From Software raised a proverbial money dragon with the Elden Ring and the Soulslike concept.
Crazy makes you crazy, hardcore is mainstream, soulslikes hit the soul of the players: In recent years it has been observed again and again how former niche titles suddenly make a big breakthrough. Or even an entire genre.
From Software achieved both feats with Soulslikes and Elden Ring – thanks to changing tastes, a great open world and an overall excellent game, as we judged in the test:
Only now, almost exactly a year after the release, reveals developers From Software the exact sales figures of your game. Elden Ring went altogether over 20 million times via worldwide shop counters!
This fits in well with the pure Steam player numbers, which at peak times almost passed the million simultaneously active users.
The recently published sales figures refer to all platforms on which Elden Ring was released, i.e. last- and current-gen PlayStation and Xbox as well as PC via Steam. If you want to know why we think this success is justified, watch our test video:
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From Software outdoes itself with Elden Ring – Test/Review
Still small in comparison
It may read strangely, but in the face of the most successful video games of all time, Elden Ring is also far behind the top 25 with 20 million units sold.
To classify in which weight class the Soulslike boxes compared to the biggest blockbusters in history (via Statesman):
- perennial favourite The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim has since sold 30 million copies.
- RPG masterpiece The Witcher 3 made exactly twice as many sales as Elden Ring with 40 million.
- Indie-Hit Terraria sold 44.5 million copies.
- Gangster-Epos GTA 5 is in second place with 175 million units sold.
- cultural phenomenon Minecraft tops the list with 238 million – by a wide margin.
Still, crappy statistics can hardly belittle the huge success of Elden Ring for developer From Software and publisher Bandai Namco. At least it shows that the Soulslike concept has matured over the years like good wine. This certainly represents a promising basis for further future successes by the Japanese developer.
