FromSoftware and Bandai Namco thanked gamers for Elden Ring’s 12 million unit sales milestone and hinted at expanding beyond games.
Elden Ring has surpassed 12 million copies sold, which is an amazing feat for a challenging single-player fantasy game. Elden Ring is the best-selling game of 2022 worldwide so far, and so the top developers at both FromSoftware and Bandai Namco thanked the fans for their support.
Elden Ring’s stellar sales figures are the result of the most accomplished of the countless titles released over the past decade. FromSoftware gained massive traction with Demon’s Souls on PS3, but it was the Dark Souls series that really brought this tough gameplay style into the gaming community’s consciousness. The high difficulty has kept some gamers away from soulslike titles, although the series has continued to receive praise. But now Elden Ring is a new IP with a very free open world, and so many new players have decided that it is time to try a FromSoftware game.
In a press release announcing the sales milestone, FromSoftware director Hidetaka Miyazaki said he was “surprised” by the sheer number of Elden Ring players. He has previously commented that new players will have to face the difficulty of Elden Ring for the first time, but hopes that players will enjoy “adventuring through its vast world, discovering many its secrets and face many threats in it”. Bandai Namco CEO Yasuo Miyakawa also thanked fans with some puzzling hints about the future of the Elden Ring franchise.
Miyakawa said that he was “very proud to have been involved in bringing such a wonderful and beautiful game to life”. He then hinted that Bandai Namco is currently working to “expand the brand beyond games and into people’s everyday lives”. In what form this expansion will take place remains unclear, but with the Elden Ring already as popular as it is today, it’s the perfect time to take advantage of IP.
The Elden Ring has yet to be confirmed as to whether there will be DLC content, but FromSoftware has released extensive DLC for the Dark Souls series of games, of which the Elden Ring is a sort of spiritual successor to that series. However, Yasuo Miyakawa’s statement in the press release only mentions expansions beyond the realm of games. While it’s unclear what form this expansion will take, Bandai Namco recently announced that it is developing its own metaverse project and an Elden Ring-inspired element of this project could be what Miyakawa is. are mentioned.
Extending Elden Ring into everyday life could be a hint of a movie or anime adaptation as many other games have done. But Elden Ring has a plot that is somewhat too confusing to adapt to the screen. A novel or a comic book series might also be a good fit for a game, as the game’s world was built by novelist George RR Martin after all, and like with most FromSoftware games, The similarity to the Berserk manga series is also evident in the world of Elden Ring.
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