Elden Ring Fans Are Building Their Own Take on From Software's Next Game

It's been over a year since we first laid eyes on the announcement trailer for Elden Ring, From Software's next soul-crushing adventure, and we haven't heard a peep since. Fans of the game have gotten tired of waiting and have built their own playable demo of what they want to see in the game. The real game will arrive in January, as we learned in the Elden Ring release date trailer.

"With all the great fake lore content and creative concepts that has been posted here the last [few] weeks I thought about working on a nice game for this community," wrote Redditor SpriteBlood in a post on the Elden Ring subreddit last month. "I read about that idea several times now and I am myself highly involved in this hype."

That post, along with a flood of users making up fake lore for the Elden Ring world, kickstarted a process that led to a playable demo. Fans of the upcoming game have contributed music, voice acting, sound design, and other elements to the development process for a playable demo. You can see it in action in the video below.

Originally reported by USGamer, these fans have gathered in a Discord server to hash out gameplay details and other design elements. They have dedicated channels for lore and script writing, concept art, and other details. Fans can contribute as much as they're able to.

The community isn't sure what they'll do once actual details about Elden Ring are released. They can't use the same name as From Software or they might run into legal trouble. They could rename their project and keep development going--they already have a solid chunk of development done that could lead to something special if they stick with it.

We don't know much of anything about Elden Ring outside the fact that Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin is helping build the world and lore. The Action RPG, which is From Software's "biggest" title yet, has been in development since Dark Souls 3's DLC wrapped up but we still don't have a release window.