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.

[shinoff2183]

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

[LordoftheCritics]

Nebula just lost its credibility.

[shinoff2183]

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

[Bathyj]

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

[Hofstaderman]

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.

[Babadook7]

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.

[Bobertt]

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.

[badz149]

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

[LordoftheCritics]

They stole the writing award from BOTW

[ElendilsSorrow]

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

[shinoff2183]

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.

[MadLad]

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.

[Hofstaderman]

@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.

[-Foxtrot]

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.

[phoenixwing]

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

[Viljong]

Well deserved ER is very deep and fascinating story.

[Inverno]

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.

[bangoskank]

The lore is actually amazing and dialogue is eloquently written. I can see why it received this award.

[Nacho_Z]

It's an interesting issue. From games do have amazing writing, the best there is in gaming imo, but if you have to seek out obscure items in order to acquire it is that a problem?

I never really understand the overarching story in their games while I'm playing them but the item descriptions are beautifully written, as is the dialogue, and while I'm not clever enough to piece it together it doesn't mean it's not quality stuff. It is.