Elden Ring

About

Elden Ring is a 2022 Celtic-themed video game developed by FromSoftware, the studio behind the Dark Souls franchise, Bloodborne, and Sekiro and written by George R. R. Martin, author of the Game of Thrones novels. The game launched on February 25th, 2022, to multiple perfect score reviews and accolades, as well as sales records. Since its announcement and after release, Elden Ring has spawned numerous memes around the internet, including No Maidens, Let Me Solo Her, Touch Grace and many more.

History

On June 9th, 2019, FromSoftware announced a collaboration between director Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R.R. Martin called Elden Ring^[2] (shown below). The game will release on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Development began in 2017 after the release of the Dark Souls III DLC. Miyazaki has stated the game will be an extension of the Dark Souls gameplay, featuring an open world and larger scale than the Souls series.

On June 10th, 2021, two years since the game was announced, the first gameplay trailer of Elden Ring premiered at the Summer Game Fest Kickoff Live event. The trailer announced the game would be released on January 22nd, 2021.

On February 19th, 2022, in preparation for the actual launch date of February 25th, 2022, Bandai released a new overview trailer^[5] showing gameplay and lore on their YouTube channel, where it gained 1.8 million views in eight days (shown below).

Online Presence

The fervor for Elden Ring began quickly after it was announced. On Twitter, the game has over 65,000 followers.^[4] The subreddit for the game quickly gained over 24,000 subscribers.^[3] There, fans anticipating the game began creating memes and posts about the game as though it had already come out.^[1] For example, user Trifecta000 posted about the "Serpent's Fjord," creating a fake screenshot celebrating the area that doesn't exist, gaining over 1,200 points (shown below, left). User Yukon_Wolf posted a meme about the game's "saddest moments," gaining over 500 points (shown below, right).

YouTuber VaatiVidya held an art contest for fans to design bosses from the game (shown below).

No Maidens / Maidenless

No Maidens or Maidenless refers to a line repeated by multiple characters in the action-adventure game Elden Ring, developed by FromSoftware and released on February 25th, 2022, when the player character begins the game and lacks a "maiden" NPC that allows one to level up. The concept from the game became a catchphrase and is referenced online in memes and image macros. Coinciding roughly with the time that the Megamind meme No Bitches also trended, the two frequently crossed over in memes referencing both.

Try Finger But Hole

With the release of Elden Ring, more player messages began to pop up in a similar fashion to previous titles, with a return of "Try Finger But Hole" being one of the most prominent ones. In the tutorial area, when having to cross a bridge, players placed the evergreen message on the bridge just past the official developer ones, knowing that new rookies to the series will saunter up and get a glimpse of another player gesturing to the sky with one finger while loudly proclaiming what they should do (shown below).

Touch Grace

Within Elden Ring, instead of lighting a bonfire like in previous games, the player character instead is tasked with running around looking for graces, and touching them. The player having to run around outside and touch grace, which is told by some NPCs in the game, effectively turned Touch Grace into a Touch Grass replacement, which was then combined with the previously No Maidens / Maidenless meme, calling the player an incel who has no bitches and needs to touch grass.

Fia Hug

In the Roundtable Hold, which is a main hub for the Tarnished, similar to Firelink Shrine, there is a woman in the back area that offers to hold the player as often as they want, a stark contrast to the rest of the NPCs who call you maidenless and want you to touch grace. This character has become popular with players, as they were happy to receive this type of affection. That was, until it was discovered via game mechanics that receiving hugs from Fia resulted in a health and possible Rune acquisition debuff, meaning that incels spamming hug were actually debuffing themselves constantly.

Search Interest

External References