160°

Elden Ring Wins The Prestigious Nebula Award For Game Writing

Elden Ring soars higher than ever as it adds Nebula's Best Game Writing award to its ever-growing collection of accolades.

shinoff2183719d ago

Game writing. Unless I misunderstood something. I know it was a hit amongst the masses, not a fan myself. Anyway ibspent 5 to 10 hours in the game and didn't come across much I'd consider writing.

Confused, on the lake

LordoftheCritics718d ago

Nebula just lost its credibility.

718d ago
shinoff2183718d ago (Edited 718d ago )

Novel

My guess is you game on xbox and had no choice but to like elden ring alot due to it atleast being a game to play.

Also can you break down the story for me

Bathyj718d ago

Well Novel.
Thanks for creating a new account to tell us that.

Hofstaderman718d ago

I’m with you. I’m still trying to piece together the exposition and I’ve been playing this games since two months after it launched. My first souls like game and I’m still getting crushed to oblivion.

Babadook7718d ago (Edited 718d ago )

I haven’t finished it but I found the story and world building here to be pretty incomprehensible myself. I liked Bloodborne far more because (despite its very outlandish premise) it was more comprehensible and very interesting. If anyone who actually finished this game could share their thoughts on how Elden ring compares to Bloodborne in terms of story I’d appreciate it.

718d ago
Bobertt718d ago

Elden Ring does have a great story but it doesn't give you most of it through cut scenes like most games so i can see how it confuses people who are used to the story being told to them in games instead of having to discover it. You do get some of it the normal way from the main quest cut scenes but the majority of it is found through talking to the NPCs, reading the descriptions on all the items you get, and doing the side quests.

Plus George R.R. Martin wrote the lore for this game. He said "So, I went back and wrote a history of what happened 5,000 years before the current game, and who all the characters were, and who was killing each other, and what powers they had.” The article this is from says "He wrote a detailed history of the realm, crafting the relationships and powers that all Elden Ring players are so keen to uncover now, like the hidden clues about Sellen, Ranni, and the Carian bloodline."

As for this award I don't think they use the same criteria we would think of when deciding the best "Game Writing" because the finalists for this award were Stray, Elden Ring, Horizon Forbidden West, Journeys through the Radiant Citadel, and Pertiment. As far as i could find Journeys through the Radiant Citadel is actually a book for DnD so what they consider Game Writing doesn't pertain to just Video Games. So i would assume they look at every bit of text in a video game and not just cut scenes and dialogue. So Elden Ring would have an advantage as they have more Item descriptions than most games and they play a big part to the story.

For example if your read the item you get when you defeat General Radahn it says "The Red Lion General wielded gravitational powers which he learned in Sellia during his younger days. All so he would never have to abandon his beloved but scrawny steed." Through this we learn about General Radahn's character. He loved his horse so much that he went and learned the powers he uses in his fight so he could continue to ride his much smaller horse. Then if you read the description on the Gravity Well magic you get from defeating a Lesser Alabaster Lord in the Academy it says "A gravitational technique studied by the young Radahn. His master was an Alabaster Lord with skin of stone." So now we also learn who Radahn learned his magic from. This is just two items but it should give you an idea that there is a lot more story in Elden Ring but if you don't take the time you can miss a lot of it.

badz149718d ago

The next one that will win this "prestigious" writing award will be Zelda TotK. we all know the amazing story it tells!

LordoftheCritics718d ago

They stole the writing award from BOTW

+ Show (3) more repliesLast reply 718d ago
ElendilsSorrow719d ago

Every award ER gets is well-deserved. What a W for gaming in general, this release

shinoff2183719d ago

I don't deny that it's a good game. Seems everyone liked it but me lol. What I've played and read about though it still is kinda eh on the writing story side so I just don't get this award. I would hope it doesn't become the standard.

MadLad718d ago (Edited 718d ago )

The writing isn't in your face. It's there for you to slowly explore, absorb, and move forward.

Environmental storytelling is, as far as I'm concerned, hell of a lot harder to do right than just telling a direct story. No matter how good that story is.

It requires more from the player. Sometimes it hits; sometimes it misses. When it lands though, it lands.

Hofstaderman718d ago (Edited 718d ago )

@MadLad agree with you on the impact of environmental storytelling. It is possible to have an actual storyboard with environmental storytelling too. One example that springs to mind is in the Last of Us 1 where you in the sewers and come across the survivors base. The environment and Remnants of their activities and objects tell you how they tried to live a normal lives in the outbreak and conveyed the sadness and horror of them failing. This was done against the backdrop of the overall plot and I found it quite impactful. This comes to a crescendo when you actually have to face them remembering their desperation to survive.

-Foxtrot719d ago

I f****** love Elden Ring but I wouldn't say writing was one of it's achievements

The lore sure but the way they tell the story is not the best

I know people like to say "Oh well that's how From Software doing their games, making you piece together the story yourself" but even when you've put hundreds of hours into it, seen the entire world, read notes, listened to NPCs and so on nothing is clear, you still have people debating online with story elements about what is right. It would be nice to get a little clarity but the story seems so thrown over the place to make you piece it together yourself you don't really get that.

phoenixwing718d ago

The only reason they gave that writing award is because of the writer from game of thrones name is associated with it imo. It's either give it to some no name person or get attention by adding it to a celebrity of sorts

Viljong718d ago

Well deserved ER is very deep and fascinating story.

Inverno718d ago

Too many people seem to think that there's only 1 way to tell a story, or that a story must be told a certain way. Just because it isn't told in a traditional form doesn't mean there's no story. Elden Ring, much like past games in the series has a lot more going on than just a straight written/told story. There's a lot of effort to flesh a lot of the smaller/overlooked things that other games do not really bother to do. Regardless of how cryptic it may be at times.

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90°

10 Highest Rated PS5 Games

Some of the best PS5 games are exclusives like God of War Ragnarok and Astro Bot, but there are some indie highlights as well.

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90°

Best Easter Eggs in Video Games

These are the best Easter eggs in video games—from Atari to Elden Ring. Hidden secrets, surprises, and scandals await.

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Killa7815d ago

Using Elena to play Crash on Uncharted 4 was pretty great.

ZeekQuattro15d ago

Saving some trapped aliens in Super Metroid and seeing them escape. Daisy's third eye in Melee. Seeing Mario characters portraits in a window at Hyrule castle. Megaman X using Ryu/Ken's movesets in mutiple entries. Bayonetta cosplaying as Fox McCloud while using an Arwing to kill angels and demons. So many good ones throughout the years.

160°

2020s - The Decade of Bloated Masterpieces

VGChartz's Mark Nielsen: "Halfway into the decade and the 2020s has been an interesting one for gaming in both good ways and bad, with the restructuring of the industry, a mix of innovation and the same old, and of course many, many long waits. But there have also been many quality titles, to be sure; the last three years in particular have seen a number of critical darlings. Something the most acclaimed ones have had in common (with the obvious exception of Astro Bot) has been an absolutely massive scope, easily boasting 100+ hours of content.

In my own experience that massive amount of content hasn’t always been a positive; in fact I would go so far as to call their slightly overeager strive for quantity a shared flaw of these games. I’ll be looking at four titles in particular here and going over the different ways in which these otherwise solid experiences became victims of having just a bit too much fluff."

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Profchaos47d ago (Edited 47d ago )

To much unimportant content and bloat is mote likely to cause me to stop playing or never revisit it. Especially when it feels like you're forcing the player to do side quests to pad out your game length just to make it long enough so you won't have the player trade the game in to fast

One recent example for me is Hogwarts I enjoyed the story but despised the level gating there was no real reason to lock missions behind a leveling system it was just forcing the player to fly around doing side quests and puzzles so they could advance to the next chapter

gold_drake47d ago

omg hogwarts

i love every second of it but damn, does it feel like a chore to play haha.

scorpio_204947d ago

Hogwarts Legacy should have stuck to what other games couldn’t do: Let us be a Hogwarts student. The open world aspect was just like any Ubisoft game.

attilayavuzer47d ago

Honestly wish it had more of a Bully feel. It was clear that 90% of the attention went to the school and town and the rest felt like the northern chunk of Just Cause 3's map. Almost like they had to justify the flying mechanic by spreading things out.

Profchaos47d ago

Yeah agree the Hogwarts castle and grounds is ripe for exploration. Look at the PS1 Argonaut game i felt like that old game did a better job with relaying what it's like to be a student at Hogwarts than what legacy did.

Legacy was like ok you've done a few classes learnt to ride a broom go spend the next multitude of hours exploring nearby towns and killing hundreds of goblins and spiders I don't think they did enough with the school grounds.

I appreciate them including Hogsmeade but I felt like it didn't need to expand past that point

16d ago
SimpleDad47d ago (Edited 47d ago )

Why don't we have more 12-15h single player stories for $45 is beyond me.

Profchaos47d ago

My guess is I recall around the late 2000s game trades were a big issue which resulted in publishers shifting away from standard single player campaigns that could be beaten in a month and we started to see more expansive open worlds that would take longer to see everything to keep the player invested long enough that they wouldn't trade in the game when it was going to be the most profitable retail window e.g the first month

With the rise of all digital games I can see those games making a comeback as there is no second hand market

I_am_Batman47d ago

Expecting a 12-15h game to be $45 is part of the problem. These games don't sell well at full price anymore and relatively speaking it takes a lot fewer resources to stretch it into a 30-40 hour game that can be sold for full price.

We can complain about padding all we want, but most people simply pay more for padded games.

thorstein47d ago

Eternal Strands $48. 18 hours

Citizen Sleeper 2 $23 10 hours.

AstroBot (got as a gift) 16 hours and they keep adding levels.

CantThinkOfAUsername47d ago

Totally agree. I'm tired of the same bloated fluff that games present as 'content.'

anast47d ago (Edited 47d ago )

BG Act III is dense. It's the opposite of bloat.

andy8547d ago

Act 3 is massive. I think I finished the game 4 times for the platinum and I know I must have missed at least half the stuff in that city

anast47d ago

There is some much unique content in that ACT.

gold_drake47d ago

i feel like Rebirth only really had Costa del sol as a bloat. but its a long game, so i dont blame the author

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