Tactile Thematics, 2: Passages of Plurality in FromSoftware's Elden Ring

Since Demon's Souls (2009), game development studio FromSoftware has demonstrated a concern with subjectivity---a concern that is expressed materially through their mechanical interrogation of the ludic subjectivity that emerges in video game narratives. From game to game, FromSoftware has steadily dismantled the essential or metaphysical subject of play, substituting it with an ever more complex and entangled subject that finds itself embroiled in and compromised by the myths and plots that drive each game's overarching story. By nesting moment-to-moment gameplay loops within the broader narrative metastructures of these games, chaining these loops together into thematic systems, FromSoftware has worked to challenge conventions of roleplaying game protagonaity, supporting their narrative aims at the tactile level of interaction. Building on prior empirical research focused on Demon's Souls (2009), Dark Souls (2011), Dark Souls II (2014), Bloodborne (2015), Dark Souls III (2016), and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (2019), this paper brings FromSoftware's latest title, Elden Ring (2022), into the discussion, undertaking a close reading of the mechanics and items that make this new game distinctive, and which continue the design trajectory of the preceding titles, a trajectory that now spans nearly a decade and a half of game development.