About that Pesky Spoiler Wall on Bonfireside Chat

Hey folk, Gary here

A few people in comments have expressed distress at my talking about the spoiler wall coming down on our Elden Ring coverage, so I wanted to talk about that a bit. We'll discuss further on the show when the time comes, but I wanted to say something now to address concerns.

Most of the people who have commented are against bringing down the wall. I first want to say that I hear you! I know that's shitty public figure cliche speak, but we are legitimately taking that into account.

I do want to express our end of it as well, however, so you know where we're coming from. And I'll use an example from an episode we recorded today: White Faced Varre.

I really like White Faced Varre. But like so many characters in Elden Ring, he's predicated on deception. Elden Ring is _obsessed_ with secrets, lies, and false identities. Almost no one is who they say they are. In Sunday's episode, we talk about Varre revealing that he's an agent of Mohg but stop short of explaining who Mohg is because of the spoiler wall.

(NOTE: STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT MOHG. I'm going to be vague, but it's important)

Knowing who Varre is requires knowing about Mohg. Mohg's steaze tells you the most important things about Varre's personality. If this pasty dingdong has dedicated his service to someone, it tells us a lot about him exactly who earned his fealty.

It is difficult to talk about Varre without talking about Mohg. That doesn't mean going into his boss fight or his relationship with Miquella. But we really do think it's important to acknowledge the way the game works on a second playthrough. I don't really think that when you get to Mohg, 100 hours after talking to Varre, you're supposed to think back to meeting him outside that church. You get an invasion, but there's so much time between these meetings, I think  you're really meant to realize these things on the 2nd play through. In other words, I'm not certain you're meant to really know Varre based on your first run through the game. And knowing the characters, locations, factions and forces of Elden Ring is what we aim to do.

So I hope that makes sense? The wall isn't coming down yet but we're probably just 4-6 weeks away from it coming down. I hope you understand!

Thank you so much for your support

Gary

PS: I wrote this at the end of a 2 day shitty day streak, so please forgive any typos.

KOLE’S ADDENDUM:

We also want to create a show that’s the best value for the most people. Being coy makes sense early on because those opening hours are extremely valuable. However, I think both Gary and I feel like being a straight pipe for the exact linear experience of playing the game isn’t a great use of anyone’s time… you can play the game (or watch an LP) and get that. Our format, and our skills, are better-used putting the elements of the game (both world and play) into context. And it’s difficult to do that in a half-in half-out kind of way.

I totally understand folks who play an area, then listen to an episode, then play the next area. That’s been a common way to listen to our show since the beginning. Elden Ring’s structure feels different enough that we should adapt, for all of the reasons we explained above.

Given that every season has had a spoiler wall that’s come down at some point, and no time will make everyone happy, understand that our hope is that pre-spoiler episodes will give you the resources you need to read the whole game for yourself, come to your own conclusions, and test them against our conclusions. That’s true whether or not the wall comes down in 3, 5, 10, or 15 episodes.