More information on the much anticipated Elden Ring has leaked, revealing speculations about the game's setting and stage of development along with some beautiful concept art. The leak only adds to the excitement fans of the Dark Souls games are feeling as FromSoftware's next dark fantasy epic could possibly come out within the next couple of months.
News surrounding Elden Ring has been circulating ever since the game's announcement following The Ringed City DLC for Dark Souls 3. The director for the Dark Souls series, Hidetaka Miyazaki, is directing Elden Ring as well and has been working in tandem with the writer of the famous Game of Thrones novels, George R.R. Martin. Fresh information concerning the game was sparse in 2020, but now more information is being discovered daily including a leak from a reputable Chinese content creator that has worked on Souls titles.
A twitter post by Okami on Dec 29 of 2020 gives a list of leaked information concerning Elden Ring, with some old information and some new. The most tangible pieces of the leak are two pieces of concept art depicting creatures from the game. One of them was the dying creature from the game's E3 2019 announcement trailer. The game's setting will also apparently draw inspiration from Norse/Celtic mythology, though if it will be as heavily inspired by Norse mythology as the 2018 God of War is still anybody's guess.
The leak doubles down on information already hinted at by Miyazaki, indicating that Elden Ring's map will be much larger than maps in the Dark Souls series and its combat will be similar. However, Elden Ring will feature a more open-field design for combat situations which could introduce some exciting new twists to fights. The combat difficulty of Souls games has always been one of their more divisive elements, so a slight change-up in combat could work in Elden Ring's favor and attract new players outside of the already loyal Dark Souls fanbase.
Finally, the game is said to be in the polishing stage of production and will have a release date in 2021. This isn't official news, but the more rumors that surface stating the game will release in 2021 should work wonders to assuage the nerves of many who have been worried because production on Elden Ring may have been delayed due to COVID-19.
FromSoftware's silence concerning Elden Ring's development may not be such a bad thing though. While expectation is high, concrete information is scarce, which reduces the chances for FromSoftware to be unable to deliver on promises made about the game's quality or mechanics. In fact, the mystery surrounding the title could be one of Elden Ring's greatest strengths and the key to a successful launch, whenever that may be.
Elden Ring is in development for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.