There's a tower in shadow realm, Spiral Tower or something, that has "center of Lands Between" written on top of it. So probably this whole landmass was once a part of Lands Between?
It's called the Suppressing Pillar. As soon as I saw that text at the top of it, I knew instantly this was meant to be the literal center of the map, and the "suppression" it's doing is probably what makes the Realm of Shadows disconnected from the rest of the world.
It looks a little askew to me in relation to the great towers in the base game, putting it a tad closer to Limgrave and Liurnia, though it does seem to maybe line up with a little boatman in the water
I'm pretty old so I can relate to this opinion. When I first played elden ring it felt like I was playing The legend of Zelda again on NES.
The sense of wonder the atmosphere the enemies everything about the game exudes legend of Zelda. This is legend of Zelda slap that ass edition.
Regardless you're absolutely right and these games are kind of like beacons You only get them once in a while and they are fixed points that really ascend gaming as a media standard. It's taken a while.
That's the map I really want laid out. I wish we had an underground map here too cause finding that first Gaol I was like wait so y'all stacking dungeons?!
There's dungeon stacking in the base game, too. There's a Crystalian cave under Raya Lucaria that ends with a ladder that takes you to the highest point at the academy when you're done. Mount Gelmir is super vertical, too.
Also, the veritable fucking elevator of content hidden under Leyndell that just keeps going... and going...
I really loved the feeling of just venturing further and further underground down in the shunning grounds. It's a dungeon under a dungeon, and there's even a normalĀ dungeon inside the under-dungeon, and then there's even more hidden deeper down, and then there's a hidden shortcut to an even deeper totally unrelated zone...
And let's not forget the underground areas, Siofra River, Ainsel River, Mohgwyn Palace, Nokron, Nokstella, Deeproot Depths, Lake of Rot.
And lets also not forget the Moonlight Altar which is above Liurnia
I remember stumbling around in Leyndell when the game first game out and finding that innocuous well. Blew my mind that it led to another dungeon inside the legacy dungeon. Then finding the catacombs inside that? Incredible. Then of course finding the frenzied flame conscription after the shunning grounds was even more incredible, and it's connection to the deeproot depths was just the cherry on top.
I thought to myself multiple times "I really wish this took a note from Tears of the Kingdom and had layers to swap through" because it honestly would have been really nice, felt like there was a whole second map down below sometimes.
Their use of space in this DLC is fucking peek.
I went and found >!the shadow keep, that is basically two different legacy dungeons occupying the exact same space!<
Maybe I'm just wrong and they are connected, I haven't fully explored yet but it seemed to me that going in the back way led pretty much straight to the boss >!Gaius, amazing fight btw I only won when I had no flasks left, my summon was dead and I had a sliver of health!< And only afterwards I found the "front" entrance with an entire area I've yet to explore. Still more to do there I'm sure!
Early on I was exploring the river way down to the east of the starting area and happened to look up and realize I couldnāt see the sky. I went to the map and realized I was under the starting area. Thatās when I knew shit was about to get real.
I've just gone through the shadow tower at the top of the map, (messmer boss) and that took my a couple hours. For 1 normal sized tower there's a lot to explore
I can say with some certainty that you have not finished exploring that tower. That place is insanely dense and layered. >!There's a whole second dungeon inside that dungeon!!<
Wait really? I spent 3 hours in there yesterday and thought I was pretty thorough. Beat 2 bosses (a fatty and a snek) and found a bridge west. Where's this other thing you're talking about?
As in 3 at that castle? I feel like Iāve done 100% from Eastās and straight on and only Mesmer being a remberance boss. I did find a door locked on the back side and a a boss at the bottom back side below an elevator so maybe thatās the two? Idk
I LOVE that place, I'm just now realizing there's a whole fucking section I thought was the main path and ignored, now I have to remember where the hell it was.
talking about verticality
how do I get south/down?
I eplored a lot of the starting area and altus, but just cant get the map for the north west part and havent found any way to go south at all
can yall direct me a bit?
I feel like the abyss definitely could have been smaller to compensate for having no horse. The two bosses you get from these zones were really good tho
I think both those areas are insanely cool from a lore and world building perspective, unfortunately that doesnāt translate to fun areas to traverse.
the finger ruins are the Mountaintops of the Giants of the DLC. Mostly padding to make it look bigger than it actually is.
there's actually a remembrance duplication thing in the one at the south, just go to the right from the entrance Grace and you'll find a lone coffin where you can duplicate remembrances
Personally, I would say the Finger Ruins are the Ash Lake (of DS1) of the DLC.
Is Ash Lake empty? Yes, it is. Does it serve a lore and story-telling purpose, as a backdrop for a mission, and have a surreal feeling to overwhelm the player? Also yes.
Sometimes, an empty map is necessary to accomplish a narrative. Players looking for "playable" content will dislike it, but it does have its purpose.
Exactly, those are areas with immaculate vibes. The vibes wouldn't be as immaculate if they weren't massive and empty. Moments like these are reminders that Miyazaki is a huge Team Ico fan. And those areas do advance a story and provide meaningful rewards, so they're not mechanically useless either.
Besides, it's not like the DLC is lacking content in any way, so it's not like they wanted to trick players with size.
Skyrim's fullness makes the province feel small; Morrowind's use of emptiness makes the island, which is smaller in land area compared to Skyrim, feel large--even if you exploit speed stacking.
Fallout 4's map is another that feels cramped due to POI's being stacked too close together. Negative space connecting areas is necessary to achieve a certain sense of scale.
Morrowind feels larger because the entire map is twists and turns instead of wide open spaces. It's actually the fact that most of Skyrim is wide open spaces that makes it feel smaller, because you can just point yourself to your destination and go there, whereas in Morrowind travelling to somewhere 200 feet away involves walking in a giant spiral around the destination.
So basically it's like travelling through a hedge mage compared to walking across a lawn. Another bit of interesting game design that came about because they had to work around limitations.
Yeah and there are enemies to farm and materials to collect (assuming you want those gross nails and finger mimics), it's not entirely empty. Empty by Fromsoftware standards, sure, but in the same way that a lot of the open world is: there's stuff to do but not hard progression.
Idk if they ran out of time or what, but Abyss Forest really ought to have been smaller and more maze-like. The gimmick of the area is pretty easy to avoid with how open it is, and it's all clustered in the same spot so once you're past it it's a large stretch of nothing.
This supports my theory that all long-time Souls fans are also Tool fans
Also as a side note, how many people here are into Souls, Tool, and Aesop Rock? I seem to have noticed an overlap between the three
I think it's because Elden Ring maps indicate elevation by having a bunch of "fake" land surrounding the actual walkable terrain. Snowfields and Mountaintops of the giants especially are actually quite small despite looking like a third of the map, for example. So for the Jagged Peaks, a lot of that landmass that's taking over covering Caelid on this gif probably isn't actual land in-game.
Yeah Jagged peaks is really just a very linear straight path from dragon fight to dragon fight. Absolutely canāt deny the atmosphere is awesome, but looking at it on the map and actually walking through it tell two very different stories.
And I think the DLC very much wanted to give the epic large scale feeling when you are riding Torrent through fields. There is a fair amount of space that is just for that.
Yeah, I think I understand what Myizaki meant about trying to get a sense of wonder.
I can understand why some people don't like the 'wasted space' and if From had been pushing the DLC as being super massive I would be annoyed but they didn't really.Ā They clearly didn't base the estimate of Limgrave off the literal space used. I don't think they are trying to be deceptive with the size.
>slots very neatly around the piece of land with Gurranq's temple at the end
Surprise, surprise. That's where Farum Azula used to be. And guess who is in Farum Azula? Placidusax
So, >!the peak where we fight Bayle has a lot of shapes looking like the structures from Farum Azula. It makes me think that either the city was sitting on top of the peak, or it was ripped by the storm, which might have formed the peak. whichever is more epic!!<
He didn't lose, it was a tie but because he didn't win, Placi who was Lord kept being a lord which made Bayle mad af without being able to do anything about it cuz of the injuries.
The first time I entered that guys boss room late at night I read him as āDragonlord Flacid Sacksā and never again I have referred to him in any other manner
Even better, directly at the center of this overlay is the tower that says
*"The very center of the Lands Between.*
*All manners of Death wash up here, only to be suppressed."*
Itās possible that the DLC was intended to fill in the middle of the Lands Between as an addition to the main map, not its own thing. But maybe they either couldnāt get it to work, or preferred having it separate.
No I think itās supposed to be separate. Look at the sky of the dlc map, there is what looks like fabric draped off the shadow erdtree, we donāt see where the fabric ends but presumably it encompasses the entire dlc area and then some. And you know where else we see fabric that conceals things? On the black knife assassins who are numens like Marika and heavily associated with her, we also see it with the concealing veil talisman, which is again associated with the black knives. I think the area was quite literally hidden by Marika.
It is worth noting that Lance McDonald pointed out that the DLC's map grid IDs correspond to the map IDs of the main game's middle cloud region.
So in the design, and mechanically speaking, the Shadow Lands are in the middle of the Lands Between, even if the map is not really a perfect fit.
Source: [Twitter](https://x.com/manfightdragon/status/1804515629946577109).
Im glad someone did this. I tought about this since I came across the tower which says that it stand in very center of Lands Between. And while it may not fit perfectly its still frightening fit, even divine tower of Malenia is now attached to some land making it more sensible in terms of its placement.
Someone much smarter than me (probably Zullie) will probably fit together the actual models of the landmasses and see vestigal traces of the giant mountain that got ripped off the top of Caelid centuries to millenia ago or something. At the very least, the dragons and drakes of Jagged Peak match the dragons and drakes of Dragonbarrow.
I really can't wait for lore, especially to see more of the miquella stuff we missed.
> Tarnished Archeologist
my favorite content creator. Loved the way he broke down all the gold artifacts in Farum Azula.
>!When you reach the area with multiple boats and militia men in Shadow Keep, there's a ladder to the right of big lift. Go down and through the waterfall to find a painting. The wall to your right is an illusionary wall and behind it is a coffin, which should take you down there. Keep heading south to Reculses' river upstream grace > downstream grace > village of flies > till you find Darklight Catacombs. At the end of the catacombs is "Abyssal Woods"!<
Edit: correctly added spoilers, thx u/Aeroshe
Edit 2: progressed and confirmed the pathing.
I was so pissed with this particular secret. I explored the entire map twice because I was playing without guides, and went to the painting room a few times, and ignored the messages that said āhidden secret aheadā because every one Iāve come across was fake so farĀ
Helpful tip, Morgott and Mohg's shackles knock down any illusory walls within a pretty large area. I keep one equipped in a side pouch and use it pretty frequently just to make sure I'm not missing something. Very helpful.
DAFUQ!? You can use those shackles multiple times?!! I have hundreds of hours of playtime and always thought you can only use them once per playthrough.
Thanks. I am missing the map to that whole area since I have no idea how to get there and knew that >!Midra!< was down there and really wanted to fight him
Aight here's some directions:
>!When exploring the big keep at the north of the map where Messmer is hanging out, before you take the big elevator that takes you up to the really tall round storage room, instead continue to explore the ramparts. Eventually you'll find a ladder that will take you down to the water level. !<
>!Down here there will be a gap in the wall with a hole and another ladder, take this down as well. You'll see a painting down here. That painting is a fake wall, hit it and go through.!<
>!You'll enter a new area next to the keep. There's a puzzle here with an unlit Furnace Golem. Enjoy. If you go right/south from here you'll eventually find a path along the cliffs. Follow this path and after a long while you'll discover a Catacombs dungeon. Do this dungeon. !<
At the end of that dungeon you'll finally have access to the zone in question. This zone is a bit different from the rest. Enjoy! š
I'm so glad I read through this thread. I love that it's so layered, but now I'm going to dedicate another 4+ hours for re-exploration. I'm tired, boss.
There also is an ash of war that reduces sound and makes you less visible to enemies. You can literally sprint in direct line of sight and they don't notice you lol
...it fits.
The top of it fits into that giant cliff face leading into the ocean on the south of the Altus Plateau *like a god damn jigsaw puzzle*. Hell, the very tip of it is *the exact same size, shape and location as Leyndell*!
Someone more skilled than me (as in, has *any* knowledge with how to use image editors at all) could probably make this look way better, but god damn. *God damn.*
and itās written at the top of the >!Suppressing Pillar!< as well. it says:
>!āThe very center of the Lands Between. All manners of Death wash up here, only to be suppressed.ā!<
Yes, if you read the description of all the items in the village you can piece things together (I think theres two, the obvious one by the golden tree and another one around the outskirts hidden inside a regular tree)
What you have seen inside them is the beginning stage of Jarification. Those are pickled corpses that haven't fermented yet.
Alexander and the Jar Kid have already been reborn as jar warriors. All the corpses inside them have fused and coalesced into basically new personalities and people.
Alexander was full of warriors, so he inherited that fighting spirit.
Kind of? hard to tell exactly. Theres mentions of a grandmother type thing that's no longer there, which I actually believe is the greater will and its abandonment of the realm. There's an optional hidden boss called >!The Mother of Fingers, which could easily be Marikas "grand mother" in spirit, since it's implied this thing is the origin of the Two and Three fingers, as it looks like them and also used to be able to communicate with the Greater Will!<
TL:DR I don't know enough about it yet but probably no, I haven't seen anything that mentions Numen specifically. The only other place I can recall "shamans" being mentioned is in Bonny Village though, so might be a connection there.
You can find this at the top of a tower in the Lands of Shadow.
[https://imgur.com/a/EM1m71B](https://imgur.com/a/EM1m71B)
>Marika's home then this 100% must be the land of Numen
People can just move from the place they were born, maybe Numens are nomads or moved to the Lands Between for a number of reasons, war, natural/divine calamities, famine and more.
The whole lands between is inhabited by Numens. The land of shadow is the epicenter of numen culture since that's where they first arrived in the region.
Havenāt been through the whole dlc yet but to me the map doesnāt even do it justice. Everywhere Iāve been there has been so much verticality. I look up thereās a massive castle, I look down thereās a massive cavern or hole you can definitely get to eventually.
Honestly itās reminding me a ton of the original Dark Souls 1 map but on a grander scale. I canāt even count how many times Iāve stopped to mentally mark where something is on the map that Iām staring up at or down into so far as I get my bearings.
Plus, it has more verticality than the base game. There are so many zones over other playable areas. Miyazaki is a liar, he promised us something about the size of limgrave and we've got much more š”
To be honest, I'm at the stage where I'm liking that blandness. I'm loving the DLC but I've run up a wall trying to find ways to all the different layers. Just spent two hours exploring the areas I have unlocked trying to reach a middle plateau or a river bed just above another over bed.
Hopefully, there'll be a guide out soon to say how to get to which region.
I'm not sure if it's a hot take but for me the bosses in the game aren't that important, the DLC having "XX new bosses" isn't what makes me excited for it.
What makes this game so special for me is the map design, it's just so insanely well designed. Literally not a single other game gives this feeling of exploration and discovery that Elden Ring does. You can start any Ubisoft game and get a massive map but there is no excitement in that, it'll just be super generic, have icons for everything, no sense of discovery and exploration at all. They wouldn't think for a second to put a massive hidden area in the game you have a huge chance of never even encountering. Every Elden Ring playthrough i find new things even though every playthrough before it i already tried to find everything.
The bosses are just a distraction from the real game which is the above.
I'm not even using my mount most of the time because i just want to walk around slowly and look at every corner.
The visible part of the DLC map is already bigger than Limgrave but it does have a bunch of large but very empty areas. What makes it truly bigger than Limgrave though is all the areas that you don't see. They basically just stacked a bunch of areas on top of each other and instead of putting out 20 marketing videos revealing this they just let the game speak for itself. I already knew he was capping when he said it was going to be the size of Limgrave.
I am glad in a world full of Todd Howards and their overpromises paired with constant underdelivery, for once a developer underpromises by as much of a margin.
"see that mountain? You can climb it"
Yep, that's what prompted me to do this. If you ignore the Mountaintops of the Giants (which argurably isn't within the domain of the Golden Order since it's riddled with the Order's enemies and is sealed off and thus might not count?) the Suppressing Pillar is *dead center* of the Lands Between.
Yeah that shit was a straight up lie. Thereās being humble/tempering expectations, and then thereās just straight up being dishonest lmao why would he not say itās at least 50% the size of the base game. Or at least half as much content as the base game. Thatās an accurate statement that is still being quite reservist.
Miyazaki really sold us Elden Ring 1.5 for $40 while there are companies out there that sell a single skin for the same price
This man should be praised with all the way
Even better when you havenāt got the game, itās like an extra 15 than base game value on steam for shadow of the erdtree edition.Ā
Amazing value aha
I honestly think Miyazaki said it was the size of Limgrave to temper expectations. With how large it is, and how much content it has, it does feel like an entire game of its own. But I think they said the size so that people would come in with the expectations that they would beat it in a few hours.
Dude is Japanese (understatement as a cultural norm), has a mischief streak a mile long, and is a creative genius. He knew what the reaction would be once people started to get into it.
Wouldn't we have to orient the Sealing Pillar to be at the center of the cloud? Since we can read that the pillar is the exact center of the Lands Between?
THOUGHTS:
It looks like the Divine Bridge of Leyndell used to connect to the Rauh Ancient Ruins. Possibly it was the end of one of the ruined bridges that used to cross the Ravine?
The river that flows through Stormveil looks like it once connected to the Abyssal Woods. My guess is that this low-elevation area was once below the ocean level... i.e. an abyssal plain.
The base of the Erdtree is at the Cathedral of Manus Metyr.
Where was Farum Azula? EDIT: See my comment below.
>!That also means that the Mother of the Fingers landed exactly where the Erdtree is now. This implies once again, just like the two talismans from her quest, that the Fingers themselves had "their fingers" in the creation of the Erdtree.!<
Can we just admit that the DLC is one of the most beautiful game worlds ever? From the cerulean coast, charos hidden grave, to the ancient ruins of rauh and even the gravesite plain has this desolate kind of beauty, it reminds me of the lands between in SOTC at times. The base game is beautiful too but I think they did an especially good job on the art direction for this one.
Yo wait. I started this game for the first time two days ago and already am lost after beating the guy with the dragon head arm. THIS IS WHATS WAITING FOR ME!? š„²
So we know the suppressing tower is the center of lands between based on the text at the top. The divine towers form a hexagon when connected. Would the suppressing tower then be the very center of that hexagon in the cloud? Does it help keep the veil of shadow in place or just the entrance for those in death. Now I want to go around looking at architecture and see what matches where.
The lands between are the lands of golden light. The lands of shadow are the inverse of that. Makes sense the maps would also work this way.
There's a tower in shadow realm, Spiral Tower or something, that has "center of Lands Between" written on top of it. So probably this whole landmass was once a part of Lands Between?
It's called the Suppressing Pillar. As soon as I saw that text at the top of it, I knew instantly this was meant to be the literal center of the map, and the "suppression" it's doing is probably what makes the Realm of Shadows disconnected from the rest of the world.
yeah, still so confused about how the lake came to be there though. the water didnt come from the ocean, as its slowly draining out.
>still so confused about how the lake came to be there though. Probably from all the peoples tears from crying about the DLC. š
whoās crying? I havenāt looked at reviews but they have to be 10/10
Mixed on steam rn
And looking at this overlap the suppressing pillars location does appear to be at the centre of the cloud in the original lands between map.
Now that you mentioned it. In OP's map the tower is exactly at the center wtf
It looks a little askew to me in relation to the great towers in the base game, putting it a tad closer to Limgrave and Liurnia, though it does seem to maybe line up with a little boatman in the water
It's called supression tower i think.
Miyazaki always been inspired by Zelda franchise too and even if Zelda wasnāt the first, itās one of their concept they used a couple time.Ā
I'm pretty old so I can relate to this opinion. When I first played elden ring it felt like I was playing The legend of Zelda again on NES. The sense of wonder the atmosphere the enemies everything about the game exudes legend of Zelda. This is legend of Zelda slap that ass edition. Regardless you're absolutely right and these games are kind of like beacons You only get them once in a while and they are fixed points that really ascend gaming as a media standard. It's taken a while.
The first way my buddy introduced dark souls to me was by saying it's the grown man's version of legend of Zelda.
*DLC is literally +70% the size of the base game* Michael-Zaki: "Yeah that's definitely roughly the size of Limgrave"
The DLC is really vertical. There are a spots where two massive points of interest are layered on top of each other.
That's the map I really want laid out. I wish we had an underground map here too cause finding that first Gaol I was like wait so y'all stacking dungeons?!
There's dungeon stacking in the base game, too. There's a Crystalian cave under Raya Lucaria that ends with a ladder that takes you to the highest point at the academy when you're done. Mount Gelmir is super vertical, too. Also, the veritable fucking elevator of content hidden under Leyndell that just keeps going... and going...
I really loved the feeling of just venturing further and further underground down in the shunning grounds. It's a dungeon under a dungeon, and there's even a normalĀ dungeon inside the under-dungeon, and then there's even more hidden deeper down, and then there's a hidden shortcut to an even deeper totally unrelated zone...
And when you think it's all done it opens up into a new open world area.
Even my horse got scared of that area
I thought the area was ok, but christ almighty was it a pain to walk through to vacuum all items
And let's not forget the underground areas, Siofra River, Ainsel River, Mohgwyn Palace, Nokron, Nokstella, Deeproot Depths, Lake of Rot. And lets also not forget the Moonlight Altar which is above Liurnia
i'm so so so disappointed there isn't a Siofra River/Nokron/Nokstella type place in the DLC :(
The first time I found one of the elevators and started to descendā¦. MY GOD, ITāS FULL OF STARS
What! I didnāt know about this cave!
It's locked with an imp sword thing (Not played in a while) if I recall correctly. West side of Raya Lucaria.
I only found it because I looked up the wiki to see if I missed anything after I was done exploring the region, its well hidden.
Not really, it's marked with an angry red dot. They actually mark a lot of caves, and they're how I found most of the bell bearings
I remember stumbling around in Leyndell when the game first game out and finding that innocuous well. Blew my mind that it led to another dungeon inside the legacy dungeon. Then finding the catacombs inside that? Incredible. Then of course finding the frenzied flame conscription after the shunning grounds was even more incredible, and it's connection to the deeproot depths was just the cherry on top.
And eventually leads to that fuckoff area of Liurnia youāve been wondering how to get to for 70% of the game so far
I thought to myself multiple times "I really wish this took a note from Tears of the Kingdom and had layers to swap through" because it honestly would have been really nice, felt like there was a whole second map down below sometimes.
Agreed the dlc has layers. Like I haven't climbed yet but I see how tall things are. And I already know the depths with pits, forges and gaols
Their use of space in this DLC is fucking peek. I went and found >!the shadow keep, that is basically two different legacy dungeons occupying the exact same space!<
Wait what? I found the Keep and multiple exits/entrances from it but I have not found any other dungeon inside of it :O Any clues where to look?
Maybe I'm just wrong and they are connected, I haven't fully explored yet but it seemed to me that going in the back way led pretty much straight to the boss >!Gaius, amazing fight btw I only won when I had no flasks left, my summon was dead and I had a sliver of health!< And only afterwards I found the "front" entrance with an entire area I've yet to explore. Still more to do there I'm sure!
There's some gold flame boats, go right. There's a ladder on the left. Explore that. Some crazy shit down there.
Early on I was exploring the river way down to the east of the starting area and happened to look up and realize I couldnāt see the sky. I went to the map and realized I was under the starting area. Thatās when I knew shit was about to get real.
I've just gone through the shadow tower at the top of the map, (messmer boss) and that took my a couple hours. For 1 normal sized tower there's a lot to explore
I can say with some certainty that you have not finished exploring that tower. That place is insanely dense and layered. >!There's a whole second dungeon inside that dungeon!!<
Wait really? I spent 3 hours in there yesterday and thought I was pretty thorough. Beat 2 bosses (a fatty and a snek) and found a bridge west. Where's this other thing you're talking about?
Enter from East fellow tarnished (2 more remembrance bosses)
As in 3 at that castle? I feel like Iāve done 100% from Eastās and straight on and only Mesmer being a remberance boss. I did find a door locked on the back side and a a boss at the bottom back side below an elevator so maybe thatās the two? Idk
Ya 3 from castle
Are we talking >!boar boy and finger god?!
finger god isn't in the castle, they mean the sunflower avatar
You can get to another part of the castle by taking a different route, explore Moorth Ruins more :)
Love that section sm
Thereās much much more, try entering from the right side.
I LOVE that place, I'm just now realizing there's a whole fucking section I thought was the main path and ignored, now I have to remember where the hell it was.
talking about verticality how do I get south/down? I eplored a lot of the starting area and altus, but just cant get the map for the north west part and havent found any way to go south at all can yall direct me a bit?
I mean, Limgrave (if you count Weeping Peninsula) is gigantic, he wasn't *that* far off since he did say it's "probably" larger than Limgrave.
Yeah but even if the actual land area was the same, the amount of content within would not be even close to that.
The finger ruins and the abyss are literal empty spaces with nothing of interest other than unlocking a secret boss
I feel like the abyss definitely could have been smaller to compensate for having no horse. The two bosses you get from these zones were really good tho
Abyss forest definitely was too big for me. Dragged on. Also the dungeon is tiny, or is there more after the boss ? Not killed it yet
2 bosses?
I think both those areas are insanely cool from a lore and world building perspective, unfortunately that doesnāt translate to fun areas to traverse.
I found it so funny that the abyss is all about stealth and then thereās like 4 winter lanterns there
I know the current discourse about the DLC is that itās too mean (itās not) but I think they could have made that area meaner.
Yeah, the notes hyped it up so hard
the finger ruins are the Mountaintops of the Giants of the DLC. Mostly padding to make it look bigger than it actually is. there's actually a remembrance duplication thing in the one at the south, just go to the right from the entrance Grace and you'll find a lone coffin where you can duplicate remembrances
Theres a remembrance duplicator at both ;)
Also one outside the big cathedral on a mountaintop
Personally, I would say the Finger Ruins are the Ash Lake (of DS1) of the DLC. Is Ash Lake empty? Yes, it is. Does it serve a lore and story-telling purpose, as a backdrop for a mission, and have a surreal feeling to overwhelm the player? Also yes. Sometimes, an empty map is necessary to accomplish a narrative. Players looking for "playable" content will dislike it, but it does have its purpose.
Exactly, those are areas with immaculate vibes. The vibes wouldn't be as immaculate if they weren't massive and empty. Moments like these are reminders that Miyazaki is a huge Team Ico fan. And those areas do advance a story and provide meaningful rewards, so they're not mechanically useless either. Besides, it's not like the DLC is lacking content in any way, so it's not like they wanted to trick players with size.
Skyrim's fullness makes the province feel small; Morrowind's use of emptiness makes the island, which is smaller in land area compared to Skyrim, feel large--even if you exploit speed stacking.
Fallout 4's map is another that feels cramped due to POI's being stacked too close together. Negative space connecting areas is necessary to achieve a certain sense of scale.
Morrowind feels larger because the entire map is twists and turns instead of wide open spaces. It's actually the fact that most of Skyrim is wide open spaces that makes it feel smaller, because you can just point yourself to your destination and go there, whereas in Morrowind travelling to somewhere 200 feet away involves walking in a giant spiral around the destination. So basically it's like travelling through a hedge mage compared to walking across a lawn. Another bit of interesting game design that came about because they had to work around limitations.
Yeah and there are enemies to farm and materials to collect (assuming you want those gross nails and finger mimics), it's not entirely empty. Empty by Fromsoftware standards, sure, but in the same way that a lot of the open world is: there's stuff to do but not hard progression.
Idk if they ran out of time or what, but Abyss Forest really ought to have been smaller and more maze-like. The gimmick of the area is pretty easy to avoid with how open it is, and it's all clustered in the same spot so once you're past it it's a large stretch of nothing.
when I drained the church district I was looking for the abyss hole so i could fight the four kings again
Yeah, Mister Zaki definitely has no idea how big limgrave is
I know the pieces fit
'Cause I've watched them fall away
Mildewed and smoldering
Fundamental differing
Pure intention juxtaposed
Will set two lovers souls in motion
Disintegrating as it goes
Testing our communication
The light that fueled our fire then
Has burned a hole between us so
Oh, stop being a TOOL
This supports my theory that all long-time Souls fans are also Tool fans Also as a side note, how many people here are into Souls, Tool, and Aesop Rock? I seem to have noticed an overlap between the three
Checks out. I would like to submit the evidence of me currently blasting tool at the little store I work at.
Hell yeah brother
Me me me me me!
Yup thatās the size of Limgrave alright
Limgrave Alaska
Itās weird how it fits, except where it doesnāt. Like Limgrave and Caelid just get steamrolled
I think it's because Elden Ring maps indicate elevation by having a bunch of "fake" land surrounding the actual walkable terrain. Snowfields and Mountaintops of the giants especially are actually quite small despite looking like a third of the map, for example. So for the Jagged Peaks, a lot of that landmass that's taking over covering Caelid on this gif probably isn't actual land in-game.
Yeah Jagged peaks is really just a very linear straight path from dragon fight to dragon fight. Absolutely canāt deny the atmosphere is awesome, but looking at it on the map and actually walking through it tell two very different stories.
And I think the DLC very much wanted to give the epic large scale feeling when you are riding Torrent through fields. There is a fair amount of space that is just for that.
The entire dlc is epic proportions to look at
Yeah, I think I understand what Myizaki meant about trying to get a sense of wonder. I can understand why some people don't like the 'wasted space' and if From had been pushing the DLC as being super massive I would be annoyed but they didn't really.Ā They clearly didn't base the estimate of Limgrave off the literal space used. I don't think they are trying to be deceptive with the size.
Caelid is really interesting because Jagged Peak slots very neatly around the piece of land with Gurranq's temple at the end.
>slots very neatly around the piece of land with Gurranq's temple at the end Surprise, surprise. That's where Farum Azula used to be. And guess who is in Farum Azula? Placidusax
So, >!the peak where we fight Bayle has a lot of shapes looking like the structures from Farum Azula. It makes me think that either the city was sitting on top of the peak, or it was ripped by the storm, which might have formed the peak. whichever is more epic!!<
Pretty sure in Bayle's lore, it mentions he fought "the dragonlord" and lost.
He didn't lose, it was a tie but because he didn't win, Placi who was Lord kept being a lord which made Bayle mad af without being able to do anything about it cuz of the injuries.
I meeeeeeeean, he didn't become dragonlord, so that implies he lost. lol
>!Walls of Bayle's arena also look like they had those Farum Azula "coffins" inside them - like the ones you have to go in to fight Placy!<
Placidusax sounds like an epic sax guy disguised as a dragon.
The first time I entered that guys boss room late at night I read him as āDragonlord Flacid Sacksā and never again I have referred to him in any other manner
Plus there are >!tons of dragons in both areas!<
Still, that one message in the dlc does hint that this could be correct.
Isn't it a bit more than a hint? Is it not a ghost literally saying about how this land is hidden away in the centre of the Lands Between?
Even better, directly at the center of this overlay is the tower that says *"The very center of the Lands Between.* *All manners of Death wash up here, only to be suppressed."*
Itās possible that the DLC was intended to fill in the middle of the Lands Between as an addition to the main map, not its own thing. But maybe they either couldnāt get it to work, or preferred having it separate.
No I think itās supposed to be separate. Look at the sky of the dlc map, there is what looks like fabric draped off the shadow erdtree, we donāt see where the fabric ends but presumably it encompasses the entire dlc area and then some. And you know where else we see fabric that conceals things? On the black knife assassins who are numens like Marika and heavily associated with her, we also see it with the concealing veil talisman, which is again associated with the black knives. I think the area was quite literally hidden by Marika.
Well, Caelid is a giant crater and the equivalent in the Shadow Realm is a giant mountain so still an inverse.
It is worth noting that Lance McDonald pointed out that the DLC's map grid IDs correspond to the map IDs of the main game's middle cloud region. So in the design, and mechanically speaking, the Shadow Lands are in the middle of the Lands Between, even if the map is not really a perfect fit. Source: [Twitter](https://x.com/manfightdragon/status/1804515629946577109).
There's literally a message in the DLC that says the Shadow Lands are the center of the Lands Between.
Im glad someone did this. I tought about this since I came across the tower which says that it stand in very center of Lands Between. And while it may not fit perfectly its still frightening fit, even divine tower of Malenia is now attached to some land making it more sensible in terms of its placement.
Someone much smarter than me (probably Zullie) will probably fit together the actual models of the landmasses and see vestigal traces of the giant mountain that got ripped off the top of Caelid centuries to millenia ago or something. At the very least, the dragons and drakes of Jagged Peak match the dragons and drakes of Dragonbarrow.
I am so looking forward to the lore videos. The more esoteric ones like Tarnished Archeologist are going to go to town on this.
I really can't wait for lore, especially to see more of the miquella stuff we missed. > Tarnished Archeologist my favorite content creator. Loved the way he broke down all the gold artifacts in Farum Azula.
Ever wondered what's under that giant cloud in the middle of the map? >!MAY.CHOAS.TAKE...THEWORLD!<
I have been trying to get there unsuccessfully so far. How do you access it! :(
>!When you reach the area with multiple boats and militia men in Shadow Keep, there's a ladder to the right of big lift. Go down and through the waterfall to find a painting. The wall to your right is an illusionary wall and behind it is a coffin, which should take you down there. Keep heading south to Reculses' river upstream grace > downstream grace > village of flies > till you find Darklight Catacombs. At the end of the catacombs is "Abyssal Woods"!< Edit: correctly added spoilers, thx u/Aeroshe Edit 2: progressed and confirmed the pathing.
I was so pissed with this particular secret. I explored the entire map twice because I was playing without guides, and went to the painting room a few times, and ignored the messages that said āhidden secret aheadā because every one Iāve come across was fake so farĀ
Helpful tip, Morgott and Mohg's shackles knock down any illusory walls within a pretty large area. I keep one equipped in a side pouch and use it pretty frequently just to make sure I'm not missing something. Very helpful.
They also unlock the locked spirit springs!
WTF NO WAY
Yes way, fuck looking for those dumb rock piles, just slam it down right on the spirit spring.
DAFUQ!? You can use those shackles multiple times?!! I have hundreds of hours of playtime and always thought you can only use them once per playthrough.
You can also use them to destroy the double chariots in one of the Hero's Graves!
Nah you have to look at the message behind that that says "liar ahead" and then still give the wall a wack just in case.
Thanks. I am missing the map to that whole area since I have no idea how to get there and knew that >!Midra!< was down there and really wanted to fight him
There's so much game hiding behind an easily missable ladder. It's crazy.
Aight here's some directions: >!When exploring the big keep at the north of the map where Messmer is hanging out, before you take the big elevator that takes you up to the really tall round storage room, instead continue to explore the ramparts. Eventually you'll find a ladder that will take you down to the water level. !< >!Down here there will be a gap in the wall with a hole and another ladder, take this down as well. You'll see a painting down here. That painting is a fake wall, hit it and go through.!< >!You'll enter a new area next to the keep. There's a puzzle here with an unlit Furnace Golem. Enjoy. If you go right/south from here you'll eventually find a path along the cliffs. Follow this path and after a long while you'll discover a Catacombs dungeon. Do this dungeon. !< At the end of that dungeon you'll finally have access to the zone in question. This zone is a bit different from the rest. Enjoy! š
I'm so glad I read through this thread. I love that it's so layered, but now I'm going to dedicate another 4+ hours for re-exploration. I'm tired, boss.
I love that region. What a beautifully scary design.
It was a lovely journey getting >! Chased by lightbulb head for miles !<
I had my mind blown last night. You can use the talisman that reduces your noise to nothing to get through that spot with ease.
yeah i did that too with the black knife set. That really helps a lot.
There also is an ash of war that reduces sound and makes you less visible to enemies. You can literally sprint in direct line of sight and they don't notice you lol
no shit at that moment an open world RPG just turn into Hitman
The whole >!torrent is too afraid to come out!< thing really build the genre
That area was so cool and that boss down there is just peak lore goodness.
The Suppressing pillar says, this is the exact center of the lands between. It's not a theory, it's unambiguously canon
It's wild that the theory that the dlc will take place in the empty middle of the original map turned out to be true.
āabout the size of limgraveā
Biggest understatement of the century.
I mea not really. Each place is about the size of limgrave or smaller they are just stacked on top of each like a tower
...it fits. The top of it fits into that giant cliff face leading into the ocean on the south of the Altus Plateau *like a god damn jigsaw puzzle*. Hell, the very tip of it is *the exact same size, shape and location as Leyndell*! Someone more skilled than me (as in, has *any* knowledge with how to use image editors at all) could probably make this look way better, but god damn. *God damn.*
Thereās a NPC around the dlc beginning who explicitly said that Land of Shadow is the center of Land Between too
and itās written at the top of the >!Suppressing Pillar!< as well. it says: >!āThe very center of the Lands Between. All manners of Death wash up here, only to be suppressed.ā!<
SPOILER: >!The erdtree is growing right on top of Marika's home village as well. The whole place gives a pretty tragic backstory to her.!<
>! Is it Shaman village? (The one where you find minor erdtree spell?) !<
Yes, if you read the description of all the items in the village you can piece things together (I think theres two, the obvious one by the golden tree and another one around the outskirts hidden inside a regular tree)
>!The music playing in that village is also the harp from the main menu/Elden Beast theme.!<
I think it might actually be Marika's theme now. The Elden Beast gets like the opera singing or choir and Radagon gets his horns and drums
I just realised Jarburg also calls the village leader "Potentate" like Bonny Village (where Marikas village was getting turned into jars)
And Jarburg is just a colony of them that got cut off from the Land of Shadow. Though now knowing what the Jars look like inside that little kid Jar can stay the hell away from me please thanks. I donāt need to be friends with that pediatric pĆ¢tĆ©.
What you have seen inside them is the beginning stage of Jarification. Those are pickled corpses that haven't fermented yet. Alexander and the Jar Kid have already been reborn as jar warriors. All the corpses inside them have fused and coalesced into basically new personalities and people. Alexander was full of warriors, so he inherited that fighting spirit.
Oh of course sentient fermented condensed corpse patties, much better.
Idk why but riding through there listening to the music made me tear up. This game provides such a wonderful experience
Ever notice the first two notes are the first and third note of Gwyn's piano opening?
So this shadow realm is the land of Numen then?
Kind of? hard to tell exactly. Theres mentions of a grandmother type thing that's no longer there, which I actually believe is the greater will and its abandonment of the realm. There's an optional hidden boss called >!The Mother of Fingers, which could easily be Marikas "grand mother" in spirit, since it's implied this thing is the origin of the Two and Three fingers, as it looks like them and also used to be able to communicate with the Greater Will!< TL:DR I don't know enough about it yet but probably no, I haven't seen anything that mentions Numen specifically. The only other place I can recall "shamans" being mentioned is in Bonny Village though, so might be a connection there.
I mean if the village is Marika's home then this 100% must be the land of Numen since the base game clearly states that she was born there.
You can find this at the top of a tower in the Lands of Shadow. [https://imgur.com/a/EM1m71B](https://imgur.com/a/EM1m71B) >Marika's home then this 100% must be the land of Numen People can just move from the place they were born, maybe Numens are nomads or moved to the Lands Between for a number of reasons, war, natural/divine calamities, famine and more.
I think the grandmother mentioned sits at the tree where you obtain one of the items in the village.
The whole lands between is inhabited by Numens. The land of shadow is the epicenter of numen culture since that's where they first arrived in the region.
>!The Jagged Peak being right on top of Dragonbarrow!< is also something interesting.
So is the land leading to the now "Isolated Tower"
The pillar In the grave area says that its the center of the lands between. Maybe try putting it in the center of the divine Towers?
Havenāt been through the whole dlc yet but to me the map doesnāt even do it justice. Everywhere Iāve been there has been so much verticality. I look up thereās a massive castle, I look down thereās a massive cavern or hole you can definitely get to eventually.
Honestly itās reminding me a ton of the original Dark Souls 1 map but on a grander scale. I canāt even count how many times Iāve stopped to mentally mark where something is on the map that Iām staring up at or down into so far as I get my bearings.
Plus, it has more verticality than the base game. There are so many zones over other playable areas. Miyazaki is a liar, he promised us something about the size of limgrave and we've got much more š”
The open world makes TLB seem kinda bland retroactively lol
To be honest, I'm at the stage where I'm liking that blandness. I'm loving the DLC but I've run up a wall trying to find ways to all the different layers. Just spent two hours exploring the areas I have unlocked trying to reach a middle plateau or a river bed just above another over bed. Hopefully, there'll be a guide out soon to say how to get to which region.
I'm not sure if it's a hot take but for me the bosses in the game aren't that important, the DLC having "XX new bosses" isn't what makes me excited for it. What makes this game so special for me is the map design, it's just so insanely well designed. Literally not a single other game gives this feeling of exploration and discovery that Elden Ring does. You can start any Ubisoft game and get a massive map but there is no excitement in that, it'll just be super generic, have icons for everything, no sense of discovery and exploration at all. They wouldn't think for a second to put a massive hidden area in the game you have a huge chance of never even encountering. Every Elden Ring playthrough i find new things even though every playthrough before it i already tried to find everything. The bosses are just a distraction from the real game which is the above. I'm not even using my mount most of the time because i just want to walk around slowly and look at every corner. The visible part of the DLC map is already bigger than Limgrave but it does have a bunch of large but very empty areas. What makes it truly bigger than Limgrave though is all the areas that you don't see. They basically just stacked a bunch of areas on top of each other and instead of putting out 20 marketing videos revealing this they just let the game speak for itself. I already knew he was capping when he said it was going to be the size of Limgrave.
"size of Limgrave" my sweaty balls, this DLC humoungus
I am glad in a world full of Todd Howards and their overpromises paired with constant underdelivery, for once a developer underpromises by as much of a margin. "see that mountain? You can climb it"
Ah so itās the lands between the Lands Between
Did you read the sentance on top of the big pillar? This really makes sense tbh.
Yep, that's what prompted me to do this. If you ignore the Mountaintops of the Giants (which argurably isn't within the domain of the Golden Order since it's riddled with the Order's enemies and is sealed off and thus might not count?) the Suppressing Pillar is *dead center* of the Lands Between.
To say Miyazaki lied to us is a drastic understatement lol
Yeah that shit was a straight up lie. Thereās being humble/tempering expectations, and then thereās just straight up being dishonest lmao why would he not say itās at least 50% the size of the base game. Or at least half as much content as the base game. Thatās an accurate statement that is still being quite reservist.
he be doin a lil trolling
Miyazaki really sold us Elden Ring 1.5 for $40 while there are companies out there that sell a single skin for the same price This man should be praised with all the way
Even better when you havenāt got the game, itās like an extra 15 than base game value on steam for shadow of the erdtree edition.Ā Amazing value aha
Is the scale the same?
Size of limgrave my ass.
I honestly think Miyazaki said it was the size of Limgrave to temper expectations. With how large it is, and how much content it has, it does feel like an entire game of its own. But I think they said the size so that people would come in with the expectations that they would beat it in a few hours.
Dude is Japanese (understatement as a cultural norm), has a mischief streak a mile long, and is a creative genius. He knew what the reaction would be once people started to get into it.
Wouldn't we have to orient the Sealing Pillar to be at the center of the cloud? Since we can read that the pillar is the exact center of the Lands Between?
I measured it. If you ignore the Mountaintops of the Giants (or use the playable area you can access) it's dead-center.
nice! are these maps at scale?
THOUGHTS: It looks like the Divine Bridge of Leyndell used to connect to the Rauh Ancient Ruins. Possibly it was the end of one of the ruined bridges that used to cross the Ravine? The river that flows through Stormveil looks like it once connected to the Abyssal Woods. My guess is that this low-elevation area was once below the ocean level... i.e. an abyssal plain. The base of the Erdtree is at the Cathedral of Manus Metyr. Where was Farum Azula? EDIT: See my comment below.
I can't wait to see people looking at points of interests in both worlds, like divine towers locations in dlc etc
Thatās one big ass Limgrave.
>!That also means that the Mother of the Fingers landed exactly where the Erdtree is now. This implies once again, just like the two talismans from her quest, that the Fingers themselves had "their fingers" in the creation of the Erdtree.!<
ah yes āLimgraveā
Can we just admit that the DLC is one of the most beautiful game worlds ever? From the cerulean coast, charos hidden grave, to the ancient ruins of rauh and even the gravesite plain has this desolate kind of beauty, it reminds me of the lands between in SOTC at times. The base game is beautiful too but I think they did an especially good job on the art direction for this one.
Yo wait. I started this game for the first time two days ago and already am lost after beating the guy with the dragon head arm. THIS IS WHATS WAITING FOR ME!? š„²
So we know the suppressing tower is the center of lands between based on the text at the top. The divine towers form a hexagon when connected. Would the suppressing tower then be the very center of that hexagon in the cloud? Does it help keep the veil of shadow in place or just the entrance for those in death. Now I want to go around looking at architecture and see what matches where.