Ritual Elements in Souls Games. Liminality and Communitas in Elden Ring

This paper explores how Elden Ring and the broader FromSoftware Souls series integrate both cohesive and competitive elements to create a unique gaming experience. By employing a qualitative close reading of game mechanics and aesthetics through the lens of procedural rhetoric, this paper analyzes the game’s design, narrative, and social dynamics. I argue that Elden Ring stands at the intersection of entertainment and ritualistic experience, embodying both liminal and liminoid characteristics as de!ned by the anthropological theories by Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner. The Souls games experience bridges the tension between unifying ritual and disjunctive competition, o#ering players a space for both personal mastery and communal cohesion. Drawing on ritual and game theory, this study demonstrates how the combat process, aesthetics, the cooperative multiplayer system, and challenging mechanics foster an ambivalent experience that both involves a return to balance and drives for transformation.