Elden Ring: The Shattering Was Even More Brutal Than You Think
Of all the events in the backstory of Elden Ring, FromSoftware's newest dark fantasy RPG, the Shattering is the most consequential to the game's plot and lore, not to mention the challenges player characters face. This war between the demigods who inherited the Great Rune fragments of the sundered Elden Ring tore apart a prosperous empire, threw entire armies into a meat-grinder of slaughter, and literally scarred the Lands Between themselves. By exploring the game world of Elden Ring, reading the descriptions of certain items and monuments, and examining the content of certain cutscenes, it's possible to assemble a rough timeline of the Shattering's various battles and military campaigns, revealing a full picture of a war even more devastating and tragic than it seems at first glance.
From a narrative perspective, Elden Ring's long-ago Shattering war acts as a call to arms for the player characters of the game. The demigods, through selfish warmongering and ambition, wrecked the Lands Between and forfeited their right to rule, giving the exiled people known as Tarnished a heroic reason to return to the Lands Between and claim the position of Elden Lord for themselves. From a game design perspective, a past war justifies the creation of an RPG open world filled with stately ruins, fortified castles, and roaming bands of soldiers who attack PCs on sight.
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At first glance, the Shattering seems to have been a wild melee of destruction, with each Elden Ring-seeking Demigod and their personal armies fighting a war of all against all. However, by examining the terrain, relics, monuments, and survivors of Elden Ring's world, it's possible to assemble a
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