Two creative geniuses in their respective worlds are coming together to make Elden Ring. First revealed during E3 2019, Elden Ring is slowly replacing the much-hyped Cyberpunk 2077 as the hottest, most-anticipated soon-to-be-released game. But developers FromSoftware isn't very forthcoming about details in this new project. So what is this game, and what do we know so far? We take a look in this article and tell you everything you need to know about Elden Ring.

Elden Ring sees two worlds collide

If you're a fan of both Dark Souls and A Game of Thrones, then Elden Ring will surely appeal to you. This game is a collaboration between the creators of the Souls series and A Song of Ice and Fire. Hidetaka Miyazaki, the creator of the Souls series, will be directing the game. Meanwhile, the world the game is set in is made from scratch by the best-selling author George R. R. Martin. If that's not a match made in heaven (or hell, depending on how you look at things), then what is?

Miyazaki admits to being a big fan of Martin. He approached the writer to invite him into this project. The game designer didn't have high hopes when he gave the writer a ring. He says he was surprised when Martin turned out to be interested in the project, making Miyazaki excited about Elden Ring even more.

Miyazaki gave Martin complete creative freedom over the game's world-building and overarching plot of the game. Regarding building a game around a world created by Martin, Miyazaki says that the process is similar to using a dungeon master's handbook in a tabletop RPG.

“It really is like a guide for the world’s lore, and therefore feels quite different from his novels. As someone that loves to learn about a world’s setting, it was very exciting to read,” Miyazaki says in an interview with IGN.

Now we know whose fault it is that The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring aren't completed yet. We could just wish George R. R. Martin a longer life.

A “Natural Evolution” of the Souls genre

With the release of the PlayStation 5, younger fans were treated with the fantastic remake of Demon Souls. As long-time fans of FromSoftware would already know, Demon Souls created the whole Souls genre. The success of its spiritual sequels, the three Dark Souls games, would spawn a lot of both successful and lackluster Souls-like games. It is thanks to Demon Souls that we later got masterpieces such as Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Bloodborne, and would influence games such as Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Ghost of Tsushima.

Now, Miyazaki is ready to turn the next page for FromSoftware. On Elden Ring's gameplay, Miyazaki described it as a natural evolution to Dark Souls. The changes from the formula will come about thanks to the game's much larger scope and a more open world.

“With a larger world, new systems and action mechanics inevitably become necessary,” he said. “In that sense, I think that Elden Ring is a more natural evolution of Dark Souls.”

Miyazaki says that while this new game can still be considered as part of the same genre as Dark Souls, even though there will be a lot of new additions. For example, the player character will be able to ride a horse to traverse the world, and will be able to fight on horseback. Dark Souls' more nuanced, positioning-heavy fighting mechanics will be retooled to become a little bit faster-paced.

Elden Ring's overworld will be populated not by towns and villages, but by caves and dungeons for you to explore. Still, if Dark Souls felt suffocating to you, Elden Ring will give you more freedom to explore. In this new game, Miyazaki wants to let players experience the world's lore through exploring the different parts of the world in any order they want. This essentially makes Elden Ring an open-world, a first in the Souls genre and a step forward from what they did in Sekiro.

Story, Plot, and Development history

While we know that George R. R. Martin molded the world using his creative fluids, we don't really know anything about this world right now. What we do know is that Miyazaki used Martin's world-building to flesh out the in-game world. Martin designed the overarching plot of the game – possibly with a definite start and end in mind – with Miyazaki filling in the gaps and peppering the game with the small details. We can't really get much from the game's first trailer, so we'll have to wait for more details to drop by.

Just like in other Souls games, Elden Ring will allow players to create their own character. Souls games usually casted the player character as a sort of savior, but we don't know much yet about this game's protagonist.

Meanwhile, regarding the game's development history, Elden Ring has been in development since FromSoftware finished The Ringed City downloadable content for Dark Souls 3 in 2016. This means that this game started development as the team was wrapping up with Sekiro. Yuka Kitamura, the composer for both Sekiro and Dark Souls 3, will return to compose the score for this game.

Elden Ring Release Date

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Basing on FromSoftware's previous game releases, 2021 is ripe time for Elden Ring's release. Rumors say that FromSoftware has just finished the game's initial development. However, the coronavirus pandemic has pushed back the development calendar, indicating that FromSoftware might need more time to polish this initial build. This is according to an interview between streamer WesaTwitch and Italian video game journalist Federico Fossetti.

Perhaps this is the same build that Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer was talking about when he said that he's played “quite a bit” of Elden Ring. He had high praises for the game, saying that it's Miyazaki's most ambitious yet.

“I mean, I love his games,” Spencer says. “But seeing some of the gameplay mechanics stuff that he's tackling, he and the team are tackling this time, of the setting, working with another creator (Martin) in terms of story. I love it.”

If Spencer can already say that, then perhaps Elden Ring is more complete now than FromSoftware would have us believe. However, we still don't have any inkling on when the game will be released, but our hopes are up for 2021.

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