The Genius Communication of Elden Ring

This may be a seriously-hot take, but it turns out that Fromsoft's 2022 open-world epic Elden Ring is actually pretty good. The Soulsborne series and I have always had a bit of a tumultuous relationship; namely, I would purchase them excitedly and tell myself "This particular title is going to be the one that makes me love these games!" only to bounce off of them a few hours in after my thirty-fifth attempt at the same boss fight. I would get lost in the UI and all of the stat numbers, along with the obtuse storytelling and brutal level design. Some of you may say that I have a skill issue, that if I were only to git gud then all of my Soulsborne woes would be solved.

And to that, I say: Well, yeah. I just didn't want to.

Miraculously, I still found myself buying Elden Ring the week it was released in 2022. All of the hype and praise it had garnered as soon as it hit store shelves wormed its way into my head and instigated some serious FOMO. I fell into the same trap – purchase, install, play, "YOU DIED", throw controller, uninstall. It sat dormant on my gaming shelf for over a year because I just couldn't bring myself to dive back in and deal with the punishment.

Then along came the unanimously well-received Shadow of the Erdtree DLC to shove it all in my face and start the cycle anew. I was once again inundated with screenshots and gameplay clips of unimaginable combat scenarios with some of the most inventive and horrifying creatures I had ever seen. A man can only take so much, and thus after intense deliberation, I relented and decided to give Elden Ring one more try. I have no idea what changed, I have no idea what clicked for me that hadn't up to this point in literally any Soulsborne game prior, but Elden Ring finally dug its grubby giant dark fantasy fingers in me and I cannot seem to put it down.

Elden Ring finally dug its grubby giant dark fantasy fingers in me and I cannot seem to put it down.

Actually digging into the experience yielded a wealth of clarity and information - after the first few hours of absolute confusion, of course. The world of Elden Ring is immense, intimidating, and brutal, but it's also beautiful, challenging, and triumphant. Of all the systems at play within the walls of Elden Ring's structure, one in particular continually surprised me: how Fromsoft handles other players. Throughout the continent of the Lands Between, stone tables are seen littering the ground, each containing a cryptic message. These messages could be useful, warning you of a trap ahead or an enemy hiding around the corner, or they could be deceitful, tricking you into believing there was a ledge reachable by jumping off a cliff, resulting in a plummet to your demise. They could be a short congratulations message after killing a particularly difficult boss, or even complete nonsense, the ramblings of madmen talking of fingers and dogs. It all seems extremely overwhelming at first, but after a few hours, you start to understand the language that Elden Ring players speak. The most interesting aspect is that each message is left behind haphazardly by other real human players.

In Elden Ring, the messaging system is simple but ingenious. Each player has the ability to scrawl a message into the ground, pretty much at any time. They are unable to write whatever they want though, as they must choose from a pre-selected list of phrases and words. Like with everything else in Elden Ring, these messages are never entirely straightforward. Instead of saying something like "There's a hidden path in front of you, so attack the wall", there may be a message that says "Hidden path ahead, therefore try attacking." Instead of "there's an enemy ahead of you on the ceiling," you will see "be wary of up".

While not all these messages are the most cryptic, the situation you find them in will greatly influence how difficult their core meaning is to ascertain. These messages are often accompanied by a white, phantom-like figure of the player who left them. There's a possibility that the player will have used an emote to point in the direction of what they're telling you about in the message. Maybe they'll sit down in exasperation at the fact that there is no treasure where they feel there should be. Or maybe they could mock you for doing whatever it is you just did. In addition, these phantoms will appear around you, sprinting past, jumping on ledges, or dodge-rolling like crazy in the heat of their own battles. These traces are helpful more often than not and really do aid in your quest to find every nook and cranny within Elden Ring.

While not all these messages are the most cryptic, the situation you find them in will greatly influence how difficult their core meaning is to ascertain.

Not all evidence is quite so innocuous, however, with the most telling of all player traces being the ominous blood stains. There are large pools of blood littering the ground around where other Tarnished have fallen, and if you interact with them, it will show you the last few seconds of that player's life. Nothing makes your heart drop more than having an inventory full of runes and walking into a room that's decorated with dozens of blood stains. Some players even purposefully kill themselves by the dozens in innocuous areas to set new players' teeth on edge in a nigh-wordless act of international trolling, and it works phenomenally well.

I tried looking into how this messaging mechanic actually works and what system selects the messages that are available to you, but it doesn't seem like anyone is totally sure. From the research I did, it appears that the messages you see have a few through-line factors. First, the most recent and most highly praised messages seem to be the ones that appear most often; second, each individual player can only keep ten messages at a time; and third, certain key phrases tend to pop up in similar locations. The chances of the area before a boss fight containing something like "Boss ahead" or "try parrying" are more likely if other players have included something similar in their messages. The more praise a message gets, the more likely you'll see it as well, with certain rare messages that have more than 999 praises appearing consistently to a plethora of individuals.

There's some debate online whether or not a player needs to be logged in for their messages to be seen, as when a message gets praised – Elden Ring's version of a "like" button – the Tarnished who wrote it gets a health buff equal to one of their flasks. Other than that, it's suggested that the messaging system is random in its execution. The phantoms themselves seem to be live, or at least, extremely close to live players in the same area as you. My theory is that these phantoms serve as a visual understanding of the likelihood of another player coming to your aid, should you request it. I've personally used a Furlcalling Finger Remedy item and seen a phantom respond to it in near real-time, hustling over to my summon in order to help me fight a boss (yes sometimes I use summons, leave me alone.) Even this appears to be debated online, however, with many people thinking the phantoms are just wisps of something a player has already done. Does that mean the player I saw jump into my game was nothing more than a strange coincidence? Are some of the phantoms live, while others are mere echoes of players' past? If so, how old exactly are these echoes?

These questions are all part of the fun. Like every other aspect of Elden Ring, the exact mechanics behind this communication system are eerily mysterious. While the main focus of this messaging system is clear – it allows players to communicate across game universes in a language entirely devised by them and for them – I think the true brilliance of Elden Ring's communication system lies a layer deeper. The game is, for the most part, a solitary experience; while friendly NPCs are scattered throughout the Lands Between and a few can be called upon to fight the bosses, the majority of playtime will just be you versus the world. The messages, the phantoms, and the bloodstains converge together into a melange of excellent game design that makes you feel, regardless of what inconceivable horror has been pounding you into a bloody tarnished pulp for the last 45 minutes, that you are not facing these trials alone. Even in the most desolate corners of the map, there are glowing messages letting you know you aren't the first to this isolated wasteland and probably won't be the last. There could be a solitary bloodstain depicting a mishap of someone accidentally skirting too close to the edge of a cliff. If you're lucky, there may even be a glowing white phantom, standing at the same breathtaking vista you are, soaking in the atmosphere and taking a quick breather before their next inevitable death.

These questions are all part of the fun. Like every other aspect of Elden Ring, the exact mechanics behind this communication system are eerily mysterious.

Elden Ring isn't the first game to implement something like this. It isn't even the first game that Fromsoft has developed that implements this sort of summoning and messaging system. Suffice it to say that Elden Ring's massive and threatening open world easily makes it the most impactful and interesting game by far that has implemented the system. There's something so poignant about sharing a language in a game as difficult as Elden Ring. Knowing you're sharing the burden of the struggle with thousands of other people is surprisingly comforting, and celebrating after a big win with those strangers through their messages is unlike anything I've experienced in a game. It may have taken me two years to finally get invested in Elden Ring, but it blows me away every time I boot it up.

"Try jumping" is a lie, at least half the time though. That's a lesson you only have to learn once.