Elden Ring has inspired a manga localized by Yen Press, the Steins Alter team has taken on the herculean task of creating a fitting anime, taking their time to get the project right. Given the trailer glimpses from their YouTube channel, where they released the teaser in English, Japanese, French, and Portuguese, the anime short film is set for a Summer 2025 release.

The Elden Ring anime is a fan production, and even this tease is an intensive director's cut as Steins Alter notes at the end of the video. The trailer depicts many familiar Elden Ring bosses and characters from key lore, including Malenia, Maliketh, Radagon, Mohg, and even a glimpse at Miquella, with fluid animation and promises of thrilling action. With remarkable polish and a promise of a release later in 2025, the Elden Ring fan anime will bring Tarnished from all corners of the globe, maidenless or otherwise.

Elden Ring Has an Fan Anime and It Looks Fantastic

Steins Alter Putting Extra Time and Polish Into the Production

The Elden Ring anime tease reveals that the final product will be five minutes long, with extra polish put into the after-effects and overall production. Steins Alter also mentions the efforts to fine-tune all aspects of the production, down to the lighting hues and authentic surface reflections, while fitting a unique art style suited to the game's worlds. While Elden Ring's world and stories are far too massive to cram into five minutes, enough characters crucial to central figures like Queen Marika or Mohgwyn Palace settings suggest several key moments or battles will occur.

It's also a perfectly fitting production, with Miquella, brother of Malenia, being a central character in Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. The project is aimed at celebrating the Elden Ring game, and with its expansion in the running for Game of the Year alongside the original title in 2022, the extra time and care are justified. However, the video also takes aim at mainstream animators, with some key remarks later in the video.

Elden Ring Fan Animators Call Out Poor Quality Control in Popular Anime

Blue Lock Catching Strays

While creating a five-minute fan production fundamentally differs from creating a seasonal, 20+ minute episodic anime, Steins Alter's video also features key commentary about rushed anime production. In the Elden Ring fan anime teaser's ending remarks, the channel leaves and offhand remark about mainstream studios for this problem, specifically Blue Lock's second season by Eight Bit. The anime changed hands to director Yūji Haibara in season 2, along with a tight production schedule and restricted animation resources as examples of the issues plaguing Blue Lock season 2. However, the final product is undeniably imperfect, so it's a fair hit.

Us animators are all very busy, and rushing art isn't within any of my interests, unlike those in charge of Blue Lock, clearly.

-Steins Alter Elden Ring Director's Cut trailer remarks

This type of problem is nonexistent for fan anime, and instead, the bigger concerns are typically whether the property they're adapting will have copyright issues. With recent instances like the Berserk fan anime being canceled while Studio Eclypse shifted focus to Attack on Titan, one can hope Elden Ring doesn't run into similar problems. But after a stellar 2022 and 2024, Elden Ring enjoyers can look forward to a blissfully crafted anime product by the fans and for the fans.

Elden Ring Fan Anime Strives for Similar Greatness to Modern Prestige Studios

Ufotable and A-1 Pictures Among Those Named

In Steins Alter's March 8, 2024 video announcing the production of the Elden Ring fan anime, the creators wish to create a series projecting a feeling of prestige like the best studios. The video specifically mentions striving for "a cinematic, high-quality version of Elden Ring, whether it's like Studio Ufotable, or A-1 Pictures, something close to that is what we aim for." A great deal of focus was put into creating a faithful animated version of the game's events, showing a collaboration with Parshwa and Xavier on X, alongside other collaborators like Toushi and Vita listed in the video's description.

Aiming to achieve similar heights as the studios currently behind Demon Slayer and Solo Leveling, respectively, is an impressive and lofty goal.

Whether this ideal is feasible remains to be seen, as even the thirty-six-second tease for the five-minute special video can only tell so much about the Elden Ring fan anime's success. Aiming to achieve similar heights as the studios currently behind Demon Slayer and Solo Leveling, respectively, is an impressive and lofty goal. It's so sought-after that even mainstream studios like Pierrot shifted their business models to create similarly excellent content and gather the same success as hits like Demon Slayer.

However, as shown in the case of Studio Eclypse's Attack on Titan project, and the now-shuttered Studio Taka's Berserk animated manga project, the final product, and even the teasers, gather a massive flocking audience. Elden Ring is in the running for a victory lap in the form of essentially getting two Game of the Year awards two years apart, so a new piece of content bridging the gap into anime is a desirable and intimidating goal.

Would Elden Ring Even Work as a Full Anime?

The Possibilities Boggle the Mind

With as wide an open world as the Lands Between and multiple divergent paths the player can take in the Elden Ring, an anime is difficult to nail down with all the rich possibilities. However, a full-length series would be wise to focus on a cinematic retelling of one of the key questlines, such as Ranni the Witch, whose story serves as a compelling alternate ending to the game. It'd be an intriguing journey given the bonus characters such as Blaidd the half-wolf, Preceptor Seluvis, and War Counselor Iji in Ranni's orbit.

There's one clearer, already defined route that a more official Elden Ring anime could take: adapting the Road to the Erdtree manga.

But Ranni's story in Elden Ring is just one of the several compelling characters who could benefit from an adaptation, such as Millicent, Fia, and Alexander the Iron Fist. Such is true for any of FromSoftware's games, as plenty of fans would eagerly any streaming service that provides an animated Siegmeyer of Catarina. But there's one clearer, already defined route that a more official Elden Ring anime could take: adapting the Road to the Erdtree manga.

Elden Ring: Road to the Erdtree is a comedic take on most players' experiences starting in the game. The story focuses on Aseo, an especially colorful and unfortunate Tarnished. The series is gorgeously drawn by Nikiichi Tobita, blending a surprising amount of humor into an otherwise perfectly loyal recreation of Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R.R. Martin's world. Should Elden Ring get an anime, this manga would be a stellar choice to win over the fans.

Sources: Steins Alter on YouTube, Elden Ring: Road to the Erdtree on Comic Walker, Parshwa and Xavier on X