The setting of Elden Ring may have been well-telegraphed ahead of its release, but suggestions that the game is really set in the U.S. state of Ohio have been doing the rounds thanks to one of many memes making the rounds online. The particular Elden Ring meme showed a screenshot of a Google search for “where does Elden Ring take place” with the Wikipedia entry returning the answer Ohio appearing instead of the real answer, the Lands Between. Thanks to the meme’s traction online, the question “Does Elden Ring take place in Ohio?” now comes up as a top suggested search query when looking up the game’s setting on Google.
Elden Ring, the long-awaited latest release from FromSoftware was released in late February and quickly became one of 2022’s most talked-about games so far. Created in collaboration with fantasy novelist, George R. R. Martin, Elden Ring’s world is the Lands Between, a name invented by Martin himself as a foundation for the game's detailed lore and mythos. One distinction between Elden Ring and the Souls series is the former's open-world setting, which encourages players to freely traverse and explore the Lands Between in no specific order. Elden Ring’s open-world map is a vast one, with the Lands Between divided up into six areas, each a domain ruled by one of Elden Ring’s demigods.
The meme that Elden Ring is set in Ohio started when someone edited the Wikipedia page for Elden Ring, a simple feat as anyone can update a Wikipedia page. The user updated the setting of Elden Ring's big map from Lands Between to the American state of Ohio. Shared as an image on Twitter by user ronnui_ with the caption “Wait what the hell”, the Elden Ring meme has been liked over 218K times, and retweeted over 21.5K times. In the replies to the viral tweet, another user, sylvansigh, created their own meme with a map of the United States showing the Lands Between in place of Ohio.
It’s unlikely many people genuinely fell for the joke that Elden Ring was set in Ohio, but it's another great example of the humor coming out of the game's community since its release, partially encouraged by its multiplayer messaging system. While Elden Ring’s Wikipedia page currently displays the correct setting for the game, the Lands Between, the screenshot of the unexpectedly hilarious Elden Ring meme continues to be shared on social media. Other aspects of the viral humor surrounding Elden Ring involve calling the game's many non-dog creatures - like tortoises - dogs, and generally just causing mischief with the messaging system overall. It can be daunting to explore the Lands Between, but the aforementioned memes can make it a funnier experience.
Source: ronnui_/Twitter, sylvansigh/Twitter
