Starting with Demons’ Souls on the PS3, every FromSoftware Souls game has included at least two endings players can get. The developer has not only increased the number of endings a player could get in its games over time but has also obfuscated the way in which those endings are achieved. That fits right in with most of the design decisions of the Souls games, and with Elden Ring being the latest and greatest FromSoftware title with more content to find (and miss) than two or more of their previous games, multiple endings with cryptic requirements was a foregone conclusion.
Elden Ring has three “primary” endings that the game recognizes with trophies and achievements, but if you include all the variations, there are a total of six ways the story of your Tarnished can conclude (that we’ve been able to find or see anyone else find, anyway). These endings can alter based on actions you take, don’t take, choices with characters, and more. If you’re especially interested in the lore of Elden Ring, then triggering every ending will help you get the best picture of this intriguing world, but no matter how careful you are, some endings are just too obscure to figure out naturally. Here’s how to get every ending in
Spoilers ahead! We will be spoiling all the endings in Elden Ring and the actions you need to take to get them. This includes spoiling the fate of characters, so read on at your own risk.
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How to get the Age of Fracture ending
The Age of Fracture, Age of Duskborn, Age of Order, and The Blessing of Despair endings all fall under different branches of the overall Elden Lord ending. You will get one of these endings by playing through the game naturally, assuming you don’t somehow accidentally trigger one of the two other bigger ending categories. Simply follow the direction of the game, specifically Melina, defeating the bosses, collecting Great Runes, and finally beating the Elden Beast final boss. From here, you will sit on the throne as Elden Lord and be given a series of choices.
To get the Age of Fracture ending, the choice you must pick is, somewhat contradictorily to the ending’s name, to mend the Elden Ring. The voice-over explains that the time before would be known as the Age of Fracture and that the future will be better, though some speculate it is not quite as happy of an ending as it may be presented — at least for your character anyway.
How to get the Age of the Duskborn ending
This is the first branch of the Elden Lord endings, and as such requires you to do more than just make it to the end of the game. To gain access to the Age of the Duskborn ending, you will need to complete the entirety of Fia’s questline. This is a multiple-stage quest that is easier broken down into steps.
- Speak to Fia at the Roundtable Hold
- Meet D, Hunter of the Dead near Summonwater, and get him to appear at Roundtable Hold
- When you reach the Altus Plateau, speak to Fia. She will ask you to find the owner of a dagger she gives to you.
- Deliver the dagger to D
- Go back to Fia, discovering that she has killed D
- Travel to the Depproot Depths and find Fia again at the Altar of the Death Prince. Speak to her and agree to locate the centipede mark
- Now you need to progress through Ranni’s quest up to the point where you deliver her the Finger Slaying Blade you can get in Nokron. In exchange, she will give you the Carian Inverted Statue
- Use this item inside the Carian Study hall to flip the building upside down, make your way to the top (bottom?), and examine Ranni’s dead body here, which has the centipede mark
- Give the mark to Fia, leave, then come back. She will be asleep, but a summon sign will be there to fight the boss Lichdragon Fortissax
- Beat the boss and acquire the Mending Rune of the Death Prince from Fia’s body
With this rune on you at the end of the game, you will get a new choice after becoming Elden Lord. In it, you use the Mending Rune of the Death Prince to free the Lands Between from being cursed with immortality, allowing life to take on a natural cycle once again. If there’s one lesson FromSoftware games tend to try and teach, it’s that immortality isn’t so great, making us think this is one of the best endings.
How to get the Age of Order ending
Again, we’re in for a somewhat long, though not as complex as the last one, series of tasks to get this Age of Order ending. This time, we’re focusing on getting a different rune, the Mending Rune of Perfect Order, before reaching the end. Here’s how to get it:
- Agree to help Brother Corhyn find Gold Mask as soon as you are able
- Reach the Altus Plateau. At this point Brother Corhyn will no longer be in the Roundtable Hold, having gone out into the world to try and find Gold Mask
- Find Gold Mask on the bridge in Altus Plateau
- Tell Corhyn, who is near where you collect the Altus Plateau map fragment, you found Gold Mask
- Meet up with the pair in Lyndell and help them solve a riddle requiring you to have the Law of Regression spell. This spell requires a massive 37 Intelligence stat to learn, so you may need to temporarily respec your character to complete this step
- Find them again at the Stargazer’s Ruins in the Mountaintops of the Giants and interact with them
- Beat Malekith and go back to the middle of Lyndell to find Corhyn and Gold Mask’s body. Loot it for the Rune of Perfect Order
Now, just beat the game again, but this time use the Mending Rune of Perfect order. This will heal the Erdtree and, in effect, bring order back to the Lands Between, although this is extremely vague. There are some weird notions of time, and possibly time travel, but it’s all very interpretive.
How to get the Blessing of Despair ending
Now, for a clearly bad ending, we have the Blessing of Despair ending. This one focuses on working with the ever-charming Dung Eater character to get the Mending Rune of the Fell Curse. In short, all you need to do is feed him five Seedbeed Curse items, but getting them is the tricky part. Once you give him the first one in Roundtable Hold, he will give you a key and start showing up instead at the Subterranean Shunning-Grounds. Use the key to free him, beat him in a fight, and then you can go collect four more Seedbeed Curse items to feed him.
Take this to the end of the game, choose to use the Mending Rune of the Fell Curse, only this time you and Dung Eater team up to curse everyone and everything in the Lands Between. Unless you want to watch the world burn more than it already was, or are just curious, this is objectively not a good fate for the world.
How to get the Age of the Stars ending
The first major diversion for endings is the Age of the Stars ending, which revolves around Ranni. This is a major questline, with tons of steps and direction, so we’ll only hit the major beats for brevity:
- First, meet Ranni and get the Spirit Calling Bell
- Locate her again at Ranni’s Rise within Caria Manor
- Talk to Blaid in Siofra River
- Get the letter of introduction for Selen from Seluvis
- Meet Selen and learn about Radahn
- Go back to Blaid to talk about Radahn
- Beat Radahn at Redmane Castle to trigger a world state change
- Go into the crater in Limgrave and enter Nekron
- Get the Finger Slayer Blade and give it to Ranni
- Use the portal in Ranni’s Rise and find the Miniature Ranni Doll
- Speak to the doll while at a Site of Grace until it says something
- Go to Rot Lake, beat Blaid, and get a key
- Go to the Raya Lucaria Grand Library and get a ring from the chest
- Get across Rot Lake and enter a coffin
- Beat the boss of this area, Astel, Naturalborn of the Void and go to the Cathedral of Manus Celes
- Place the ring on Ranni’s hand and get the Dark Moon Greatsword
- Summon Ranni after beating the final boss
Using Ranni’s summon sign will trigger this new ending. In it, you essentially become a servant to Ranni to help her rule the world. She uses her powers to cover the world in moonlight, which according to her will free all the souls the Erdtree has trapped, as well as send you on a thousand-year-long journey. What she has to say about this almost makes the events harder to understand, so make of it what you will.
How to get the Lord of Frenzied Flame ending
The last ending is another bad ending of sorts, though not quite at the level of teaming up with Dung Eater. It also involves completing some side quests, not just a single NPCs line this time, but a few. There’s a little debate about whether or not each of these steps needs to be done, but we’ll include them all just in case.
- Complete the Irina and Edgar quest on the Weeping Penninsula where you are asked to deliver a letter. It will end in Irina’s death and Edgar vowing revenge
- In the sewers below Leyndell, find the Subterranean Shunning Grounds, beat the boss, and hit the altar in the room to reveal a hidden door. Follow the path down to a door in an area where you’re not able to attack. The door won’t open unless you unequip all your gear, so strip down. Inside, you will get the power of the Frenzied Flame from the Three Fingers, making your character’s eyes begin to shine
- Melina will abandon you once you reach the Forge of the Giants. Choose the option to listen to the fire to progress
- Beat the game as normal
When you reach the end, instead of becoming the Elden Lord, your character will automatically become the Lord of Frenzied Flame instead, with no choice from you as a player. This ending will have you burn down the Erdtree, reality itself, and essentially allow chaos to rule the world. If nothing else, this is an ending worth getting just to see the crazy imagery it shows.
