Elden Ring World-Builder George RR Martin Thinks It's A Dark Souls Sequel

A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin, whose book series was turned into HBO's Game of Thrones, also helped to build the world of Elden Ring and create some of its characters. However, during an interview with Chicago news network WTTW, Martin seems to misrepresent the game as a sequel to Dark Souls. It seems even the people who make From Software's games don't completely understand them.

After being asked how working on a video game was different for him, Martin said, "Well, it actually is considerably different. I've played some video games. I'm not a big video gamer. But the game is called The Elden Ring, and it's a sequel to a video game that came out a few years ago called Dark Souls, and it came out of Japan."

While it would be interesting if Elden Ring were a sequel to Dark Souls, that is likely not the case. Later on in the same interview, Martin spoke about his work on the game specifically, saying that he was brought in to build the game's world. "My work on it [Elden Ring] was actually done years ago," said Martin. "These games, they're like movies, they take a long time to develop. Basically they wanted a world created to set the game in, they wanted worldbuilding."

While we don't currently know what inspirations Martin took while designing the world of Elden Ring, it's incredibly unlikely that he would base it on the previous Dark Souls titles. Instead, since he was left to his own devices, it's more likely that he made a wholly original world for the game. Elden Ring will differ from Dark Souls in terms of gameplay at least, with director Hidetaka Miyazaki saying it would build on Dark Souls' mechanics.

Elden Ring was revealed during the Summer Game Fest and is currently slated to release on January 21, 2022 on PC, PS4, Xbox One, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. A free upgrade will be available for PlayStation players while Xbox users will benefit from Smart Delivery support for the game. While much of its gameplay is still a mystery, we do know that players will be able to explore the world of Elden Ring either alone or with others in jolly cooperation.