After almost two years of silence on Elden Ring's release date and gameplay reveal made a dramatic appearance at Thursday's Summer Game Fest 2021 Kickoff Live. The gameplay trailer gave fans a substantial look at the game's open-world landscape, enemies, combat, and story.
According to Summer Game Fest host Geoff Keighley, Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki, made a very deliberate decision to place the anticipated title’s trailer at the end of the show. The reason for this, reports the industry veteran, was two-fold. First, putting the gameplay and release date reveal footage at the close of the showcase would reward Elden Ring fans who had stuck around to watch the show's full, two-hour-long runtime. Of course, this also follows a common gaming conference precedent of ending a show with one last amazing announcement. It seems Miyazaki’s second motivation was to use the excitement for FromSoftware’s title in a "rising tide lifts all boats" manner, theoretically signal-boosting up all the other games shown before Elden Ring.
In an official new Elden Ring feature.
Despite Elden Ring’s familiar look and feel, FromSoftware’s latest game appears to be shaking up the team’s established formula established in Elden Ring with up to three friends online in a way that looks similar to past games' mechanics.
Elden Ring is one of the industries most anticipated titles and, despite the long wait, fans now know the game is slated to release in January 2022. That gives FromSoftware around six months to continue to drop hints about the George R. R. Martin-influenced realm before players can finally get ahold of the game.
Elden Ring will be available for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on January 21, 2021
Source: Elden Ring/Twitter
