Elden Ring Has Achieved A Huge Record
Elden Ring continues to be one of the biggest releases of 2022, and now the game has achieved another massive record in its sales.
Though many regards it as the game of the year (unfortunately, it isn’t), Elden Ring is the best-selling game of 2022. It was released on February 25 this year and sold a staggering number of copies in just six months, increasing Bandai Namco’s profits by 21.5% on a year-over-year basis, with shipments reaching 16.6 million units as of June 2022. This is a massive success for the company and the title itself, which continues to be one of the most successful releases in the past six months.
According to Destructoid, Bandai Namco and FromSoftware have announced that their most recent release, a punishing Souls-like fantasy RPG Elden Ring, has surpassed an incredible 16.6 million sales since its initial launch date. These sales numbers make Elden Ring FromSoftware’s most successful game the studio ever produced, followed by 2016’s Dark Souls 3, which sold a little over 10 million units. If, or better yet, once Elden Ring surpasses 18 million sales, which isn’t so hard to imagine, it will officially outsell all three Dark Souls games combined.
For those that aren’t familiar with Elden Ring, the game launched in February this year on all major gaming platforms except Nintendo Switch, following a very hyped development period. It delivered everything a gaming studio’s crown jewel should — a high-fantasy, high-difficulty gaming experience with very rich lore with massive potential for expansion. The public reception of the game is probably more positive than FromSoftware ever hoped for.
Elden Ring gained critical acclaim soon after its release, as it not only delivered all the gaming goodies explained above it also attracted newcomers to the entire sphere of Souls-like games. The game grants players control of a fully customizable warrior journeying through a dark, open-world setting filled with armed opponents and nightmarish creatures, combined in a fantastic blend of magic and combat.
All gaming releases produced by FromSoftware, and Elden Ring is no exception are notoriously difficult to play and complete. To put things in perspective, Elden Ring sold 16.6 million units, but only 7.6% of gamers managed to complete all in-game achievements. The number of gamers who had completed all the game’s six different endings might be even lower than that. Interestingly enough, the gaming veterans of countless Souls-like in-game encounters even managed to miss one of the most crucial elements of Elden Ring.
What most veteran players missed, and most newcomers haven’t, was the game’s tutorial — placed in the in-game world as an interaction with an NPC character. However, Souls-like games are known to trigger instant deaths of gamers’ characters due to a single misstep. So, gaming veterans, fooled by their own experience, mistook the game’s tutorial for a deadly trap, circumventing it while complaining about the lack thereof.
Considered one of the best-reviewed games ever, Elden Ring also spawned an interesting and colorful gaming community, with players who reached legendary status among the Souls-like veterans for defeating optional bosses alone — that’s how difficult the game can be. Regardless, Elden Ring received 10/10 scores from nearly anyone who had contact with the game, and this praise played no small part in the staggering sales numbers achieved in the past six months or so.
