Forget The Lands Between, We Need a Game Set in the Other Landmasses of Elden Ring

Anyone who has ever played or observed the 2022 Dark fantasy action RPG Elden Ring knows of The Lands Between: a continent-sized landmass in ruin after The Shattering, a civil war between the demigods over possession of the shards of the Elden Ring. Despite taking place in The Lands Between, several item descriptions talk about land masses beyond The Lands Between. Thanks to these, we know about the following Landmasses: Eochaid, The Badlands, The Land of Reeds, and Ravenmount. However, I do not simply wish to talk about the excellent world building by FromSoftware (the developers of Elden Ring). Instead, I want to discuss the potential for video games set in these land masses.

Not much is known about Ravenmount. It is only mentioned in item descriptions of the chestpiece and headpiece of the Raptors set​—items you can only obtain from a hidden area within Sage cave, a mid-game dungeon that you can easily miss during your first few playthroughs (I know I did.). The only thing we know about Ravenmount is that it is home to the Ravenmount Assassins. Dressed in black feathers and a skeletal mask, they use Raptor Talon hand claws to kill their prey from above. Because of this, there is potential for a stealth-based action game set in Ravenmount where you play as a Ravenmount assassin, not too unlike the 2019 stealth action game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, also developed by Fromsoftware.

Unlike Ravenmount, we know quite a bit about the Badlands. Queen Marika  banished her husband and first Elden Lord, Godfrey, and his followers (also known as the first tarnished) as they had fulfilled their purpose. Godfrey and the other tarnished left The Lands Between in an exodus and made a new home in The Badlands, where they would fight and kill each other until Marika needed them to return. The Badlands is also mentioned in the champion’s set: a starting armor set for players that choose the hero class. Considering The Badlands was where the tarnished lived and died before the events of the game, we could have a prequel to Elden Ring starring Nepheli Loux, an NPC who grew up in The Badlands, and the story could be about how she met her adoptive father, Sir Gideon Ofnir, another NPC.

The Land of Reeds is less important to the story than the Badlands but we do know more about The Land of Reeds than we know about Ravenmount. The Land of Reeds is a faraway nation stuck in a brutal civil war. Considering the medieval setting of Elden Ring and that the Land of Reeds set of armor is the starting armor for players that choose the Samurai class, it is not too outlandish to say that the Land of Reeds is supposed to be set in Japan during the Sengoku era— a period when Japan was going through a civil war. It could be a reference to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, which is set in the same time period. More evidence that the Land of Reeds is a Sekiro reference is that the Elden Ring weapon Rivers of Blood bares a striking resemblance to the Mortal Blade, a supernatural Katana that the player in Sekiro uses to sever the immortality of immortal enemies. The Land of Reeds (assuming it's more than just a reference for Sekiro fans) could be an interesting setting for a hypothetical sequel to Sekiro, as Fromsoftware sequels don't usually take place in the land world but rather a world that is similar to the first game. Dark Souls 2 took place in Drangleic, a different but similar setting to Dark Souls’s Lordran, so it would make sense for a Sekiro sequel to take place in the Land of Reeds. Also, it would be a way to tie in Sekiro to the rest of Fromesoftware’s dark Fantasy games, as the weapon that ties all souls games (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1, 2, and 3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring) together, the Moonlight greatsword, is absent in Sekiro

Eochaid is the last Landmass mentioned in Elden Ring that I will discuss. It is the home of Elmer of the Briar, an infamously hated optional boss. The name Eochaid in itself, is a reference to the Legendary medieval Irish king Eochaid Mugmedón. Another connection to Irish mythology and Eochaid that the arena for Elmer of the Briar displays a large portrait of Malenia, another optional boss in Elden Ring that is based off of Nuada Airgetlám, a figure from Celtic mythology. Therefore it is clear that Eochaid, in Elden Ring’s world, is supposed to be the mythological equivalent of Ireland. So a hypothetical game set in Eochaid would be heavily inspired by Irish mythology and definitely incorporate ideas from Celtic Paganism in the same way that Sekiro incorporated Buddhism into its gam