Look, thats fair. But I would counter that narrative in games has been ruined by too much 'exposition-style' storytelling which is lazy and disrespectful to the audience. Elden Ring does zero exposition. The experience and the world tell their own story and the depth and level of detail, homages and so forth is on a level with Elden Ring that far supasses anything I have ever seen.
Just a small slice as an example would be the Congregants of the Village of Dominula which - if you pay attention, and read the descriptions of clothing, weapons and so forth - is like a slowly unfolding horror story. It's pretty clearly an homage to the movie Midsommar - which is an incredibly well-done Swedish Occult horror film. Here is a video on just THAT lore.
Yeah, I actually don’t mind and actually respect that about ER. A narrative that disrespects it’s audience by forgoing all nuance to make sure nobody for a moment is at all even slightly confused is much worse, and I don’t play those games either. I just found the general setup of telling me I’m something I’m completely ignorant about (Tarnished) and then telling me my goal is to go find a MacGuffin I’m completely clueless about (Elden Ring) to be ineffective at drawing me in.
Now Bloodborne is extremely effective as providing a sense of purpose. Even if you have no idea what the backstory is, all you need to do is look at the visual design of the game and you can get the distinct impression “there is something wrong here. I need to leave,” and that’s a great setup. For me, Elden Ring lacked that narrative clarity. Everything else can be a hazy mystery, but just make sure my motivation is clear and I’ll run with it. But if you tell me my goal is to become Elden Lord, all I can say is “I don’t think that’s something I want.”
