Maybe it's because you're a lazy, whiny faggot, George.
(media.kotakuinaction2.win)
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I've never read his stuff. And I certainly don't credit him with the success of Elden Ring.
Never forget the part he played in the Hugos that one year. That one event alone tarnished what people considered a respectable award.
He didn’t have much to do with Elden Ring succeeding but the lore and all that was pretty good, albeit largely untold.
I think that's probably the biggest point against him. That a bunch of game devs were churning out quality stories that his contribution barely felt different than their normal output.
Because not a damn thing about the lore felt any different than normal despite his involvement.
Martin is greatly overrated as a writer, and his takes & themes aren't nearly as profound as he imagines them to be. It's also not the '90s anymore and a grimdark, nihilistic spin on medieval European-esque fantasies isn't particularly new or thrilling anymore. Because that's what Westeros is first & foremost, for all of Martin's boasting and that of his fans, the setting actually bears little resemblance to real-life medieval European society - or any other society period, he's been catching flak from not only right-wing medieval fans but also leftist wokies for how disconnected his depictions of the Dothraki & Ghiscari are from RL Mongols/ancient Carthaginians and instead being much more in-line with negative Victorian-era stereotypes of them. (The fantasy aspects also aren't very creative or even sensible, ex. the years or decades-long seasons, for that matter)
Anyway, if anything the opposite - an unironically noblebright, optimistic medieval fantasy - would be a fresher take these days. And the 'American Tolkien' he ain't, even if he did ever publish the next books in the series. FromSoft does 'dark edgy magical medieval fantasy' better than he does, funny enough.
Fromsoft paid GRRM for a short story about the world of Elden Ring before the Shattering, so the background lore of characters like Malenia, Radahn, Ranni, and I believe the golden order and outer will shit is his doing. Fromsoft took what GRRM gave them and built the modern timeline when the game actually takes place according to their own design.
He wrote the dialogue for Big Boggart.
To me it feels like he probably had more to do with the different motivations between the characters and the nature of what the Elden Ring was and how that was related to the key figures of the story, without spoiling anything. And I guess the fact that some characters are kind of incest babies or bastards as I recall.
I do think he was mostly intended as a name drop, and that if you just told someone to make some of the dynamics of the different warring families something like he would write they could pull it off, but if you get deeper into the lore on that it was feel someone like Martin had a hand. Would still be among the greatest games of all time if you’re into Souls games if he hadn’t though.
Until someone says something it’s kind of hard to say what he really did. He himself did say he didn’t do much, just some general direction on key themes and presumably the Game of Thronesy parts like the warring of the different shard barer siblings and such.
It feels like Martin's name was just stamped onto Elden Ring to attract the normies. "Buy our game featuring that guy whose books you've never read that were adapted into that show you used to like!" FromSoft is plenty good at crafting its own lore and doing its own worldbuilding. It's never needed his help and from what I've seen (don't have it yet), ER's story isn't all that different from their usual fare.
For what it's worth, his involvement impacted the game to me:
It made me pledge to not buy it until it is 75% off.
I feel like pandering to normies and rainbow rejects will backfire on FromSoft since neither of those groups would enjoy Souls gameplay.
They definitely did name drop him but I do believe the lore in ER is the best it’s ever been in a Souls game, not counting Bloodborne, mostly because I never played it. I would, I just don’t have a PS5 and would rather play the best version and I’m not jumping through hoops to buy a game console I don’t have much time to play anyway.
Are there people who do credit him?
Probably Kotaku