FromSoftware’s latest RPG, Elden Ring, has received a hot critical reception since its launch last week, with special praise lauded on its compelling open-world sandbox called The Lands Between, and the lore that binds it together. While the developer has a storied history of creating such locations for its iconic Souls franchise, this time around it employed the expertise of fantasy author George R.R Martin, the creator of A Song of Fire and Ice (Game of Thrones), and today Martin has celebrated Elden Ring’s success in his latest blog post.
The post reads in part:
“Once in a generation… masterpiece… beautiful and brutal… a sumptuous open world… ”
Music to the ears.
Of course, almost all the credit should go to Hidetaka Miyazaki and his astonishing team of games designers who have been laboring on this game for half a decade or more, determined to create the best videogame ever. I am honored to have met them and worked with them, and to have have played a part, however small, in creating this fantastic world and making ELDEN RING the landmark megahit that it is.
The extent of Martin’s involvement seems to have been in helping to create the narrative backbone of The Lands Between’s lore, which presumably helped FromSoftware in guiding the conceptualization of its design. Speaking to Martin’s involvement in the game’s development, FromSoftware game director Hideo Miyazaki told the New Yorker in a recent interview:
“In our games, the story must always serve the player experience… If [Martin] had written the game’s story, I would have worried that we might have to drift from that. I wanted him to be able to write freely and not to feel restrained by some obscure mechanic that might have to change in development.”
Martin is said to have primarily been tasked with writing snippets of text about the world’s history, characters, and mythology, including the destruction of the Elden Ring and the subsequent scattering of shards.
Twinfinite reviewed Elden Ring and was extremely impressed, scoring the game an exemplary 5/5 and concluding:
“As an open-world skeptic who was pretty much convinced that the Souls formula wouldn’t work in such a setting, I’m happy to have been proven wrong. Elden Ring retains the heart of what makes FromSoft’s action RPGs so compelling, and takes things to a whole other level by pulling the best elements from their older games and improving upon them in this one.”
