The Land of Shadow is closing in, but why did Miquella go there? Is he still trying to give his half-brother, Godwyn the Golden—a "true" death? Join us for a conversation about the Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Story Trailer.
The Land of Shadow is closing in, but why did Miquella go there? Is he still trying to give his half-brother, Godwyn the Golden—a "true" death? Join us for a conversation about the Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Story Trailer.
In this episode, we do our best to decipher the latest story trailer for the upcoming Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree. WARNING: SPOILER ALERT. Like everyone else, we have so many questions about where FromSoftware is going with the story and lore of Elden Ring. Joseph and Willie speculate on everything mentioned in the trailer and what it means for the Tarnished, the Erdtree, and the Lands Between. Taylor does his best to get caught up with everything happening, lol. Will we find the Kindling Maiden's body in the Land of Shadow? Is she Messmer's sister? Did he kill her? Did Queen Marika (and the other Numen) sail to the Land of Shadow by ship? Did Mohg steal Miquella's cocoon to prevent him from using his unalloyed gold needle on the Erdtree? Regardless, we can't wait to square off against Messmer the Impaler and get our asses kicked.
Here's the full transcript for this episode.
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00:00:00
[Alienated by ELFL plays in background]
Joseph: Yeah, and I went to, just randomly I was like, oh, yeah, there's underground when I was looking at the map. So then I end up going back to the Death Root Depths, I think it's called.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: And I went to where I left Fia and I think this is toward the end of her quest line, but I went to where Fia was, and I think maybe that's where like where Godwin is too in like this big area where you end up fighting a boss, I think it's maybe a dragon down there.
Willie: Mm-hmm
Joseph: And then I went back and Fia was there, and keep in mind like I don't remember anything of what was going on with Fia, and like where that quest line ended, or if I had even finished it. Didn't remember any of that, but Fia was there, I went up to her and touched her. And then that immediately would ask me if I wanted to enter like a dream state or something.
Willie: Oh.
Joseph: So I was like, what?
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I was like, did I just never do this?
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: Did I never come back? So I didn't know what that meant. So I said yes. And then fucking immediate dragon boss fight with, uh, [Taylor laughs] I think Fortissax.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: So I was like, oh shit.
Taylor: Wow.
Joseph: I was not expecting this. So this is like probably one hour back into Elden Ring and I'm in a boss fight that I didn't remember or know existed and somehow beat it on the first try.
Taylor: Wow.
[Alienated by ELFL fades out]
[Intro theme plays - Tiger Tracks by Lexica]
00:01:23
Joseph: What's up everyone? Welcome to Berries and Blades. Thanks for tuning in for a casual conversation about video games. My name is Joseph and I'm here with my friends Willie and Taylor and we're just three guys wondering if we'll play Call of Duty Black Ops 6 together when it hits Game Pass. But I digress. What's up, y'all?
Taylor: What up?
Joseph: What up?
Taylor: Welcome. What up? Um, I will play any Call of Duty as soon as it hits Game Pass. I've definitely thought about that while we're, while we're in the waiting period, they're trying to figure out how to progress with that deal. I think that's going to be one of the best parts about it cause I do miss being able to pop on to Call of Duty anytime and just play with my homies. But we're, we're at a period in time where it's a, it's tough to shell out 70 a year for whatever the new duty is.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: So I think it'll be amazing to just be able to have it, download it for the 10 bucks a month and hopefully get some of those friendships back, [chuckles]
Joseph: [in the style of Mortal Kombat finishing move] Friendship!
Taylor: You know, like there's some friends that I, that's almost all we would play is Duty. And so not playing it generally equates to not playing together. And that sucks.
Willie: Yeah, no, it definitely would be good to get a crew back together to be playing games like that.
Taylor: Yeah, and if they suck, cool, we didn't spend a bunch of money on it, and you don't have to feel bad at your boy for talking you into it and paying 70, right?
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: That could be an inevitable thing with a lot of these, but...
Joseph: So, has no Call of Duty ever been on Game Pass, or have some of them, like, eventually ended up on Game Pass?
Taylor: I don't think so.
Willie: No, I don't think so.
Joseph: Okay.
Willie: The closest that anything's gotten, I guess, is Warzone being free to play.
Joseph: Oh, right, right, right, right.
Taylor: Yeah, and maybe they added some of the co op for Warzone or something? I don't, I don't remember. They've done some slightly different things with the free to play, but mostly Warzone.
Willie: I don't think there has been any other, like, actual, just, like, Game Pass release for any of those.
Taylor: Damn. Maybe I owned it. Might've been the first one.
Joseph: I think I'd be willing to try it if it's on Game Pass and I don't have to actually pay for like the base game. Also, I love that it removes the pressure of feeling like you're playing it enough.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: You know, like you're paying it frequently enough because you paid 70 bucks for it.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: I think they've done smart things by... the Game Pass seems to be a smart way to go with that model too, because that gives them the option or optional money inbound from Game Pass people. Like if you get it, like you get it, Joe, and you're into it, and suddenly that seems to be your thing for the month, you might be willing to throw down on a Game Pass or the battle pass rather.
So I could see that being kind of maybe equaling it out a little bit, but I hope it brings in a lot of people that have never played or. Played one of the first ones and haven't played since because that kind of evens the playing field, makes it a lot more fun to play all the game types. It'd be cool.
Willie: And I do think the story for Black Ops has always been pretty solid.
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Willie: It's pretty weird. I don't know. It's all like secret agent, conspiracy stuff. I mean, it's Black Ops, right?
Joseph: [chuckling] Yeah.
Willie: It's the title, [chuckles] but, uh, it's good in that way. It's a really interesting story. So I'm curious about this. I, again, it's that love hate relationship playing a game that's sort of too close to, to life.
And then this one is supposed to be like a Gulf War sort of thing. So the trailer that dropped today-
Taylor: Oh.
Willie: -was [chuckles] George Bush and-
Joseph: Oh shit.
Willie: -Saddam Hussein in it.
Joseph: Really?
Willie: Yeah, talking in a dark room. I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure that's who the other person's supposed to be, but I didn't even see anyone like clarify that.
I think you see brief shots of both of them.
Joseph: Huh. Yeah, I read an article about it and seeing, or saw that they were basically announcing it as a day one Game Pass release, but I didn't even know-
Taylor: Mmm.
Joseph: -there was a trailer attached to it.
Taylor: Oh, I didn't know that you had a reasoning behind this question. I thought it was random.
[Willie chuckles]
Wow.
Willie: He's just been thinking about Call of Duty Black Ops lately.
Joseph: Oh, hell nah.
Taylor: Well, that's great. That's great though. This is a big move for that expansion and having that stuff included-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: -in the Game Pass. That's huge. So, I'm watching through it right now. Did they mention an actual release date?
Willie: No.
Taylor: Okay. Oh, more details to come at the Xbox game showcase on June 9th. That's close. Just over a week from now.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Hmm. That's cool. I hope they stay weird with it. I really do, because that'd be a lot of fun right now. Especially, I mean, if it's gulf where... Gulf War, there's going to be a lot of meta from our younger lives that we're going to remember. And I think that's always going to be pretty cool and being able to tap into those memories because something you don't think about very much-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: -just like you said, George Bush and Clinton on there, like it's bringing back a lot of core memories.
Joseph: Yeah. That's interesting.
Taylor: Yeah. I'll keep an eye on it. I could see it. If it's coming out, say Christmas, I could also see them maybe start dropping some of the older Call of Duty games between now and then.
Joseph: Hmm.
Taylor: Because there's going to be that popularity of people saying, Oh yeah, let's, you know, the new one's coming and we can access this old one or that one.
Joseph: Yeah, that's a good point.
Taylor: Might give them a much needed shot in the arm.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
00:06:30
Joseph: All right. In our last episode, we talked about playing Another Crab's Treasure while we wait for the Elden Ring or wait for Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. And we're about a week away from its release. And YouTube and Reddit and every-fuckin-body is out of control with speculations and theories.
So, we're gonna talk about the latest story trailer for Shadow of the Erdtree. And do some wondering and speculating of our own. Before we start, here's a quick recap of where we stand with the game. All three of us completed the main game. And we played for at least a hundred and Er, not a hundred, eight hundred thirty hours combined.
Taylor: Sounds right.
Joseph: How do we feel about this game? Like it's one of the best games ever made. We even covered it on the podcast back in episode 7 if you want to start there. But moving forward there's probably, no, there is like a 100 percent chance that we're going to reveal stories for the main game and likely Shadow of the Erdtree, which is the DLC that's about to drop.
So please proceed with caution. Okay, Willie, you mentioned starting a playthrough with a new character in prep for the DLC. How's that been going?
Willie: It's been fun. It's obviously great to get back in and hear all the music and just be running around. It's obviously also frustrating at times because, uh, get your ass kicked very early on.
And I've been, uh, I've been playing like, um, a dex build, which is not something I had done yet in this. So just more melee focused. I had been playing an astrologer before. I had been doing a bunch of sorceries, pretty much. So playing melee is different. Learning to dodge everything again has been difficult-
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -but okay. I will say that Imps still fuck me... I don't know about now, I haven't gone back to them, but Imps fuck me up quite a bit very early on in the game. Those things suck.
Joseph: They have in this playthrough?
Willie: Uh, they did early on, yeah. I haven't gone back to them. I haven't seen them again, actually, for like the last 20 hours or something.
Joseph: Oh, okay. Thinking back, Taylor, you had a strength build, right?
Taylor: Yes.
Joseph: Okay.
Taylor: Yep. Yeah. I went straight up strength.
Joseph: Got it. At least you had Lies of P. I feel like Lies of P might help you transition a little faster than you might have if there wasn't Lies of P in between those two playthroughs-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -because that was like all straight up, straight up melee.
Taylor: That was dex, right?
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: Like that was the, yeah.
Willie: I did use a dex build too in that. Obviously I have to make some comparisons to Lies of P just because we played that game and love that game a lot and it is definitely more difficult in Elden Ring to get a hold of melee combat and dex and parrying and stuff because I guess I need to figure out what swords you can put parry on because it's very different to have to carry a shield to parry stuff and watch the parry animation. Specifically, it's an Ash of War, so like you have to be carrying a shield that has that on it.
And it feels just slower. It's not like just hit block at the right time. It's hit a different button-
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: -at the right time.
Taylor: Mm.
Joseph: So in general, I played, I played for a few night, uh, not a few nights, a few hours the other night. And it was like not even enough time to remember how everything works. So I was stumbling through a little bit of battle, just kind of fast traveling around the different places, but I was trying to figure out how parrying works.
So when you don't have that skill on a shield or a weapon or something, you just can't parry at all? Is that how it works?
Willie: No. Yeah, I don't think so.
Joseph: Okay.
Willie: So you have to take that Ash of War off and put it on, and you can put it on other things, like it works for certain swords.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And something else, shields, bucklers, swords, and I think daggers, maybe-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -can have the Ash of War that's parry.
Joseph: Because I do have a shield. I have a shield in my build right now, and I was trying to perfect parry with a shield.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: And I was like, this isn't working. I was like, that must not be how it works, and it's It's been so freaking long since I played that I just couldn't remember.
Willie: And it also depends on what kind of shield you have too, I think, because I think the smaller shields have a parry, but I think some of the larger shields will have a different Ash of War that does something.
Joseph: Right, right, right.
Willie: Like a shove or a something.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Okay, that helps. Yeah, I was just kind of stumbling through everything and, you know, outside of just remembering like how buttons work in a game.
Taylor: [chuckling] Yeah.
Willie: [chuckling] Yeah.
Joseph: Surprisingly, man, I was kind of jumping around and I went to, I went to Leyendel and I was like, oh yeah, right. This place is destroyed and just full of ash now. I thought I was going to go back to like the regular city form of it.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: I had just completely forgotten like what happens at the end of the game.
Taylor: Yeah, it's just rubble, right?
00:10:47
Joseph: Yeah, and I went to, just randomly I was like, oh, yeah, there's underground when I was looking at the map. So then I end up going back to the Death Root Depths, I think it's called.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: And I went to where I left Fia and I think this is toward the end of her quest line, but I went to where Fia was, and I think maybe that's where like where Godwin is too in like this big area where you end up fighting a boss, I think it's maybe a dragon down there.
Willie: Mm-hmm
Joseph: And then I went back and Fia was there, and keep in mind like I don't remember anything of what was going on with Fia, and like where that quest line ended, or if I had even finished it. Didn't remember any of that, but Fia was there, I went up to her and touched her. And then that immediately would ask me if I wanted to enter like a dream state or something.
Willie: Oh.
Joseph: So I was like, what?
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I was like, did I just never do this?
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: Did I never come back? So I didn't know what that meant. So I said yes. And then fucking immediate dragon boss fight with, uh, [Taylor laughs] I think Fortissax.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: So I was like, oh shit.
Taylor: Wow.
Joseph: I was not expecting this. So this is like probably one hour back into Elden Ring and I'm in a boss fight that I didn't remember or know existed and somehow beat it on the first try.
Taylor: Wow.
Joseph: I was super impressed, dude. Beat it on the first try. Got through it and then it kind of closes out, I think closes out Fia's quest line-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -because then she dies and you get, you get a rune and then Darian shows up and is like talking and stuff like that. So I was like, I was not-
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: -fucking expecting that. And then the other two things I did within like the first two hours of playing the other night is I found a Golden Seed, which I didn't think I could even do that in the game anymore. And it was right somewhere where I had been hundreds of times.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: It was like right in front of the the Bestial Sanctum-
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -way at the tip of Caelid-
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: -I walk out the front door where there was that big guardian bird.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Giant.
Joseph: That thing was dead. So it wasn't there, but I just kind of walked down and I was looking for some, like, uh, some pretty cheap enemies to fight and just kind of like get my feet wet. And there's a-
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -golden seed right there, man. I was like, I can't believe I missed this. [Willie chuckles] And just had no idea that it was even there.
Taylor: I could see getting distracted by those giants.
Joseph: Yeah. I guess there was just like a little bit of the map. I didn't, I didn't cover. And there's one more thing, which I can't remember right now. It'll probably come back to me, but it was interesting to just jump back into all that stuff, discover new shit even though I played 300 hours.
I know I didn't do everything in the game. I know there's a lot of bosses I'd never actually defeated or even attempted, but I wasn't expecting to find like a golden seed, like right off the bat, it's pretty wild.
Willie: I don't, I haven't returned to my like leveled up character in a bit.
I did like months ago, but I haven't since I turned it back on recently. I'm curious, I wish there was an easy way to check how many bosses you beat, because I think I pretty much got all of them in my first playthrough, because I went back and played a bunch after I beat the game, and just, was considering doing New Game Plus and never did with that character.
I just like had them running around like clearing out all the evergaols and clearing out every boss that I could, clearing out every catacombs. I'm pretty sure like I've gotten most, most of the bosses in the game. Cause yeah, you started talking about that and I was like, yeah, I know that spot. I remember that one.
I also remember just before that you fight like three or six champions in that room.
Joseph: Oh, yeah. Yeah, because they're like projections, right?
Willie: Uh huh.
Joseph: That's right.
Willie: Yeah, they're like, look like invaders. I don't remember why. I don't remember why she has them or why they come to defend her, but you have to fight those first, and then the next thing that happens, I think, is, is that dragon.
00:14:07
Joseph: Speaking of new content for this game, I feel like this will probably mostly be like the Elden Ring catch up episode, but I do want to read what was said in the trailer, the new story trailer that was released, which I have written down. I'm just going to read it from beginning to end and then we can start talking about it.
But here's what is said, the actual dialogue that's in the story trailer.
Miquella the Kind spoke of the beginning. The seduction. And the betrayal. An affair from which Gold arose. And so too was Shadow born.
What followed was a war unseen. One that could never be put to song. A purge without Grace or honour. The tyranny of Messmer's flame.
And so Kindly Miquella would abandon everything. His golden flesh, his blinding strength. Even his fate. But we are not deterred. We choose to follow. Will you work with us?
Willie: Will you walk with us? [chuckles]
Joseph: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. [laughs]
Willie: You said... [all laughing]
Taylor: It's like they're asking for a carpool.
Joseph: That makes more sense. Yeah. Will you walk with us?
Taylor: Will you...? Yeah. Do you wanna-
Joseph: It's interesting
Taylor: -work with us.
Joseph: Taylor, did you watch the trailer?
Taylor: Yes.
Joseph: Okay.
Taylor: Yeah, I did.
Joseph: And Willie, I can only assume that you've done some digging into the lore and speculation and stuff like that. I've done some.
Willie: Yeah, definitely a little bit. Yeah, in particular, like I, I also took a second to like look through all of the, the trailer to see what, what there is to see, you know, watching it slowly, just taking in every scene. It's really just broken up into three main sections, right? There's this first one where, you know, I'll say without naming any characters, like there's this lean, tall looking blonde haired character in the first scene, walking around someplace that's covered in what looks like flesh, bloody flesh everywhere, and they reach into something, which looks pretty disgusting in the way that it's portrayed and pulls out threads of gold, which looks like maybe it's the, the Elden Ring itself, like the threads.
And then holds them up and above their head like the statues of Marika in the game, sort of makes that depiction. And then the second section is just a war scene where we see the character that we know as Messmer just waging war on a castle and burning everything. Some cool stuff in there. And then the last part is basically. It almost seems like who's talking in the trailer.
There's like, uh, like seven NPCs. They're just walking around looking at different scenes in the, what we know is, uh, the Land of Shadow where they're just like following a trail, it seems like-
Joseph: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Willie: -and, uh, seeing different sights around the Land of Shadow, including like a graveyard, uh, some swampy bit, and then like, near that same castle under the giant Erdtree that's also featured in this, in this trailer.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What it kind of boils down to is, or I guess this is the question I asked myself based on what I saw in the trailer. Why is Miquella in the Land of Shadow? I think is like the kind of bigger high level question. Like, why did Miquella go there?
And what's going to... yeah, what's going to happen when we go there? Which I think is like obviously what the mystery behind the DLC is. But there's so much nuance and so many questions. Digging back into some stuff online and just kind of hearing other people talk about it for a little bit is bringing up all these thoughts and feelings of just how incredible the lore surrounding this game is.
It is so fascinating to me that so many different people can come up with shit, and sometimes different, sometimes repetitive, sometimes it seems like they're leeching off of like, you know, a few kind of like big, big time Elden Ring lore YouTubers and stuff like that. But just that there's so much room for interpretation right now is fucking incredible with this game.
Willie: Yeah, there's, there's a lot to learn in the game. The thing that we talked about a long time ago, though, is while the lore is in the game, if you're not reading, kind of everything, you're going to miss a ton of the story. Because people have learned stuff just from like reading descriptions of items.
There's some stuff that's said, that's just like, told through the characters that we meet and what they tell you about the world. But there's so much more hidden in the item descriptions and just like I should have gotten a number of like how many items there are in this game. There's got to be a thousand plus things to read-
Joseph: Yeah, definitely.
Willie: -that show you the story behind the story that you're seeing on screen.
00:18:26
Joseph: If you haven't played Elden Ring, if you're out there and living under a fucking rock, and don't know what Elden Ring is, I don't know if I can answer that question quickly.
But if you have played, you know there's weapons, there's shields, there's talismans, there are other collectible items. Cookbooks, there's all types of stuff that you pick up throughout the world, and then every single one of those items has some type of lore and story attached to it. So, you may have a hundred items in your inventory, easily.
Easily like a hundred pieces of equipment in your inventory, and like each one of those has a sentence or two that talks about some type of connection with the story and the lore. So, if you don't read, you're gonna miss out on a lot, like Willie said. What's amazing about the community surrounding the game, and people that dig into the lore and speculate and come up with theories is that these people are putting together these strands, these bits of, you know, these nuggets of information that are connected to all these different items in the game.
These people are basically connecting all the dots between all these different things, which is leading to a bigger explanation of, like, what's happening in this world. That is what I miss in the game. Like, while you play, I can't really make those connections just because it's you have to spend a lot of time thinking about it and kind of making those connections for yourself.
But I love using videos on YouTube to help me understand the lore around the world. Why shit is happening the way it is and those kinds of things. And I think that, and this is, this is weird for me. It's a little different because I don't really do that with many games at all. But this one, I feel like I have to, I have to, to get like the 100 percent solid, good experience out of this game.
It truly does enhance the experience for me.
Taylor: Yeah, you'd have to have like a photographic memory-
Joseph: [chuckles] Yeah.
Taylor: -to be able to take in all of this stuff. I imagine the people who are good at it either do have that or they write it all down. You know, like-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: -Oh, I just played for two hours. Let me think back on all the story that happened and everything that occurred and the ties that I tied together. And I can't even imagine.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: So yeah. Videos for me as well.
Willie: I think it's, it's definitely worth pointing out that one of the biggest names that does the lore breakdowns is a person named VaatiVidya. They've got, you know, I don't know, probably 40 plus hours of videos on Elden Ring content.
Taylor: Wow.
Willie: Just like breaking down stuff. And it's definitely a place where I go to like see stuff and they, they suggest a number of other people as well to like go follow and-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -watch their videos. But that's definitely been one of the biggest ones for me. And that person clearly has lots of help too. Like they'll give shout outs to the people who were like helping them get footage for, for the gameplay that they're using in their videos.
But also very early on, [chuckles] they put together this giant mind map of all of the lore that they were collecting and they were like, maybe one day I'll share this document, but they like zoom out from this document and it's just a giant, basically bulletin board of sticky notes. You know, it's a Google doc or a, I don't know, a Miro board or something where there's just like hundreds of notes, just plastered everywhere with lines, connecting all of the stuff.
And clearly they didn't do it on their own. They have someone like helping them like get all the texts from the game and put it in the thing and then help them rearrange it just to like, talk about this game.
Joseph: Yeah, it's incredible. I just love knowing that people were doing it and then obviously consuming it, I think is helping me a lot with the story and just the wonder surrounding the world. Uh, another one, I don't know if you've been on this channel, but it's called Tarnished Archaeologist.
Willie: I don't think so, no.
Joseph: Really, really good. This person has a unique approach in that they connect a lot of the things happening in the game back to real world history. Really break down symbols in the game and connect that back to what the real world inspiration was likely to be for some of the decisions being made in Elden Ring. Amazingly, just like well, well informed about history and able to make those connections. The production levels of videos isn't as good as Vaati's, but they're still really, really, really good.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: But those two places, uh, for everybody out there, those are probably the best two places to go, I think, to start, maybe Vaati because the production level is really high and his delivery, I think, is fantastic. Of like the way he presents all this information.
Willie: And in general also just has a great voice for [Joseph laughing] doing voiceover. [chuckles]
Joseph: Totally, man. Yeah, I love-
Willie: It works.
Joseph: -listening to his voice in his videos. There is something about it that is just like it's calm. The Bob Ross of fucking the Lands Between [Taylor laughs]
00:23:05
Willie: There's so much in this trailer to talk about, but I guess, like you said, the first thing is that I think we give a quick overview that we know that Miquella has gone to the Land of Shadow for some reason.
We also know that the other big character in this, in this DLC is someone named Messmer, who's a, in some of the promotional images, we see him sitting on a throne that looks like one of the thrones that we see at the Erdtree itself, where we see all the other demigods sitting, or where they would be sitting next to the Erdtree, in Elden Ring. We see him sitting on another throne, just like that.
I think just sort of to depict that this guy is also a demigod, he is just as important as all of the other demigods, like Radahn, or Mohg, or any of the children of, of Marika and like, that's sort of a big statement. If you don't know anything about what we're talking about, uh, I don't know where to start.
Joseph: If you really don't know about anything, then it doesn't matter if we're spoiling shit, probably.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: But I think, I think we should actually talk about all the things we think are happening and what we may have learned.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: What do y'all think? This is the spoiler wall.
Willie: For sure. Like, again, I just, what I want to say is just the two huge characters that we see coming out of this are Miquella and Messmer. And also I think in the trailer we see Marika pulling the golden threads that are going to form the Elden Ring. I think that's what's happening in that first scene.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And I think from like the wording, right, it says An affair from which Gold arose, and so, too, was Shadow born. I think we see, like, the forging of the Elden Ring in that moment or something.
And they're standing, like, under this giant archway that kind of looks like the shape of the opening to the Erdtree, except it's covered in corpses and, like, bloody flesh and through that portal, like on the other side, you see a golden light. It looks like it could be the Lands Between-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -and on the side that like we're standing on it, it is all dark and shadowed and covered in this gross flesh.
So I think there's a possibility that that moment is, is the creation of both the Gold and Shadow, like on these two opposite sides of this weird portal that's in, in the Erdtree, possibly-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -I'm not sure. Cause there's other ways to go with that too.
Joseph: I'm kind of tracking with what you're saying. Like I think in general, so Gold is basically being born, but also Shadow. And we know that Marika first stepped foot in the Land of Shadow. She's Numen. She's from, you know, she's a different type of person from a different place. The Land of Shadow. If we consider that the first place that she's landed in the Land of Shadow, but then she wants to create a golden order when she's creating that golden order that then creates the Land of Shadow because there's now there are two places that exist.
So, before the Golden Order was created, there was no Land of Shadow. It was just. The Lands Between. That's how I kind of interpret like what the dialogue is saying there. Like when gold was created or this order was created, that forced there to be a Land of Shadow because it's the other thing, the original thing that existed.
I don't know if that's true, but I think a lot of this is also assuming that person we see in the trailer doing that is actually Marika and not somehow Miquella instead-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -because I think that could be an option, but it sounds like most people think it's Marika.
Willie: Yeah. [chuckles]
Joseph: And then other just kind of quick points to make is that the understanding is that Messmer is probably the son of Marika. Yeah, is that what I'm trying to say?
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. [chuckles] All the M's, let's think about Miquella for a second. So my basic understanding is that Messmer has basically been banished to the Land of Shadow. Where I guess he's been this whole time, ruling in fucking tyranny. Miquella has now gone there for reasons we don't know yet.
What seems like he's a, he's a person of good. I think that's the big twist, maybe Miquella's not. He's got all these people following him willingly. We think he's being portrayed as a good guy. And then he turns out, there's a plot twist, and he's like, you know, he's actually a bad person. But I think we all want the good boy Miquella at this point.
Messmer is down there. I think he was banished to the Land of Shadow because he burned the Erdtree. The last Erdtree that existed. He burned it, and his punishment was to get banished out into the Land of Shadow. And I don't know if Marika did, if Marika is the person that did that, I assume so. But when you think about there already having been an Erdtree burned, the golden Erdtree we see in the game is just an illusion of the Erdtree, or it's like the Erdtree as a faith.
This is an illusionary tree. The original Erdtree is what we see in the trailer for Shadow of the Erdtree, where it's burned and charred and basically like a second tree that kind of exists there all this time. So, I think that's like the overall thing I'm kind of learning from seeing the trailer, hearing people make connections and connecting the dots with like some of the original trailers for the game, even like back at E3, like really, really old shit.
There's this fascinating ability for Miyazaki and FromSoftware to be very upfront about the details. Like there was something in like one of those original trailers from E3 where it kind of points out that Marika and Radagon are the same people, the same person. That's in one of the very first revealed gameplay, not gameplay trailers, but story trailers that exist.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: We just didn't know all the, we didn't know the pieces at the time, so no one could really piece it together, but they are kind of straightforward with the shit they put in these trailers, even though we can't connect all the pieces. And I think that's fucking amazing that they could-
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: -even do that. And now you have like the confidence to like, put some of those like main story beats in some of those original scenes from like the, the opening trailer and stuff like that.
00:28:49
Willie: Yeah. It's hard to, to talk about this without wanting to give more details because the, I'm trying to think about the shortest background information to give. Marika basically ruled over the Lands Between, right? And created the Golden Order, had a, a king consort named Godfrey. They had children together.
Godfrey also won a bunch of wars for Marika, then made sure that she stayed in control.
Joseph: Marika!
Willie: [Taylor and Willie chuckle] And, uh, then like Joey said, Marika is also a character named Radagon. They're like the same person. They inhabit the same body and sometimes don't inhabit the same body. But Radagon married Queen Rennala, and they had kids together, and then divorced her, and returned to Marika, and brought his kids over and made them demigods as well, with Marika's children.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: And in that process, then had kids, their own kids, Marika and Radagon, who was the same person. Had-
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: -Malenia and Miquella, which is who, Miquella is obviously what we've been talking about. Malenia is, both of those characters were afflicted with some, something, when they were born.
Joseph: It's basically like a birth defect.
Willie: Yeah, Malenia was born to have rot present in her body for her entire life. Scarlet rot was constantly, like, just, eating away at her and Miquella was blessed, or cursed with like eternal youth, would just never grow old. Which makes some things interesting in the trailer because we see characters that could be Miquella, but maybe older, like even in the original game, we see a cocoon that supposedly Miquella was in, but that character looks older.
It doesn't look like a young character.
Joseph: You're talking literally about the arm outside of the cocoon, right? Like kind of hanging out.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: You know, also, why is it so big? It's giant, dude. Like, I went back to, to the Mohg dynasty and I went there, it was like one of the first places I went just to see it. I just wanted to see it in the game and it's huge.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I was like, how is it so big?
Willie: You know, you think about that and you look at where it came from. Mohg stole that cocoon from the Haligtree. If you go to the Haligtree where you fight Malenia, there's like a giant hole, like a cavernous space where the cocoon was, because he was also somehow basically feeding the Haligtree.
Like he was trying to grow his own Erdtree-
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: -and didn't quite do it. He failed. I think this might be why he's going to the Land of Shadow and this is very broad strokes overview. I think it is told somewhere and what Miquella learns is that in order to grow an Erdtree, you need lots of souls and lots of blood to make it grow.
So very base level, I think Miquella has realized what his mother did to grow an Erdtree in The Lands Between-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -and the blood that has been spilled and is going to find the person who caused that, who is Messmer. I think there's a possibility that Messmer was before Godfrey even started winning wars for her.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And he's the reason, he's the cause of all the bloodshed that caused the Erdtree to flourish. And Miquella, upon finding this out, was like, well, I have to go fix-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -this, like, this is fucked, that my mom did all of this to create the Golden Order.
Joseph: So you think, if we think back to the trailer, the scene where we see the Marika looking character holding golden strands above her head, and then she's kind of like in between the opening of what looks like the shape of an Erdtree that's basically corpses piled up in that form. That's basically the beginning of the Erdtree being built.
Willie: I think that's, yeah, the primordial form, as I think Vaati and other people have described it. The primordial form of the Erdtree is also, I think it's also literally called the crucible as well.
Joseph: Hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Willie: There's stuff in the game that tells you like the Crucible is a thing that is not just a, like fighting of other players or PVP stuff. It's like something that existed before and-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -also creates all that bloodshed. And yeah, like that is the primordial form of the Erdtree, I think.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: So Miquella probably finds out, and that's the truth that's being covered up-
Willie: Right.
Joseph: -by Marika to the people in the Lands Between.
Willie: Uh-huh. And I think the lines in there, in there that are like, what followed was a war unseen, one that could not, could never be put to song. Is this idea that like-
Joseph: Like a cover up.
Willie: -Marika was like, we can't talk about this, right?
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: No one will ever know about this stuff.
00:33:17
Joseph: So did you come across the, what I mentioned about Messmer being the person to burn down the Erdtree before we start the game?
Willie: Uh, no.
Joseph: So what's kind of floating around out there is that Messmer is responsible for burning the Erdtree and that what we see in the game is like a projection of an Erdtree and that the burned Erdtree is what we see in the Land of Shadow during the trailer for Shadow of the Erdtree.
Yeah, we could use the primordial as a word to describe that being the Erdtree. Man, I came across some stuff where, and maybe it was Tarnished Archaeologist. He was talking about different trees in the world and like how they can actually basically how they end up looking like the Erdtree.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: But the reason I'm trying to connect it back to an original burning of the Erdtree is because the narration of some of the trailers talk about there being a burning and fire in the sky. And this is like before the game takes place. And then there's even more information in the game about the Erdtree spreading its seeds. And which is why there are golden seeds all throughout the Lands Between that we go and collect is because there was a fire, it burned down.
That caused the tree to kind of shoot out all these seeds. Which is why-
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: -they're around in different places. All of that is super fascinating to me. Because I didn't really understand that when I played through the first time, was that there was a tree that was burned before. The burning that happens in the game towards the end is a cycle.
It has happened before, it'll probably happen again. After, you know, Melina was involved and... the other thing that kind of came through is that Melina was probably an accomplice of Mesmer and that original burning of the Erdtree because she was left and she talks about this and like her dialogue in the game that she was left burnt and bodiless.
And then, of course, becomes like the kindling for burning the Erdtree during the actual gameplay, but there's thoughts around that. She could have been involved in the original burning of the Erdtree, and that's how she died. So we end up in the Land of Shadow. We should probably be looking for her body because that's probably where it is.
And then what we see and experience in the game is sort of like a spirit projection.
Willie: I think it's very possibly we see her in the trailer already. Actually, I, this is not my own thinking, there's definitely someone, there's two people I saw on Reddit pitching a couple of things back and forth to each other.
One was named -LadySleepless- and someone named joejoesox. Like, we're just like, they weren't actually responding back and forth, but one of like joejoesox responded to something that -LadySleepless- said, there is a shot in the trailer where there's a golden thread going up this Erdtree in the Land of Shadow that's like hanging down.
And if you look very closely at what's hanging down, it looks like something in a crucifixion, like a crucifixion pose-
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: -just like Marika looks at the end of, of Elden Ring when you see her or like when you see them on the on any of the statues, right? Arms like outstretched.
Joseph: Oh.
Willie: And there's something that looks like that up there.
Joseph: So you're saying she was a sacrifice.
Willie: It is very possible that Melina is what's on there and is a sacrifice.
Joseph: Okay.
Willie: And I want to, I think joejoesox made it even, took it even further. Maybe Marika allowed Messmer-
Joseph: Right.
Willie: -to, to do that.
Joseph: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Willie: To his own, probably sister.
Joseph: I was just about to bring that up, man. [Willie chuckles] I was about to bring that up. Is, is Melina, Messmer's sister?
Willie: Possibly. And like, we see from the game, like you said, that she is burned, she will burn again, it's like the kindling maiden to burn the Erdtree down.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: She talks about being burned and bodiless when we first meet her.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: I think it's very possible that she was sacrificed during the first burning of the Erdtree.
Joseph: I think so too. And I think it is, it is possible that their siblings for one, one really basic reason is because their names both start with the letter M. [Joseph and Willie chuckle]
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: All of these characters with the letter M, I bet, are all siblings-
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -because that's just the way this game works.
Willie: If you're going with that idea, it sort of makes sense that it's a child of, they're both children of Marika and Radagon because all-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -of their children are the names with the M's so far.
Joseph: Yeah, so we're talking Miquella, Malenia, Messmer, and Melina.
Willie: [said at the same time as Joseph] Melina, and Mesmer.
Yeah, possibly.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: I also think there's, I think there's also, it could be that Marika actually had someone before Godfrey as well.
Joseph: Are you talking about like a husband?
Willie: Yeah, a husband before Godfrey. And there is a, like another random theory that it could be someone to do with the fire giants.
Joseph: Oh.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: Since they like hold and watch the fire-
Joseph: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: -and they also have red hair, obviously.
Joseph: Right, right, right.
Willie: So it could be that actually there was some sort of alliance before even meeting Godfrey and turning Godfrey into, well and it wasn't even Godfrey, right? Godfrey is also named Hoarah Loux, [chuckles] who was the-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -soldier version of Godfrey, who won all the wars for Marika.
00:38:18
Joseph: Taylor, how ridiculous does all this stuff sound right now?
Taylor: Very. Oh, it's super ridiculous. I'm trying to keep up with it as, uh, and trying to watch a video as well on [Joseph and Willie laugh] like a 40 minute breakdown video is probably not the right move.
Joseph: Right.
Taylor: But, uh, yeah, it's, it's pretty freaking crazy. And it looks like, I mean, whoever that is in the, in the trailer, it looks like they're holding a rune, right? With those, uh, shaping a rune maybe-
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: -where they're holding those gold strands.
Joseph: That's who we think is Marika.
Taylor: Yeah, that was, and that was, um, that was what made me definitely think that it could just be, could be the very first DLC video that we see or whatever, but it also looks like we're going to see how everything started, which I think is going to be really cool.
I'm sure a lot of big fans of the, of the series want to see like a little more of, of the, uh, underlying story. It's going to be pretty cool.
Joseph: What's wild is that we're, we're kind of, we're going back in time, but I saw somebody talk about an interview with Miyazaki and him saying that these are basically happening at the same time. Like they're, they're kind of like in the same place-
Taylor: Woah.
Joseph: -like the Land of Shadow and the lands between are really the same kind of world. They're not like two separate things, which I think is pretty interesting. But like you mentioned-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -it kind of is like an origin story to get more detail about the wars that were breaking out, probably the creation of the Golden Order, probably some fucked up shit that Marika, Marika and Messmer did that should not come to light.
And Miquella's, Miquella is a fucking whistleblower, dude.
Taylor: One thing I've, I've found, like, re watching some of this stuff, and also, uh, watching breakdowns of the new trailer, it's cool to me how they convey so much of the story through the character designs. I don't think I realized that as much when I was playing through it.
Like, the Elden Beast is a great example of, uh, sorry, I keep tapping the mic, but, uh, I thought that was an awesome example, where I never, I thought the Elden Beast was really cool looking. You know, it's a, it's a late game boss and um, something that should look incredible. But when we started looking into all this and, and uh, actually researching, like, I guess I realized that the meteor that they're talking about is kind of embodied in the Elden Beast, like in the, in the way that whenever it does its little intro video.
When you realize, okay, this is who we're fighting and he does this little jump in the air. Like when it follows his head and his neck up into the air, it looks like a meteor. You know what I mean? Like it looks like there's a meteor at the top of his head and straight down is like a path coming down and things like that really, it explains why people get so into this story and so into the lore behind it.
It even helps you appreciate the visuals more. It's not just some story that's in your head. It's like, oh, now when I go back and play new game plus or plus, plus, plus, or whatever, you're seeing these things in a different light. And I think that's really freaking cool. That's like a next level of creating something.
The art, the story, the lore, all of it just tied in so well together that you can see each of the facets reflected in the other ones. It's really freaking cool. This game just has that much depth. Like you said, people still find out stuff about it all the time.
Joseph: Willie, I know, I know you probably came across this, but when people were trying to decide whether or not the person we see in the trailer that pulls the golden strands and holds them up in the sky, like whether or not that's Marika, some of the, the details that people were picking up on were just like her bracelets-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -the bracelets this character has on the armbands, you know, it's everything from like a braid in someone's hair. And then cross referencing that against some of the original trailers that were released for the base game and saying, oh, in the original concept art, Marika's wearing these bracelets or in the statues throughout the lands between she has those bracelets on. That's how we know this person in the trailer is meant to be Marika because she has the same bracelets, right?
They're super specific about how they use those character designs to communicate subtly of like, what the fuck we should be understanding about it. And that's shit, this shit's like fucking masterful.
Willie: I think another example is looking at Messmer in the trailer and like, clearly this is a very like, uh, sort of kingly, godly looking character, right? Wearing a cool crown that has serpents on it, has snakes on it. They have snakes as basically extra appendages coming off of them that like crawl up on their staff that they're holding, or spear. You know, you see the character has one eye, but the other eye has a slit in it that looks like a, like a serpent's eye, which could mean a couple of things.
But one of the things that it could mean is that this person has like undertaken the dragon communion in the game, which means like-
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: -they've consumed the hearts of like dragons. They've learned those sort of incantations from having slain and eaten the hearts of dragons.
Joseph: And it was, uh, it was the color of the eye, right? Was part of that?
Willie: A little, but it's the pupil is slit like a-
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: It's like a yellow eye with a vertical slit pupil and the armor that he's wearing kind of looks like the Drake Knight set, which is another armor in the game that people wear that do take dragon communion.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And you can get that armor. And if you never noticed this, like if you eat dragon hearts in the game to get those incantations, your eyes, your character's eyes will have vertical slits in them.
Taylor: Wow.
Joseph: I think that was the biggest way to piece it together with like what, what Messmer looks like in the trailer. Or to connect the dragon communion, part of that is because of the way it's depicted in when you do it.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Awesome.
Taylor: Those details are crazy.
Willie: I think the other, like, off the wall theory that I would be curious about or go with is, what if it's not that? What if he has something to do with, uh, what is it? The Great Serpent, but there's another word, like the Ancient Great Serpent that Rykard lets himself be eaten by.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: What if somehow Messmer has a connection to the Great Serpent?
Joseph: I would not doubt that one bit because the serpent in the game obviously is like the iconography that is the enemy of the Golden Order. I'm now noticing that there's shit in the base game that is very serpent like, that could easily get overlooked, that is now, it just now seems more important to like the deep, deep lore and history behind the factions at play.
But the fact that Messmer has serpents, there's other serpents and other enemies throughout like the Lands Between and using that iconography I think is like an incredible way to tell more of that story and it easily get overlooked. Especially by somebody like me playing through the game.
You know, and it's just like banners, right? Banners hanging with, like, an Erdtree on it, but where those banners hang.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Or where these other things hang and, like, what's kind of tattered and torn and looking at debris on the battlefield or whether they're, like, Erdtree worshippers that are dead in certain areas of the game that tell a bigger story of, like, the battle that took place.
There's a portrait of a burning tree of volcano manor-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -and then, of course, there's like people at Volcano Manor that want to tear down the Golden Order and stuff like that. Just fucking fire everywhere. Messmer fire, Volcano Manor fire, Rykard serpent. Yeah, there's just it's so deep, man. It runs so fucking deep that it's like impossible to know everything unless you spend like 100 hours just [Willie chuckles] like watching videos nonstop, you know, and then go try to discover stuff for yourself or go back and reread item descriptions.
I don't understand how it's so deep. It kind of blows my mind that it is and that, Willie, you mentioned this the other night. We were talking offline about like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how they can like connect so many different films and kind of make it all work. How is all of this fucking working?
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: You know, like.
00:46:15
Willie: I think it's, it's important to say like, you know, another writer in this was George R. R. Martin, which, you know-
Taylor: That's true.
Joseph: That could be a reason for why.
Willie: -say what you will about, you know, the whole Game of Thrones thing and the show not working out as great as we all wanted it to, but... and the book that may never, the books that may never come out, but that world is deep with lore too.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Yeah. And that's a great point.
Willie: And that dude's still just writing offshoots of stuff that's just like so much more backstory.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: And that guy had a hand in this, so clearly there are going to be things and connections that we don't even see coming because they don't really make sense, but they're going to make'em make sense.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: That's a great point to bring up. George R. R. Martin, because that is definitely a part of the reason why this fucking thing is so deep and it works.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: And I think there was even confirmation, maybe from Miyazaki, there was confirmation in an interview about this trailer drop that it does align with some core writing that George R. R. Martin did. It is still uncovering some of that original backstory stuff that was, was put in place from the get go, which is fucking awesome.
Willie: Yeah. I do want to add one more thing before we start wrapping up, which the adjective that I couldn't think of for the Great Serpent was Immortal. The Immortal Great Serpent, which-
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: -kind of is a big word to leave out because [Joseph chuckles] we killed the Great Serpent, but it's immortal so what does that mean?
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: You talking about the Rykard fight?
Willie: Yeah. Yeah. The Rykard fight.
Joseph: Right.
Willie: So um, I don't know. Are we going to see a return? Is it any, is it connection to Messmer at all? I don't know. Maybe not at all. I think the stuff we're seeing in the trailer is backstory, is stuff from the past. We might get it at the very beginning of the game again, but I don't think we're going to like, or in a flashback.
But to sort of make it work with what Miyazaki said about all this is taking place concurrently, is that all the stuff we are going to do is us traveling to the Land of Shadow concurrently with the events in the base game. It doesn't mean we won't get flashback sequences to other things that did happen previously to fill in some of this backstory-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: -in the base game.
Joseph: I hope we do get that kind of stuff.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: 'Cause that seems... that's always a really good way to deliver that information or that content.
Willie: And we might not just because Elden Ring itself didn't do that a lot.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: There were a couple of scenes like before boss fights. Well, there's the opening cinematic that gave us a lot of backstory.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And then there was some stuff, I think like just before the Radahn fight, there might be a little more backstory. But there's not a lot of flashback cut scenes. There's again, it's a lot of reading texts.
Joseph: Dude, that's incredible, man. Like-
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -they're doing it with like three trailers [Willie chuckles] and then all the other written content in the game. And then everybody else is filling in, filling in all the holes and the gaps for them to be able to do that, I think is amazing.
Willie: Yeah, I do want to point out one thing that this person -LadySleepless- from reddit said that I'd liked about this one theory that like Mac... they didn't say that Marika sacrificed their child. They did say that like Messmer killed Melina. They-
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: -didn't say that this was a sacrifice, but maybe it was-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -But maybe Marika created the Golden Order so they could have control of their the Elden Ring so that they could remove the rune of Death from the Elden Ring to take away death because they didn't want to lose another child, right?
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: The Elden Ring doesn't have the Rune of Death. She gives it to Malekith in the base game, or before the base game.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And now everyone who dies, their spirits, like, return to the Erdtree to like, feed the Erdtree.
Joseph: Versus, like, living in death?
Willie: Well, living, versus living in death. Living in death is seeing as, like, an abomination. But we don't know what used to happen before.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: So there's also speculation that maybe the Land of Shadow was what happened to people.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: Before they returned to the Erdtree. Before that happened, maybe everyone died and then just went to live in the Land of Shadow.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: Like, that's a possibility too. [chuckles]
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: Yeah, that's interesting. Because then it's almost like, uh, what's the motive behind removing the Rune of Death and what's the motive behind, I mean, even shattering the Elden Ring.
Willie: Yeah. Yeah. So many things.
Joseph: So many things.
00:50:27
Willie: I'm going to have to go play some more Elden Ring as soon as we [Taylor chuckles] get off this probably. [Joseph laughs] I'm like, [chuclkles] I'm 28 hours in right now. I'm like 28 hours and like 30 minutes in when I looked last night. Uh, the last thing I did was beat the Draconic Tree Sentinel to get into the Leyendel.
Joseph: Okay. Okay.
Willie: Which is wild because like, I said I'm 28 hours in and I guarantee you, I didn't do that until-
Joseph: Oh, hell no.
Willie: -like 70, 80 hours in the first time-
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -I've been sort of doing some sort of speed run routing just to get the stuff that I want to like, make my character strong enough to go do stuff and I'm trying to do stuff under leveled to see how it goes.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: I assume if everything that everyone's saying is true, that we have to beat Radahn and Mohg to be able to like get to the DLC.
Joseph: That's what I've heard.
Willie: So this character is going to do that. I haven't done that yet. I tried to go fight Radahn like very early, did not happen. I got him to-
Taylor: Phew.
Willie: -like a quarter a couple of times, but it just...I couldn't finish because I was just getting one-shot.
Taylor: That's a brutal [Joseph chuckles] fight.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Like, when you're-
Joseph: Oh, man.
Taylor: -underpowered, um, I mean, even when you, when you discover that you can use all the friends to help you when you're under power, that guy just seems to like, he doesn't care about all the other characters.
As soon as you're on the brink of death, he seems to just like switch focus to only you and it's so hard to defend or get away from him.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Such a crazy fight.
Joseph: You're better off just running around on Torrent and then resurrecting all of the spirits and-
Willie: [chuckling] Yeah.
Taylor: Exactly.
Joseph: -letting them beat Radahn while you just-
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: -stay alive.
Taylor: Even then, he's going to hit you with a spear every once in a while or something.
Joseph: Uh-huh.
Willie: Or in the second phase, just those meteors that suck.
Joseph: Crash down, yeah.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Oh, man. Gosh, there's too much to talk about.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I love it and I hate it because I wish we could talk about more here.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: But there's just way too much. It's even hard to connect the basics. [chuckles] You know-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -like, I'm struggling-
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -to even understand what to tell anyone that's listening that's basic enough to give you an overview without immediately digging too deep or falling into a hole.
Willie: Anybody who's listening, you could go watch 10 hours of Vaati videos on the lore of Elden Ring, and that's a good place to start, and then watch another like 30 hours of the other videos on his channel.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: And then all the ones that, you know, Joey was mentioning, what did you, what was his name again?
Joseph: Tarnished Archaeologist is really good, and then there's, there's Quelaag.
Willie: Yeah, Quelaag is the other one that I was going to say, that's a good one. Go watch, you know, 100 hours worth of Elden Ring videos and then you'll, then you'll sort of kind of understand what might be happening. [Taylor chuckles]
Joseph: If you did like 50 hours, you could probably re listen to this and understand some of the shit we're talking about. [Joseph and Taylor laughing]
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: It's kind of what it would take, which is wild.
00:53:04
Willie: Yeah. Any final thoughts?
Joseph: Not really, man. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm hoping I can play more before the DLC drops and there's not a lot of time between now and then, but I hope I can just get a little bit more comfortable with the combat again because I think once I do that, I'll be, I'll be okay to kind of jump into like some heavy shit.
The new stuff.
Willie: Yeah. Are you going to use your original character to go in?
Joseph: I think so. Like, I don't have a choice, man. There's no way-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -I could get to Mohg and defeat Mohg by the time all that stuff happens.
Taylor: Yeah. You'd have to [chuckles] dedicate a week to just playing that or something again. Yeah.
Joseph: And I'd almost rather just play the new stuff, like as close to real time as possible so that I'm-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -not spoiling it for myself. So I'm going to stick with my character.
Willie: You think the same thing, Taylor? You're going to stick with one of...
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Do you have multiple characters from?
Taylor: I do, but I think one stopped at 30 or 40 hours and I just didn't really like the build I had going on. And then my main character is the 180 level or something like that.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: And that fire sword, it's so hard for me-
Joseph: Oh, right.
Taylor: -to use anything else [Willie chuckles] because that thing is so overpowered. It would be tough for me to go try a different weapon set or build or something. But, did we get any further confirmation or anything about the new classes that they're revealing or...?
Willie: So I don't know that there are new classes but there are new-
Joseph: New weapon types, I think .
Willie: -there's new weapon types. There's like eight new weapon types-
Taylor: Okay.
Willie: -and those new weapon types, one of them is basically a hand to hand thing.
Taylor: Okay, and and somewhere some someone was seen like cartwheeling or backflipping or some shit, like one of the characters.
Willie: That's in the hand to hand sort of weapon types, if you have those equipped, you are basically just a straight up martial character with, yeah-
Taylor: Oh, that's awesome.
Willie: -fist combat, and kicks, and stuff.
Joseph: I don't know if you would-
Taylor: That's fucking cool.
Joseph: -remember this Taylor, but it's like the, it's like the monks in Sekiro.
Taylor: Yeah. Oh yeah.
Joseph: They have that type, like monk fighting ability.
Taylor: Yeah. That's definitely my style for any kind of game like this where you can have your choice to get in there with CQC. [chuckles]
Willie: The other weapon type that was interesting is like a ranged combat.
Joseph: Like a throwable.
Willie: Like throwing knives, throwing daggers sort of thing.
Taylor: Oh, that's cool.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: That's cool. That's, that's a nice variety. I like that.
Willie: Anyway, I'm going to play both my characters right now to get ready and then decide as we get closer, which one's going to go into the DLC.
Joseph: Oh, I, um, this is probably worth mentioning, but, and I don't remember all the specific details, but I do think they reworked the way you level up for the DLC-
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -like it's, it's not the same. They have a way to balance out everybody coming in with like a 200 to a fucking thousand level character. And I think it is a lot like Sekiro in that you have to like defeat bosses, get something from a boss, and then that's what you use to actually level yourself up.
Taylor: That's cool.
Willie: Yeah, you'll still rune level, it seems like, but you'll also have this attack level that you need-
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: -to level up with-
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: -whatever sort of thing you get from the boss.
Taylor: They've seemed dedicated to making sure that there's a fairly fair playthrough for everybody and I've always really appreciated that especially coming from Dark Souls [Willie chuckles] where a lot-
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: -of times that's not stuff was either unfair or impossible just to join with your friends and I, that makes a big difference to me on this game. That they made such an effort from the get go to keep people together and keep you playing with your squad and still keep it feeling, um, you know, not, not that you're completely overpowered or that somebody is completely underpowered in either of those circumstances.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: They've really done a good job of that.
Joseph: And ensuring that the DLC is going to be challenging for even people that are like, you know, level 500 character or something.
Taylor: Yeah, nothing would be worse than waiting as long as we have-
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: -been and then you just steamroll it. Yeah, so that's good. I know all the Souls DLCs, they did a really good job of like, just making sure that they were difficult. You know, making sure you got on ramped or on boarded at the right time and that it was still hard as hell.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: Yeah, it seems like they're, they're gonna do a good job with that, hopefully, with this and then we'll all be playing for another, you know, maybe 50 plus hours or something.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: Probably longer for me. I don't know, considering that-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -I've sunk 300 hours into a game that I didn't even completely do everything in already.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah, that was definitely an underestimation on my part too. Cause I like, it will take me a while I'm sure to get through everything, searching every nook and cranny for everything-
Taylor: Yeah.
[Outro theme begins to fade in - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell
Willie: -but, uh, yeah, I think that's it for us. There's more to talk about, but we'll have more time to talk about it and we'll be playing soon. But thank you for listening to us ramble about all of the Elden Ring stuff. Definitely go check out some people, get some more background info if you're curious. And um, yeah, thank you for just being here with us.
Taylor: Thanks for tuning in everybody.
Joseph: Thanks y'all.
Taylor: Get those hand on those sticks.
[Outro theme continues - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
00:57:49
Joseph: Berries and Blades is an independent podcast created by Joseph Bullard, Willie Garza, and Taylor Garratt. Thanks for tuning in, and consider subscribing if you enjoyed listening to this episode. You can also support us by telling your friends about the show, and we hope to see you in the next episode of Berries and Blades. Until then, thanks again.
[Outro theme fades out - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
Taylor: Yeah, it's because you're not a true Sandler-
Joseph: Aw, get...
Taylor: -fan, bro.
Joseph: Get the fuck out of here.
Taylor: Not a true Sandler-
Joseph: Pfft.
Taylor: -fandler.
Joseph: You're fucking joking right now, man.
Taylor: Start this podcast so I can rip you.