Gaming
'Elden Ring' has a new trailer... and a release date
The much anticipated RPG is set to drop in January 2022.
Elden Ring finally has a release date. The much-anticipated role-playing game will drop on January 21, 2022, a surprise announcement that was made at the end of the Summer Games Fest Kickoff Live event. A new trailer was also released, showing the first gameplay since Elden Ring was announced three years ago at E3.
The game is being made in collaboration between FromSoftware’s Hidetaka Miyazaki, one of the minds behind the popular Dark Souls franchise, and George R.R. Martin, arguably the fantasy world’s most beloved author for creating the Game of Thrones world. Needless to say, there’s been a lot of excitement surrounding Elden Ring, though absolutely nothing has been revealed since its initial debut in 2019.
Entrancing design — From the looks of the trailer, Elden Ring has the type of medieval vibe you’d expect from Martin, and he’s composing the narrative, so no surprise there. The game features lots of swordplay and traversing fantastical, haunting environments on horseback — FromSoftware always makes world-class designs — though the characters are less compelling at first glance.
Taking place in a setting called Lands Between, the basic storyline is that the world has been thrust into conflict by the shattering of the Elden Ring, with various bosses having seized pieces. The Elden Ring protects something called the Erdtree. Your job, presumably, will be to reclaim the pieces and bring peace back to the world.
When the game was first announced in 2019, the developers said Elden Ring would launch initially on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, suggesting it would have been released by now. But more recent rumors suggested it wouldn’t arrive until 2022. Today’s news confirms that. For such a hyped game we aren’t complaining — nobody wants another Cyberpunk 2077 fiasco.
The game is being published by Bandai Namco and will be available on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and previous-gen consoles. Even though we still haven’t learned a lot about Elden Ring, we should start seeing more as the developers hype up the game ahead of launch.