Elden Ring Fans Are Trying To Work Out Who The Opening Narrator Is

There are lots of things we don't know about Elden Ring's lore. Is Miquella actually Saint Trina? Why aren't there any female Omen? Why are there such enormous skulls in Caelid but nowhere else? And just who the hell is screaming during the Game's opening narration?

That last one has Tarnished stumped. In a post on the Elden Ring subreddit, Tarnished are pooling their resources to try and figure out just "who is the narrator during the opening cinematic," but so far, there is no definitive answer.

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Well, other than James Livingston, who is also the voice actor who played the ancient albinaurics. But even he doesn't know who the narrator is in-universe, which has led to some wild speculation.

We'll get Elden John, John Elden Ring, and Tim the Albinauric out of the way as they're all made up. The serious debate starts with user Lafl1234, who wrote, "Going by his narration, he's Tarnished, that's for sure." Others chimed in to confirm that the narrator does say the "call of long-lost grace speaks to us all," implying that they're likely a Tarnished as well.

One user suggested Gideon, the All-Knowing, but he's got a different voice actor entirely. An intriguing possibility, however, is Old Knight Istavan "as he seems to have been around quite a long while to have met Gideon and the others, but does not know the newer Tarnished because he chose to stay around Stormveil Hill." Note the narrator mentions several Tarnished of renown, including Gideon, Fia, and Goldmask, implying some residence at the Roundtable Hold.

Istavan is an NPC that appears twice in Elden Ring: first as a summon when fighting the Demi-Human Chiefs in the Coastal Cave, and second as a murder target for Volcano Manor. He drops the Scaled Armor, which is quite good, and is described as "one of the few wizened Tarnished who survives to this day."

It might not be, though. As user NickFatherBool noted, "I would assume it's someone recalling the whole story after the fact, seeing as he narrates your ending as well." Or it could just be Goldmask, the normally silent NPC that eventually reveals the dual nature of Radagon and Marika.

Perhaps we'll find out with the coming Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, which Bandai Namco and FromSoft announced just over a week ago. There's still no release date for the coming DLC, so we're left with speculation until it arrives.

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