Elden Ring’s launch success is fueled by loyal FromSoftware fans

I was going into Elden RingI am a humble, yet determined rookie. After many deaths and despair, Stormveil Castle was cleared. So I went on an adventure and found myself soon atop a tower near a chest. A message had been left by someone who came before me: Treasure ahead!

After opening the chest, I got sucked through the portal and was suddenly thrown into misery. That was when I felt like something was right. Learn more about the FromSoftware experience.

Elden RingThis is one of the best-selling games of all time, selling more than 12,000,000 copies as of March 2022. The game has proven to be both a commercial and critical success, and while developer FromSoftware filed off some of the harshest edges from previous titles, it’s still very familiar for long-term fans of the studio. FromSoft has experimented with the same design principles and mechanics for many years. Elden Ring’s success is largely thanks to the fan base the Japanese developer cultivated through earlier releases. And it’s this very same community that not only got me hooked on Elden Ring, but also fueled my interest in both playing FromSoft’s previous games and digging deep into their lore.

The “Hero” character class sits at a fireside in Elden Ring, while a mysterious cloaked stranger approaches

Photo: FromSoftware via Polygon

FromSoftware is most famous for its Dark Souls series. Demon’s SoulsThis 2009 release, called ‘The Dark Souls Trilogy,’ would become a hit as a PlayStation 5 title launch title in 2020. Dark Souls would release its trilogy in the 2010s along with Victorian gothic terror. Bloodborne in 2015 (hence the term “Soulsborne” many fans use, a way to casually refer to the developer’s catalog). FromSoft released also the Sengoku-era adventure Sekiro: Shadows Die TwiceIn 2019, there were no familiar elements such as the troublesome Patches, which were persistent.

Dark Souls also impacted game design more broadly, with “Soulslike” becoming a shorthand for identifying a certain game ethos and set of mechanics. Soulslike games are not the same as FromSoftware, but they do look very similar. Creators of games such as Soulslike are not a surprise. Tunic have cleverly learned from FromSoftware and interpreted the developer’s mechanics through their own lens.

I’m the kind of player who loves digging into lore, finding out little secrets about the world and its characters. This was something I didn’t realize at first. Elden RingThis was before I paid attention to flavor descriptions on product descriptions. The world’s vast majority of information is open for discussion, scattered across small riddles with unreliable storytellers. It’s refreshingly open to discovery and interpretation; there is no in-game codex full of world-building or dialogue trees full of technical information on the world.

Elden Ring - Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon, poses. She wears an elaborate robe, tall coned hat, and holds a large scepter. The full moon is set menacingly behind her, casting a reflection against a body of water behind Rennala.

Image from Software/Bandai Namco

Many of FromSoft’s games share similar gameplay cores: There’s punishingly difficult combat, until the player puzzles out the specific attack patterns and enemy movement styles. The characters and the way they were built really got my attention and I became interested in the whole FromSoft universe. The enemies are often deeply tragic, whether they’re cheerful, sun-loving warriors who eventually succumb to madness and frenzy or desperate monster-hunters who stumble upon and fall to unspeakable eldritch horrors.

There’s a limited amount of information about the game world, given away in cryptic lines of dialogue and item descriptions. FromSoftware’s games follow a consistent design and logic even when they experiment with bigger aspects.

The games have a large fan base due to their consistency and broad appeal. For years, this was almost a plague; there was the persistent stereotype of the “git gud” gamer who would parry away all criticisms or concerns about Soulsborne games with one adage: Simply be better at video games. This conversation still persists — and we will likely see debates on whether FromSoftware games should have easy modes until the inevitable heat death of the universe — but it has faded away over time to allow for a more accessible, welcoming fan experience.

Elden Ring guide: Respec with Larval Tears

Image via Polygon: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco

Have a peek at this Elden Ring subreddit, and you’ll see players sharing the repeated trials and tribulations of fighting Starscourge Radahn, or sharing gifs of their terrible, comically inept deaths at the hands of birds or suspicious-looking cliffsides. For every person who claims using a summon or a shield isn’t the “real” way to play the game, dozens more celebrate the wild strategies — like intense incantations, blood builds, or good ol’ cheese — they used to survive.

Elden Ring is the first FromSoftware game I’ve ever played, and it’s partially because I was so intrigued by the deep sense of identity FromSoftware fans had. Friends had gone through this cycle with me: frustration, fury, gradual realization and victory over boss fights. It was amazing to see people create fan art or discuss their FromSoft characters on social media. I was also able to feel the connections that were made around these franchises.

FromSoftware games are collaborative and heavily based around communication with other players, whether that’s through in-game messages or gathering around creators who interpret the lore and share their theories. There’s a shared vocabulary and understanding among the developer’s fans, and they work together to understand the worlds FromSoft crafts. And there are also local legends that inspire fan works of their own, like Let Me Solo Her, a player who exists simply to be summoned into a lucky ally’s world to single-handedly defeat the game’s toughest boss — even when she’s bugged and heals ridiculous amounts of damage.

Malenia dons her helmet in a screenshot from Elden Ring

Image from Software/Bandai Namco

Elden Ring fans have also already created tons of fascinating projects around the game’s lore and setting. Game Boy adaptions and trailers for Elden Ring have been created by Game Boy developers. Players joke about the game’s difficulty and assign their own challenges by playing the game on a Fisher Price controller or going for a legendary nine-minute speed run. There’s also, of course, an incredible amount of fan art.

While the scale is surprising, adept observers could see the game’s popularity coming from afar. Even before Elden RingFromSoft fans held an open vigil at every game conference, where they showed their support for one another. Elden RingWas not shown off or previewed. For a while, they went completely feral and made up their own lore, including bosses like “Glaive Master Hodir.” And when an additional trailer was finally released in 2021, giving more insight into Elden Ring’s lore, fans immediately rallied around a favorite character: the humble Pot Boy.

Elden Ring I felt the same way. Following Elden Ring, I was hooked; I had never been into the idea of “getting good,” but I was absolutely down to explore games like Bloodborne, picking up the game and devouring it myself — along with digging into fan-made resources like Redgrave’s novella “The Paleblood Hunt,” a 90-page dissection of Bloodborne’s themes, enemies, and characters, or scouring videos of enemy models to get a full sense of their designs.

Elden Ring opened the door for many fans who might have been intrigued by the glimpses of this community they caught here and there, but were intimidated by the “get good” dialogue and the reputation the games have for incredibly tough bosses. But FromSoftware’s fans have championed the games for years, sharing the best bits on social media and hyping up subsequent releases. It’s worth noting that Elden Ring’s success owes a lot to those concerted efforts, in-jokes, and analyses. I’m already looking forward to prospective DLC that adds more riddles for fans to pore over, but I imagine I’ll be going through new game plus as well, doing a victory lap around the Lands Between.

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