition would be somewhat of a departure from previous Dark Souls game mechanics, it wouldn't ruin the spirit of what Elden Ring is, and Miyazaki already made it clear that the game isn't a part of the Souls series. If certain topics were populated by items players have found or conversations they'd had, it also wouldn't interfere with the sense of discovery, instead just allowing for easier reference after the fact. FromSoftware has already added some niceties to the game, like having icons on the map to point out where NPCs are, which points towards the studio wanting to help guide players a little more than they may have in the past (likely due to the size of the world itself). Having some Elden Ring lore displayed on Twitter was a helpful start, but it's time for FromSoftware and Bandai Namco to push the envelope now that the game has been out for a while, if only to appease the relentless player appetite for more lore on its world and story.
Source: The Overture of Elden Ring