The memes are over: Elden Ring is coming!
For three years, Dark Souls fans kept hoping for the making of this game, the Elden Ring, and now their dreams have come true. It feels a little bit surreal, and in November 2021 finally, there was the Elden Ring Network test. Then, the game was chock full of bosses, mini-dungeons, and Legacy dungeons. After a delay, the game was finally released on 25 February this year.
No longer meme or fantasy: Elden Ring is coming!
Elden Ring is an MMO game in an open world. The game is published by Bandai Namco and developed by From Software. Elden Ring is directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R.R. Martin provided a lot of material for the game’s setting. It is not strange for people to ask if this would be a Lord of the Rings-based game. More about that later.
The game has both single-player and multiplayer modes. You can either play the NPC storylines or do dungeons together with other players.
Fans anticipated the game for such a long time, it has its subreddit full of memes. Some game websites contained articles about Elden Ring, with spoilers. To prevent seeing or reading about those spoilers, other gamers made memes, warning their fellow fans.
Are Elden Ring and Dark Souls connected?
Short answer: no. Elden Ring is as much connected to the Dark Souls franchise as any other game developed by From Software. However, we have to say that the looks may tell you otherwise. There are similarities in their worlds, ideas, and gameplay as well. The upside is that players won’t need to play Dark Souls or other games from this developer to understand the game.
That being said, it may help give an appreciation for certain ideas and events in Elden Ring. For example, From Software likes to make little references and reimaginings of their ideas from game to game, like they did with Patches the Trustworthy reappearing in Bloodborne, Demon's Souls, and Dark Souls alike. And yes, Patches memes have been made.
Another thing why it is recommended that you play Dark Souls first is because you may experience similar gameplay that way, making it easier to adjust.
Is Elden Ring connected to Lord of the Rings?
Elden Ring is not connected to the lore of Lord of the Rings. However, George R.R. Martin, writer of The Hobbit and LOTR book series, did play a sufficient part in the making of this game. He made the foundation on which Hidetaka Miyazaki build upon. In the end, Miyazaki says that they altered and changed some things to characters. “Martin might be a bit shocked when he sees what happens to some characters”, says Miyazaki.
Will Elden Ring be available on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate?
At the moment, it doesn't seem like Elden Ring will make its way to Xbox Game Pass or its PC counterpart at launch. There is no official word suggesting that support might be on the way.
You can purchase the game for Xbox, PlayStation, Steam, and Windows PC.