The story of Elden Ring is a broad, confusing one--like the Elden Ring itself, it's fractured, made up of tiny pieces as its different characters serve a variety of masters and enact their own plans. Even as you play it, you might find yourself lost as you interact with other Tarnished and hunt down demigods in an attempt to become Elden Lord. Heck, it's not even especially clear most of the time what terms like "Elden Lord" and "Elden Ring" even mean.

We've been poring through Elden Ring's lore for weeks now, piecing together its vast and complicated backstory and the motivations of its many characters to get a sense of what's happening in the game. The story of your Tarnished character is to fight through the world and try to gather Great Runes to become Elden Lord--but that simplified explanation belies the fact that you're taking part in the war between various political factions and a bunch of nameless gods, all of whom are vying to control the Lands Between. The fate of reality itself in this place hangs in the balance, and if you're successful in your quest, you can choose how to reshape the world.

There's a lot of granularity to the story of Elden Ring, but these are the broad strokes of what's happening: What happened before your arrival, why you've come to the Lands Between, what you're trying to accomplish, and who's trying to stop you.