Despite George R.R. Martin’s involvement with Elden Ring, the author revealed he has not played FromSoftware’s latest epic for himself. Appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which was spotted by GamesRadar, Martin explained why.
“I have not played it because people seem to want this Winds of Winters book,” Martin said. “And I have, unfortunately, a totally addictive personality. I did play video games a long, long time ago. I played games like Railroad Tycoon, and Master of Orion, and Homeworld and I would get sucked into it, and weeks, months would go by and I’d be sitting there in my red flannel bathrobe just like, ‘one more game, one more game,’ and [finally I went], ‘I can’t, I gotta go cold turkey on this, this is gonna kill me here.'”
Martin went on to praise the team at FromSoftware, calling Elden Ring “the most beautiful game I have ever seen. It’s really amazing, and amazingly detailed, and the people who play it love it and I’m very gratified to have been a part of it.”
In the same interview with Colbert, Martin said that The Winds of Winter could be over 1500 pages long, and that he’s about three quarters of the way done writing it. The penultimate entry of A Song of Ice and Fire is certainly keeping Martin very busy, along with other projects like HBO’s House of the Dragon.
Martin’s involvement with Elden Ring was announced back at E3 2019, alongside the game’s reveal. He was key to the foundation of the story, the game’s bosses, and much of the overall worldbuilding. Because so much of his work was one at the conceptual level, Martin’s involvement with the project was actually completed years ago. Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki said he placed some restraints on Martin’s contributions, ensuring that the story always served the player experience.
And even though the writer hasn’t sat down to play Elden Ring, he’s seemed very happy with the experience overall. When the game was released, Martin said he was very happy with the reviews. He has also previously called the opportunity to work on Elden Ring “too exciting to refuse”.
Both FromSoftware and Martin should be very happy with how Elden Ring turned out. The game has dominated the conversation in 2022, earning a perfect score in our review, smashing sales milestones, and setting internet records.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
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