Elden Ring is a massive yet complex game to understand. Like other Fromsoftware games, there is a profound story behind the scenes; you have to dive deeper into the lore to understand it. This story can be understood by reading many items' descriptions and interacting with every NPC you can. By reading between the lines of the game, players can discover just how interesting the Land Between can be and just how impactful your decisions in the game are.
*** This Article Contains Spoilers For Elden Ring ***
The world of Elden Ring is at a standstill when your journey begins. The Elden Ring has been broken into fragments, and without the Rune of Death, people in the Lands between are immortal. The demigods have gathered pieces of the Elden Ring and, after years of war, have given up on fighting. Instead, they huddle in their corner of the Lands Between and protect the piece they have already obtained. The land has been destroyed because of the war, and with no one making any moves, the Erdtree has called the tarnished back to the land to cause a change.
Elden Ring has a total of 6 known endings. Four of these endings revolve around you becoming the Elden Lord, and the other two have much more significant impacts on the world. Some of the more complex endings to the game heavily rely on you to dive in and understand the lore and follow specific side quests.
Age Of Fracture
This is the most straightforward ending to Elden Ring and requires nothing more than beating the game. You form the Elden Ring back together and begin the Age of Fracture as the new Elden Lord. Like the previous Dark Souls games, this ending is insignificant, as your ascension to the Lord does nothing to help the underlying issues of the world. The Elden Ring has been reformed, but its effects on the land will only cause another war and another breaking of the ring one day. For now, the demigods have been stopped, and the war is finally over, but it can only be speculated for how long the peace will last.
Age Of Order
We get this ending by following the Golden Order and using the Mending Rune of Perfect Order when bringing the Elden Ring back together. In this ending, you ascend to Elden Lord, this time adding to the Elden Ring. In this age, the gods are to be seen as just as fickle as the people of the Lands Between. Taking the gods off the pedestal will keep the lands at peace for much longer.
Before, actions or words were branded as heresy based on whichever god was in power. This would lead to conflict between the followers of different gods and cause permanent division within the Lands Between. Without the gods being seen as perfect, the conflict caused by their worship would disappear, and the Elden Ring will hopefully stay intact and not be broken through war again.
Age Of The Duskborn
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This ending happens when the player uses the Mending Rune Of The Death-Prince when reforming the Elden Ring. With this ending, you sit as Elden Lord while the Lands Between is covered in a dense fog. This fog represents death, as it is finally being brought back into the Lands Between.
Death has now been brought back to this world, and the natural cycle of life and death will start again. As many saw their immortal lives as meaningless, death will now give them and their future generations some meaning. While this ending seems dark, the reintroduction of death will help reinvigorate the people in the land and cause civilization to start again, bringing the war to an end.
Blessing Of Despair
Another ending with the tarnished becoming Elden Lord, except this time with a curse. After completing the Dung Eater's side quests, you obtain the Mending Rune of The Fell Omen. If you mend this rune with the Elden Ring, you dispel a curse upon all people and future generations across the Lands Between.
This curse keeps a soul from returning to the Erdtree upon death, and those who bear the curse are looked down upon by society. By cursing all people and future generations, you effectively cut out the Erdtree from the cycle of the world. By having all people bear the curse, you also end the stigmatism towards those who are already cursed. This ending is the most different Elden Lord ending as you change the world permanently by cursing all and cutting off all future souls from the Erdtree.
Lord Of The Frenzied Flame
This ending is the closest in the game to a straight-up bad ending. By becoming the Lord of the Frenzied Flame, your character will burn the entire world to ashes. While this ending does seem evil at face value and is only barely justified, there is still some reasoning behind it. At the creation of the current world, the Greater Will and Chaos split, shown by the two fingers and three fingers, respectively. The goal of Chaos is to burn the world and return everything together as ash. When looking at the two fingers and three fingers combined, they would make a complete hand, meaning the Greater Will and Chaos could come together.
The Greater Will has been shown to lead the world to devastation, as its guidance resulted in the current Lands Between. The Frenzied Flame wishes to burn the broken world to bring the universe together and make it whole again. While mass destruction seems terrible, this land is an unending curse, and the cycle of pain has only continued up until now. The Three Fingers and Chaos see this destruction as the means to the final end of all the fighting and suffering.
Age Of The Stars
The world of Elden Ring is full of people and creatures whose destiny is out of their hands. The world has become a playground for the gods and higher powers, creating miserable lives for the people in the Lands Between. With each other ending, your character steps in to help make decisions for the people to try and save them, but even those endings have a new higher power controlling the world. In the Age of The Stars ending, players help Ranni break the structure of the world and ascend to godhood with you at her side.
Ranni usurps the current higher powers of the land and plans to leave the Lands Between to those who inhabit it. Being guided by the moon and the stars, people have true free will for the first time in their lives. No clarity is given as to what the people will do with their newfound free will, but whatever it is, at least they are making those decisions for themselves. The world is finally broken out of the stalemate and the cycle of pain, and people's destinies are fully their own.
There is no true good or bad ending to Elden Ring. Much like the story, it is up to the player to decide how they want to interpret it. For those diving into the lore of Elden Ring, the more complex endings can make an already great game even better.