Elden Ringhas been a highly anticipated game since its announcement. The idea of the creative minds behind FromSoftware’s works collaborating with concepts by George R.R. Martin was enough to get people behind it. But it was not until last week that truly substantial information on the game was unveiled at Summer Game Fest. In an interview with Chicago-based news station WTTW, Martin went further into the extent of his involvement with the development ofElden Ring.
When Martin was asked how the process differed between writing the world for a video game, as opposed to a novel, he went into a bit of detail behind it. WhileElden Ringwas not Martin’s first game work, he described the process behind it as “it’s like working on a movie, they take a long time to develop.” One of the things he noted was that his contributions forElden Ringhad been done “several years ago.” This includes the worldbuilding, the characters, and the plot behindElden Ring;the setting being the biggest contributing factor for the game. According to him, the background that he had written for FromSoftware was “fairly detailed,” and that the game was developed afterwards.
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Martin noted that after he had given all of the details necessary to thebackground and lore ofElden Ring, he had not heard much from the developer. He did, however, receive periodic updates from time to time, being shown different details behind the project. Some of these included the monsters that were designed and the in-game special effects.
Development ofElden Ringhad begun around the time development for “The Ringed City” DLC forDark Souls 3had been completed. The initial collaboration was proposed from directorHidetaka Miyazaki’s great admiration for Martin’s works. When executive director Eiichi Nakajima reached out to Martin at the time, the expectation from Miyazaki was that the proposal would be turned down. To his surprise, Miyazaki was able to have a one-on-one conversation with Martin regarding this game. This allowed the two to discuss the themes, ideas, and overall game elements that would be incorporated; all of which would become the baseline to what Martin would build the game’s mythos over.
In the same interview with WTTW, Martin refers toElden Ringas “the sequel to a video game that came out a few years ago calledDark Souls.” Considering his self-deprecating statement of “I’m not a big video gamer,” it should not be taken at face value thatElden Ringis a direct sequel toDark Souls. However, it is more along the lines ofthe next step in theDark Soulsfranchise. While the game had been slowly in development and will be released next year, he had expressed his excitement at the game’s release, sharing the fanbase’s sentiment about wishing to see the game in its entirety.
Elden Ringreleases on June 01, 2025 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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