Elden Ring is real and it's coming in January 2022

Geoff Keighley finally broke out of gamer jail by giving us a first real look at Elden Ring during Game Fest.

It looks fun and very much like a Souls game - seems like a mix between Sekiro combat and Dark Souls world building.

I'm just happy we finally got to see some of it.

Completely shocked that it's real and it's coming so soon. Looks great, and I'm excited to see what From can do with a big open world. They've always made impressive use of scale in their games, and this seems like it would be a whole new avenue for them to explore that.

https://twitter.com/fromsoftware_pr/status/1403085970073788419?s=20

"Due for release" doesn't sound like a phrase you'd use if you didn't expect your game to be delayed at some point.

When wishing for any scraps of Elden Ring isn't enough, try the Geoff x Tamoor fusion technique.

Edit: I wonder where you can visually see G.R.R Martin's influence, because I can't pick up on any of it in the trailer.

Here's to hoping this is much more Dark Souls than Sekiro.

Instead hoping this is way more Sekiro than Dark Souls.

Y'all crazy: hoping for more Balan Wonderworld than Dark Souls or Sekiro.

You think the game's exciting now, just wait until you become the Pounding Pig in the final boss fight.

Based on Danny's tweets, it sort of seems like this is drawing heavily from Irish mythology. I thought it was going to be Norse, which is way overrepresented in games, so I'm very excited. Definite day one purchase from me!

Give me Sekiro's combat with Bloodborne's flexibility (or, y'know, just ability to get better via stats and weapon preferences as well as skill) and this'll be my favorite From game.

I think a good mix from all soulsborniro would be nice. Can't wait for this game. Heres hoping fashion is really good and diverse and I really hope they keep some of verticality from Sekiro.

...I am somehow both excited and disappointed that we are apparently getting more Dark Souls.

I mean that's great and all but some naive thought in the back of my head somehow believed we might be getting a modern King's Field thing. I know that's insane, I always knew it was insane, but it's also insane that Dark Souls ever actually got as a popular as it is.

Also I don't see George RR Martin's mark on... any of this.

Oh well, I'll probably get it at launch anyway, provided Sekiro-like combat isn't the only thing I can do. I still plan on trying Sekiro again but I spent hours trying to "get good" at parrying and somehow my entire person just isn't made for that.

@justin258: From what I understand Martin wrote an outline to serve as a backdrop for the game and then the rest of the team fleshed the game world out based on that outline. I’ve never read any of Martins books so I don’t really know what his characteristic style is in the same way as I can identify a William Gibson book or a Neal Stephenson story.

Really curious how different this will or won't be from their more recent games. That trailer certainly got me more interested than I thought I would be!

Man I hope there is an esoteric-sounding Celtic-influenced soundtrack attached to this game. That would be dope.

Meanwhile, vaguely related, I still live in hope that one day @rorie will stream himself playing one of the King's Field games. He's mentioned having that urge before (and also not knowing there was a PS2 entry), and I'd love to see some KF played on GB, it remains one of my favorite series ever. And they're all working on emulators now, FWIW.

Boy... people seem really fervent for this thing that's just another Souls game. Don't get me wrong, I love Souls games, but the way some people act about this thing, you'd think it's the second coming of Cyberpunk hype.

You know I wouldn't mind giving it a whirl but I currently have no real way to play a PS1 game on stream. Maybe if we get back into the office!

Dark souls, but with HORSE COMBAT! I'm so into this! Can't wait!

@brian_: At least those games have worked right of the box with each release, so that's something to be hyped about.

Agreed, if Elden Ring hadn't been previously announced I would have been sure all the way up to the end of the trailer this game was gonna be titled Dark Souls 4. Though i'm sure it will probably be a good game, I feel the hypetrain has gone off the tracks on this one already.

@ghost_cat: I'm just curious as to why this one seems to be so much more hyped than past Souls games. Like, a Souls game has never been the big "end of press conference surprise" thing before. Are there just more people into these games now? Is it because George R.R. Martin is attached? Is it because they showed absolutely nothing for two years, and it got people to speculate wildly the whole time? I mean, it's probably all those things. I don't know.

Lies!

@brian_: I think the hype around this one isn't so much the game itself but the pedigree that Fromsoft has garnered over the last decade. Many folks, including myself, see them as one of the best developers around right now. So it makes sense that fans would be extra excited for a new game when they released 3 masterpieces(imo) last generation. This is my most anticipated game at the moment. And they haven't let me down yet.

@spacemanspiff00: Sure. Like I said, I love these games too. Bloodborne and Demon's Souls are at the the top of my list of best games ever. I'm always excited to play another one. Just seems like there's a huge gap in excitement between whenever this thing is talked about, than there was from any of the past games.

@brian_: That gap makes sense to me based on what I said above. From has consistently grown their fanbase with every game. Other games have been influenced by their formula for the last several years. Sekiro managed to win GOTY in many places, including Steam, in 2019. And that definitely put them in the public eye. People are still streaming their games all the time. So I'd say its a compounding effect of hit after hit and the immense amount of exposure the last several years. I mean, I remember people cloying pretty hard for Sekiro at the time too. Think of it like adding another car to the hype train. Of course it gets bigger.

@brian_: For me part of the excitement that it's been 5 years since what I would consider the last "good" Souls game. We haven't heard anything official about Bloodborne 2, and Sekiro was easily on my list of Top 10 Most Disappointing Games Ever, so I'm ready for more.

As one of the heathens who has tried without success to get into the soulsborne games... it sure looks like another one of those!

Hope folks enjoy it. Still don't think it'll get me to see the light.

It's also possible that I've just become a miserable, jaded, cynical bastard, incapable of getting excited for anything anymore. I don't mean to poo-poo on anyone's good time, or make people feel like they need to justify their own excitement. Just curious to where the sudden uptake seems to have come from.

I know when that elden ring

@el_blarfo: Right there with you. Was hoping they'd try to make their games more accessible as I so dig the aesthetics or something wildly different and new, but I can hear the screams of their put upon fans now.

Having never played one I even feel I would appreciate a new Armored Core much more.

It's amazing, I'm really looking forward to it!!

This looks like a game that i will enjoy when i play it.

Not that I actually expected differently at this point, but this game sure is coming out before Winds of Winter eh?

Anyway this looks cool. If it's as open at parts as they seem to be suggesting in the trailer then it could be a really interesting development for these types of games, excited to see what From can do with that structure.

@imhungry: I'm hoping there are actual dungeons in this game, so that they would reflect the teams amazing level design in previous games.

@justin258: Hey I know how you feel. Absolutely LOVE from games so when I got my hands on Sekiro, I couldn't wait to dive in. I was having a blast initially then hit a wall and bounced off after about 5 weeks.

Granted I was also heavily into Rainbow Six with my friends so I wasn't dedicating myself the way I usually do with Froms games. Part of that was its more restrictive with 1 weapon and all that. The main part was because I was struggling more than I ever have with Froms other Souls games (outside maybe my first time with Demons). So I wasn't putting much time into it even when I did have some free time. After needing some HD space I deleted it to install something else.

Months later I couldn't let go of the idea that I let Sekiro beat me. I've devoured other Froms games since Demons so I hated that I gave up. Eventually I was tired of having to keep deleting games to make space so I bought a 1TB external and proceeded to redownload anything I may want to play.

Then one day I just decided to jump back in. It was hard to be thrown in at the last part I gave up on (a series of enemies and a mini boss before Madame Butterfly) but I suffered through it for a night and passed it. Of course unbeknownst to me the dreaded Butterfly woman awaited me. I'd heard this was the breaking point for many so I figured this was all or nothing.

I ended up learning alot of parrying from that fight and how to play the game. From there I was anxious to keep going. I finally finished the whole game a little over a year from its release but it was extremely satisfying. I won't say it's my favorite but I really enjoyed it. I didn't think I'd go back to it despite how much I liked it but I've been tempted to go back since they updated it and added some stuff. If my backlog wasn't so huge I may have done it already.

TL:DR I'd recommend diving back it, you may end up really enjoying it.

The bit of combat shown really didn't strike me fast like Sekiro. Probably some hybrid of what they've done before.

What I did immediately like were the character designs and the color palette. It reminds me much of Dark Souls 2. Thankfully they've done away with the somber and grey hues. I'm a simple man. I like a bright and cheerful game. Though that bit about dying a lot...

I'm surprised From is doing another of these games though, I thought they indicated they wanted to try something else. But of course I don't really know what they are doing here, besides revealed in the trailer.

@ghost_cat: I image GRRM's influence would probably be in the larger scope/structure of the story telling, like how non-linear progress in an open world could mutate and evolve the narrative. It could also be in the NPC narratives and how they could possibly interconnect, say in a GoT kind of way. i.e. In ways only Vaatiyidya really cares about and FromSoft never really shows in their trailers.

He could have also influenced the choice to research Celtic mythology (if what Danny said is accurate, this is actually the first time I heard Celtic lore was an influence).

The only reference to GRRM is a half finished copy of Winds of Winter that you find on a shelf somewhere.

Hey it looks like another one of those things From makes and I'm 100% here for it.

Looking forward to playing this!

I wanted to play Sekiro but as soon as I heard there was no multiplayer I lost interest. I just want to play these games with my friends and beat up on bosses and invaders? But maybe that makes me a disgusting casual who doesn't deserve to play souls game. So here's hoping there's summoning in this one.

Looks like DLC for any other FROM game. Bit dissapointing

Okay, so this is the next souls-like thing from From, not to be confused with the other similarly looking souls-like thing from not From called Mortal Shell, just in case anyone else got confused.

@kyary: Thought the whole summoning aspect was the most hardcore (read: obnoxious) element of these games.

@ripelivejam: Oh I mean, I don't like how dumb the actual mechanics of summoning and invading are. Get this item, then set a password if you want, then ring a bell, then kill this random enemy before someone comes in and murders you...it's stupid. But I'm not going to sit here and ask the games' ancillary mechanics be made more enjoyable because people who don't engage with those mechanics might have less fun, somehow

It looks like a souls game but Sekiro also did and wasn't. RR Martin's habit of not finishing stories + Miyazaki's habit of filling in the gaps. Could be fun.

I'm sure this game will be good, but I was not blown away by what they showed. For a game that has been in the works for a while and is being pitched as the whole new thing, the aesthetic just looked like more Dark Souls.

Like, this trailer could have literally be for a new open world Dark Souls game I would have believed it, which is kind of disappointment for something that has been hyped as this amazing new IP.

@kyary said:

They show summoning in the trailer. At least, I assume that's whats happening at around 1:41.

I wish I liked Souls games. I wish the idea of a video game company working with George R.R. Martin didn't seem like a sure way to ensure tha game is late. I wish them luck. I wish the fans luck.