Elden Ring (2022) takes place in the Lands Between – a shattered, mythic world built by Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R. R. Martin. Its story unfolds through haunting ruins, cryptic dialogue and environmental detail, rewarding those who explore. Every cliff, dungeon and broken castle deepens the mystery of a fallen realm.
From Japanese studio FromSoftware, Elden Ring is an action-based RPG known for its haunting atmosphere, vast open world and challenging combat design. Unlike many other action RPGs, Elden Ring offers no way to track quests, and no clear story path. Combined with a rich and obscure lore, the sprawling Lands Between can be confusing and overwhelming.
This lack of guidance has inspired extraordinary creativity. Fans map the world, trade theories, and build elaborate systems to track their place within it. The illustration Canvas of Souls was commissioned as the cover for Soul Arts, a fan-made book collecting artworks based on FromSoftware’s games. Rendered in the studio’s signature high-gothic style, it shows a spiralling tower of figures reaching not for a sword or crown, but a canvas – expressing how players have transformed confusion into connection, and challenge into a shared creative act.
The Secret Seekers
Vaatividya is a YouTuber known for making artistic videos that explain hidden parts of FromSoftware’s games. Since the release of Elden Ring (2022), Vaatividya has founded an online community of “Secret Seekers”, who work to piece together the game’s rich mythology.
The interactive “lore map” featured in the exhibition is a collaborative effort that brings together every item and line of dialogue, helping players find connections between them.
Instead of focusing on the game’s narrative, these players simply explore its intricate environmental storytelling.
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