The internet sphere has been abuzz with rumours of an Elden Ring smartphone game being in development.
So, to separate the wheat from the chaff, we have the whole situation explained with who is making it and whether we can ever hope (or not) to see it.
According to Statista, Elden Ring sold over 20 million copies, leaving little doubt regarding its popularity – which is only set to grow with the upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree DLC – so perhaps such a project reportedly being developed shouldn’t come as a huge surprise.
Still, FromSoftware has never strayed from the traditional model of a full-price game with accompanying expansion packs and DLCs, so this news has certainly raised many eyebrows.
Read on, though, for the full scoop!
Why are people talking about an ‘Elden Ring’ smartphone game?
The possibility of an Elden Ring smartphone game has been doing the rounds due to a report from Reuters that purports that gaming conglomerate Tencent has such a project in the works, according to “three people familiar with the matter”, as it seeks to capitalise on older IPs.
The report states that Tencent “acquired the licensing rights for the game by FromSoftware in 2022 and set up a team of a few dozen people to work on a prototype” when the company purchased a 16 per cent stake in FromSoftware.
Though Elden Ring was a premium triple-A game with a price that reflects it, Tencent hopes to “make it a free-to-play game with in-app purchases, similar to the hit game Genshin Impact developed by its Chinese rival miHoYo”.
Reuters reached out to Tencent and FromSoftware but did not receive a response, and says that its sources refused to be named as they were not allowed to talk to the press about this issue.
Radio Times also reached out to both companies. While it hasn’t heard back from FromSoftware yet, a spokesperson for Tencent said: “We don’t comment on speculation and rumours.”
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Will there really be an ‘Elden Ring’ mobile game?
It certainly seems like there may be, but it’s not as cut-and-dry as you might think.
It is also reported in the Reuters article that Tencent purportedly tried to bring the Nier series to smartphones, but ultimately halted the project due to “monetisation concerns”.
This is against the wider context that Tencent is reported to have grown hesitant to develop mobile games based on existent IPs, owing to a plateau in gaming revenue growth and that a “hefty royalty fee can leave a game barely profitable”.
Despite Tencent purchasing the rights in 2022, and the fact that work began on an early version of the purported title right away, the anonymous sources said that “progress has been slow”.
But as Reuters also points out, Tencent chairman Pony Ma believes the “company’s video games business faces great challenges” in another article. So who can say what the future will hold?
The upcoming Elden Ring Erdtree DLC is coming (from the game’s original developers and on the original platforms) which could be a great opportunity for a companion game to drop alongside it.
But if development is dragging and costs are mounting, it may already be a foregone conclusion that the mobile game will never see the light of day.
While your guess is as good as ours, after factoring in the available information, we’re leaning towards not believing that the Elden Ring mobile game will actually happen… for now. However, we have been wrong before!
This story first appeared on www.radiotimes.com
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