FromSoftware just announced a major expansion for most people’s game of the year 2022, elden ring, is under development. It’s called shadow of the earth tree. But whatever. Do you see that person below in the new key graphic? If you’ve played, you probably have a good guess as to who it is: Miquella, the lone Empyrean of the vast family at the center of the chaos shattering the Elden Ring that we’ll never meet in the game.
Here is the officially Announcement that doesn’t mention the theme of the DLC at all. But if you’ve ever seen artwork depicting Miquella, you know that the person in the picture is a dead ringer for the young siblings.
Rise, tainted one, and let us walk a new path together. An upcoming expansion for #ELDENRING Shadow of the Erdtree is currently in development. We hope you look forward to new adventures in The Lands Between.
The official site of the game– where it was also announced – makes it clear that the expansion is coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
Who is Miquella and why are you probably in the Elder Ring DLC’s?
Miquella is all over the world of Elden Ring, but you never really see her in person. We know Miquella is Malenia’s twin cursed to be forever young. Poor Miquella loved his sister very much and wanted to heal her of the rot via the Haligtree, a place you will visit later Elder Ring. The Haligtree is basically meant to be a sanctuary for anyone who might be rejected by society, that is, anyone who has been spurned from the embrace of the Earth Tree, which you burn at the end of the game. Miquella grew the tree specifically as a rebuke against the Golden Order religion, which despite its influence across the country could not find a cure for the thing that was rotting his family.
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Perhaps the scariest thing to know about Miquella is that Malenia swears he’s the most “terrifying” demigod of them all. And after spending hours beating Malenia, what the heck is her even more powerful brother capable of?
Of course, the reason we never meet Miquella is because he is stolen by Mohg, another demigod. If you do this optional part of the game, you’ll find out that Miquella isn’t really dead. He actually just sleeps in a strange cocoon of flesh where Mohg hopes to rise to godhood through the blond empyryan he feeds his blood god.
Who is Saint Trina and what does she have to do with Miquella?
Well, here’s the thing Really Interesting. The whole sleeping thing has huge implications for the game’s larger lore, and indeed data-miners have uncovered a trove of cut content that strongly suggests Miquella may very well be Saint Trina, a deity who is strong associated with the act of sleeping. According to Sir Gideon, Miquella stays alive by constantly staying in a dormant state. And, by the way, all those super rare Trina Lily Flowers you collect throughout the game? They are basically a roadmap to Malenia. One popular theory is that Miquella somehow orchestrated your quest, even in her sleep. After all, we know that Miquella’s big thing is that they’re capable of making something all Love her. That’s (part of) why Mohg is basically going insane: Miquella’s immense influence, which Mohg is trying to get along with.
But back to Saint Trina. Part of the reason this Miquella theory exists beyond the sleep parallels is that the item descriptions really sound like they are describing Malenia’s brother. Here is part of what the text says for Saint Trina’s Sword:
Some say she is a pretty young girl, others are sure he is a boy. The only certainty is that her appearance was as sudden as her disappearance.
If you ever see pictures of Miquella, you know that the boy is quite androgynous. So it might seem like the person in the Elden Ring expansion announcement could very well be a woman. But if you look closely, the image is also full of what appear to be spooky versions of the Trina lily (!) surrounding the person riding the horse.
Oh, and the picture above needed to be cropped slightly; here is the full figure:
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2022 was the year of the Elden Ring
2022 was the year of the Elder Ringfrom Miyazakifrom Small. The highly anticipated FromSoftware title held the industry by the throat For months he dominated the conversation difficulty, damage scalingand player builds (including the ever-popular Nepo baby Elon Musk). It took above streamIt renamed every animal to “dog”, It created legends.
After over a decade of FromSoftware games holding court as the quintessential “Git Gud” franchise and locked in by us without a masochist bending the discourse, Elder RingThe open world of has opened the gates to a whole new player base. As such, it catapulted the work of Hidetaka Miyezaki to whole new heights: Elder Ring is by far the best-selling FromSoftware title, it snags GOTY awards like Rowa Fruitand it’s still sparking passionate conversations 10 months after its release.
By subtly detaching from the tried and true FromSoftware formula and giving us a game freed from a single, punishing, linear path, elden ring oroffered The Lands Between on a beautifully ornate (but slightly tarnished) silver platter. And we gobbled up that shit.