Elden Ring's Best Enemies Tell Tragic Gameplay Stories

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FromSoftware RPGs like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring have always been full of epic boss enemies with sympathetic backstories and a tragic grandeur; the gigantic armored knights and warped beasts of Soulslike RPGs are frequently once-heroic figures driven mad by strange sources of corruption, or will oppose the players out of a twisted but honorable sense of duty. Players who explore and investigate Elden Ring's open world will quickly discover that FromSoftware has given certain mob-type enemies characterizations and tragic backstories formerly reserved for major bosses. After listening to a group of bat people sing mournfully in Latin, or watching beastly wretches rise up against their oppressors, gamers will find it more difficult to fight and defeat even Elden Ring's scariest enemies common enemies (traditionally known as «mobs»).

FromSoftware RPGs before Elden Ring have often tried to introduce an in-universe justification for why mob enemies mercilessly attack the player character on sight. In Demon's Souls, rampaging hordes of demons have drained the souls from many of the kingdom of Boletaria's human citizens, leaving soul-starved wretches in their wake who attack ensouled individuals like the Slayer of Demons player character on sight. In the Dark Souls trilogy, the curse of the Dark Sign has spread among the kingdoms of humanity like a plague, and Dark Sign-branded Undead who lose their motivation to go on devolve into mindless Hollows who lash out at strangers on instinct. In the gothic horror RPG Bloodborne, a literal plague called the Scourge of Beasts is slowly turning the residents of Yharnam into werewolf creatures, and even the torch-wielding mobs of beast hunters out on the streets are sprouting