Spoilers ahead for Elden Ring and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
No fantasy adventure is complete without uncovering some ancient ruins or hearing about the local myths. This transfers to video games well, even outside of titles as focused on their stories as RPGs. Just about any fantasy title, from the recent Elden Ring to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, have references to their past worked into their present. Elden Ring and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom are especially rife with mysteries, since both take place after great wars that ravaged much of their lands and cultures.
Being two of the most prolific fantasy open worlds titles, it's interesting to compare how Elden Ring and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom treat their backstories. Both of them are building on top of the real-life legacies of their developers, whether it's the acclaimed Soulsborne titles made by FromSoftware or the Legend of Zelda franchise pioneered by Nintendo. Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has a further wrinkle thrown in by being the direct sequel to Breath of the Wild, causing some interesting shifts in how it reveals its lore.
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Wants To Tell Players Its Lore
The first thing both of these titles share is their philosophy of unrestricted freedom. Players can venture in any direction they please in the Lands Between and Hyrule, finding some form of adventure even if they're not prepared for it. Elden Ring and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom share a particular trait that Zelda: Breath of the Wild does not, in that they heavily suggest players start by taking specific paths through their maps. However, Tears of the Kingdom goes a step further by displaying its lore in the same way.
FromSoftware's tendency to hide most of their lore in item descriptions needs no introduction, but the recent Legend of Zelda titles opt to show instead of tell. This manifests in flashbacks scattered throughout Hyrule. Massive sigils mark the areas where these flashbacks are found in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, but after finding what is intended to be the first, players are directed toward a temple that displays every sigil's location, and the order in which they should be viewed. There is no compulsion to adhere to this, or even engage with the memories at all, but it speaks to a willingness to push players towards Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's story.
Elden Ring Leaves Tarnished To Pick Up Its Pieces
Anyone looking for clear and concise narrative details will be disappointed by Elden Ring, but not as much as prior FromSoftware titles. Elden Ring places Sir Gideon Ofnir in the Roundtable Hold hub to serve as both mission control and a lore master, somewhat like Zelda's various Sheikah researchers. His information is eventually revealed to be partially speculative, but he is still able to provide common knowledge on the major players in the Lands Between. Anything else will have to be dug out of item descriptions, and assembled through various disparate clues.
While Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom shows more than it tells, Elden Ring opts to maintain an air of mystery. Major backstory events like the Night of Black Knives, Queen Marika's initial series of conquests, and even the nature of the Tarnished themselves are left up to the player to figure out.
The open-world Zelda duo have explored their Hyrule so thoroughly that little is left to discover, while Elden Ring can easily support new revelations in its upcoming expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree. Only time will tell if Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom gains DLC reveals of its own, but it's fascinating to see how these two similar games approach their lore with opposing philosophies.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is available now on Nintendo Switch.