Does this have a story line?

[53 & still gaming]

Newbie here, not bought the game yet. . .

I get it that this game is epic and superior in nearly every category.
BUT
does it also have a main story line that can be followed which ultimately leads to an ending ?

and no, I am not talking about the world setting. This is epic, too, I believe.
a STORY is something that progresses and leads to an end, a red thread to follow until an end.

and another question that is not answered by all the cinematic trailers:
how is the inventory handling and skills advancement ? as this is a RPG I expect this also to be excellent.

[Gabi]

Yes it does have a story. Inventory and rpg elements are handled similar to previous games from this developer. Weapons can be upgraded, spells can be learnt etc, the biggest factor is having your weapons/spells and talismans and even sometimes armour to work with each other for what you want.

Personally with the upcoming sales I would recommend starting with Dark Souls Remastered, or Dark Souls 3 if you want something more modern (personally I would argue Dark Souls 1 is there strongest game).

[Noquid]

The story line(s) will be frustrating. They're there...somewhere.

[Professor Hugedix]

No, there is no main quest that will guide you through the game. There is a goal you're given at the start and an ending once you achieve that, but pretty much everything in between that is up in the air. The story in FromSoft games is largely told by giving you a vague historical outline of how the world used to be, and then throwing you into it to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. Most things are left up to the player's imagination and speculation.

"Skill advancement" only applies to something like casters, who can use more powerful spells as they reach the stat thresholds to cast them. There's nothing like a talent tree or unlocking special abilities by leveling up, the RPG part of this is pretty much just increasing your stats to match the requirements of the weapons or spells you want to use. Your class is largely irrelevant, as anyone can do anything as long as they build for it.

You might find the inventory cumbersome if you play with KB+M because of the keybinds to change tabs, otherwise it is fine, as long as you periodically place unused items into storage to avoid clutter.

[zemzero]

It's like la croix. There is a hint of story, somewhere. It's like you can hear someone whispering a story in the next room over.

The game doesn't care if you understand the story or not, it's very vague and generalized and will require a lot of your own willpower to understand and connect the pieces.

[Friends with Benedicts]

The story is most your journey. There are bits of dialogue.

My main gripe is not being able to listen to the same dialogue agian, or at least read it. They are really interesting and have some great clues about lore and where to go next.

The game also relies heavily on explaining lore through items. It's not as huge wall text as tomb raider but it helps get into it.

Downside is that if you don't enjoy this form os story telling you'll probably get frustrated with it.

I love it, just wish I could listen to dialogues infinitely and wish there were more dialogues and quests.

[Johnaii_Steck]

It does indeed have a storyline, however it's progressed through the completion of smaller storylines that bring you overall closer to the main goal of becoming Elden Lord.
Your first task is to find a way into Stormveil and kill Godrick to obtain a Great Rune of a Demigod so the Two Fingers have an audience with you and you get accepted into the Roundtable Hold.
After that you're opened up to a myriad of characters that lead you on journeys all across the game, there are virtually no spots that don't have at least one quest tied to them (with a few exceptions).
The biggest advice I can give is *PAY ATTENTION TO CHARACTER DIALOGUE, IT'S THE NUMBER 1 METHOD OF STORYTELLING IN ELDEN RING*
If you can't be bothered however, I advise you watch some lore videos.

[AnimeCatGirl]

Originally posted by Noquid:

The story line(s) will be frustrating. They're there...somewhere.

Don't be fooled, there's no story. You go around literally killing everything on the map and then when that's done you do it again but harder.

[53 & still gaming]

I see... so it is more a Sandbox game than a classical RPG.

[BEOWULF]

No.
https://youtu.be/K_03kFqWfqs

[Ulmace]

Originally posted by 50 & still gaming:

I see... so it is more a Sandbox game than a classical RPG.

kinda, you run around a world killing everything, getting stronger, if you pay attention you can find parts of story you have to connect. story is told by few lines of dialogue from npcs you find, the world setting and design, descriptions in items you find. The main story line is basicly: get to the end, why exactly and how is up to you to figure out.

[TyresTyco]

It still has hours of interesting lore covered by some youtubers tho.

[Professor Hugedix]

Originally posted by 50 & still gaming:

I see... so it is more a Sandbox game than a classical RPG.

I would say it is more of a classical RPG than most RPGs, given its inspiration from DnD. In an open world sandbox game, you are typically given a checklist and can expect your map to have a shotgun full of quest markers blasted at it. This game is trying to immerse you and nurture a sense of discovery for the sake of discovery rather doing it because you were told to by a UI element.

[SadPlatty©]

Originally posted by Aleister C. Helsing:

Originally posted by Noquid:

The story line(s) will be frustrating. They're there...somewhere.

Don't be fooled, there's no story. You go around literally killing everything on the map and then when that's done you do it again but harder.

What a shallow take; I mean, you could describe a number of games like this.
Skyrim is the same, but instead of getting to do it again harder requires a fresh restart. Doom is just killing anything from the start until the end of a mission. Halo is just killing anything not in green that moves usually. Gears of War is just kill anyone who looks at you. Legend of Zelda is just find and finish dungeons usually, while killing anything not human (except soldiers/pirates).

OP - there is a story, but it is the back-seat style telling method where you will want to take mental notes, but will ultimately not need that detail to beat anything. The intro talks about NPCs you will meet along your journey (a couple of which that can change the ending cutscene), but none of it matters. You don't even need to beat a majority of the games content to finish it (no anime logic of needing to beat everything to be ready for the final boss - you can essentially skip half of the game and complete it). The story ends up being more what you choose to get out of what you are given via cut-scenes and dialogue.

[Azunai]

Originally posted by 50 & still gaming:

I see... so it is more a Sandbox game than a classical RPG.

no it's not a sandbox. more like a theme park designed by a madman. and full of murder hobos.

there's a lot of background lore to this world, but not much of a storyline. a bunch of weird NPCs talking about weird stuff and some of them also have quests. you probably won't be able to finish most of the NPC questlines without a guide. they don't really matter, though.

you can easily fight your way through the whole game without knowing what the hell is even going on around you and who all those people were you killed along the way.

basically like every other dark souls game lol.

[BEEP!]

Yea there's a story it's just not spoon fed to you every item has lore talk to all npc multiple time rest at grace reset area then talk to them again it will take putting pieces together to get a clear idea on what's really going on but think about it your a character entering a unknown land so it makes sense.
Also check a youtuber named Vaatividya he's the go to lore guy awesome youtuber