Elden Ring, One Year On
By Luke Condon (Gaming Editor)
It’s been just over a year (two days over, to be exact) since Elden Ring, FromSoftware’s most recent and by far most successful Role-Playing Game, hit the shelves. Since then, the game has won several prestigious Game of the Year awards and sold over seventeen million copies. FromSoftware are no strangers to success (their previous game, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, also won Game of the Year), but Elden Ring’s ever-increasing sales are nevertheless a record high for the developers, whose critically acclaimed games never quite managed to fully break into the mainstream – until now.
Elden Ring is notorious for its difficulty, as are most FromSoftware titles, so few would have been surprised if the game had remained in the same niche as its predecessors: very hard games, for very determined players. Somehow, FromSoftware managed to create a project that did just the opposite, finally achieving the widespread recognition that their games have deserved for a very long time, whilst retaining the traditional staples of their series that existing fans love. Now that the post-launch hype has died down, we can take a look back at Elden Ring and figure out how exactly this perfect storm for success came about.
FromSoftware are by no means trend followers, and yet when Elden Ring was confirmed to be an open world game, breaking away from the more linear structures of the beloved Dark Souls and Bloodborne series, more than a few eyebrows were raised – my own included. Lazy open world games have become so common that hearing an anticipated game is adopting the feature can be almost dread-inducing. When developers bite off more than they can chew, their large open worlds tend to be filled with uninteresting landmarks and come off feeling lifeless and shallow.
Thankfully, FromSoftware were able to completely buck the trend; Elden Ring’s world, known as the Lands Between, is devoid of the copy-and-pasted points of ‘interest’ that open world titles are usually oversaturated with. Instead, the game does away with map waypoints and encourages players to explore on their own, resulting in a uniquely rewarding gameplay loop with new surprises around every corner. The open-world fatigue affecting many gamers today could have hindered Elden Ring’s success, but by reinventing the system FromSoftware were instead able to capitalize on the prevalent desire for an open world game that doesn’t feel like a chore to play.
Elden Ring’s success can also be attributed to accessibility. The majority of FromSoftware’s games, being fiendishly difficult, are highly intimidating to new players, who can’t be expected to get the hang of tricky gameplay mechanics like dodging and parrying immediately. Historically, the games’ communities have been no help on this front, as players asking for tips would often be met with phrases like ‘skill issue’ and ‘get good’ rather than helpful advice. Difficulty is at the core of FromSoftware’s games, so it’s unsurprising that many were wary of Elden Ring’s new options for players who struggle with certain aspects of the game.
However, Elden Ring’s ‘spirit summoning’ system is a worthy lifeline for those who find themselves at an impasse. Players can reanimate the ghostly remains of monsters and warriors to fight by their side, weakening and distracting enemies. This lightens the burden on players, giving those who don’t have the time to memorise attack patterns or the reaction speed to avoid incoming attacks a fighting chance. Alternatively, Elden Ring’s open world format allows players to pick and choose their battles, skipping over harder adversaries until such a time as they feel ready to take them on. By throwing players a bone and giving them the choice to negate some of Elden Ring’s difficulty, FromSoftware have made a game that appeals to an infinitely larger audience.
A final (purely anecdotal) theory I’d like to present is that of the role of social media in boosting Elden Ring’s popularity. Upon the game’s launch, my TikTok feed would throw Elden Ring related videos at me constantly, and I was astonished to find that many had racked up hundreds of thousands of likes. In comparison to the few videos I’d seen that featured previous FromSoftware games, this seemed like an unprecedented phenomenon. It’s hard to tell whether this quirk in the TikTok algorithm was a result of Elden Ring’s growing popularity or a cause of it, but I’d be willing to put my money on the latter.
Elden Ring’s adoring fanbase continues to grow, and with creative designer Hidetaka Miyazaki’s recent hints that a new expansion pack is on the way it’s unlikely to slow down any time soon.
