Elden Ring Endings: Conclusions Explained (Spoilers Ahead)

Elden Ring doesn’t hand you a single story to follow. Instead, it hands you the Lands Between and lets your choices decide how the whole thing ends. By the time you face the final boss, the ending you get depends less on what you fight and more on which NPCs you helped, which allies you sided with, and which item you choose to use in the game’s closing moments.

In total, there are six endings in Elden Ring. Four of them are variations on becoming the new Elden Lord, and two are considered “special” endings that take you off that path entirely. This guide breaks down all six, what triggers each one, and how to see them all without replaying the game six separate times.

Major spoiler warning: everything below reveals late-game questlines and the final moments of Elden Ring. If you haven’t finished the game yet, bookmark this and come back later.

How Endings Work in Elden Ring

Every ending plays out the same way on the surface: you defeat the final boss, then choose a key item to use while sitting at the Erdtree. Which item is available to you, and which one you’re locked into, depends on the questlines you completed (or ignored) earlier in the run.

Because only one ending triggers per playthrough, seeing all six normally means finishing the game multiple times across New Game Plus cycles. Most players get around this by saving a backup of their save file right before the final boss, then loading different save copies to trigger each ending without replaying the entire 60+ hour campaign each time.

The Four Elden Lord Endings

These four endings all end with your Tarnished becoming the new Elden Lord, but each one shapes the Lands Between differently depending on who you allied with.

Age of Fracture (Default Ending)

This is the ending most players see on their first run, since it requires no special quest completion. You simply mend the Elden Ring and become Lord, restoring the Golden Order without any major twist. The only requirement is that you have not accepted the Frenzied Flame; do that, and this path is locked off.

Age of Order

Tied to the questline of Brother Corhyn and Goldmask. Following their search for the “perfect order” across the map rewards you with the Mending Rune of Perfect Order. Using it ushers in a more rigid, rule-bound version of the Golden Order.

Age of Duskborn (Age of the Duskborn)

Unlocked by completing Fia’s questline as the Deathbed Companion. This path leans into her role tending to the dead, and it produces the Mending Rune of Death, an ending themed around the acceptance of death rather than order.

Blessing of Despair

The darkest of the four Elden Lord endings, obtained through Goldmask’s storyline combined with the Fell Curse Rune found by exploring deeper into his questline’s darker branch. It results in a grim, decaying world under the new Lord’s rule.

The Two Special Endings

These two break away from the Elden Lord path entirely and require the most specific questline commitments:

Age of Stars

This is Ranni the Witch’s ending, and one of the most popular among players because of how substantial her questline is. Instead of touching the Erdtree yourself, you side with Ranni, helping her usurp the Greater Will and usher in an “Age of Stars” governed by the moon rather than the gods. It requires completing her full questline, which spans a huge chunk of the map and several major bosses.

Lord of Frenzied Flame

The most chaotic conclusion available. To get it, you accept the Frenzied Flame from the Three Fingers relatively early, which locks you out of every Elden Lord ending for that playthrough. At the very end, instead of mending the Elden Ring, you unleash the flame and burn everything, resulting in a full-on apocalyptic finish for the Lands Between. Notably, if you become a Frenzied Flame host before triggering the ending, you get an extra cutscene not seen otherwise.

Does Shadow of the Erdtree Add a New Ending?

No. The Shadow of the Erdtree expansion adds a substantial new area, story content, and its own closing scene once you finish the DLC’s arc, but it doesn’t introduce a seventh ending to the base game. All six endings above remain the complete list.

Quick Reference: All Elden Ring Endings

Which Ending is “Best”?

Elden Ring doesn’t frame any ending as objectively good or bad; there’s no morality meter pushing you toward a “true” ending. Age of Stars tends to be the fan favorite because Ranni’s questline is one of the richest in the game, while Lord of Frenzied Flame is often chosen by players who want to see the most dramatic, world-ending finale. Which one is “best” really comes down to which questline you enjoyed following, and what kind of finish you want for your particular Tarnished’s story.