One for the Dark Souls 2 sickos.
Yesterday saw a fairly hefty Nintendo Direct focused on Switch 2 that, among other things, featured the reveal of a new FromSoftware exclusive that looks awfully like a spiritual sequel to Bloodborne. Not that I’m bitter.
Among the other reveals was the announcement of Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition for the new console. This bundles together Elden Ring and its excellent DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, but also adds some extras.
“New features in Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition include four new armor pieces and the ability to change the appearance of the spirit horse Torrent (3 types in total),” reads a post from the FromSoftware X account. “We hope you will take this opportunity to get your hands on it.”
A note then adds that “this element [the new stuff] is also planned to be available as a download on other platforms.” Some machine translations indicate that it will be “sold” but this seems to be an error, and if Bandai Namco actually do sell Elden Ring horse armour it deserves the reaction it’ll get. The only other curiosity is a reference to “new functions” in another FromSoftware post, though that could mean anything from gyro aiming to new menu options.
The Dark Souls 2 sickos will note that one of the new armour sets is a clear reference to the character Lucatiel, and the Mirrah Greatsword can also be seen. The latter will obviously be renamed (no knights of Mirrah in the Lands Between) but suggests that extra weapons will also be a part of this update.
Another little nugget on the Tarnished Edition’s official page says that Elden Ring has now sold over 28 million copies. It was sitting at 25 million in June last year around Shadow of the Erdtree’s release, so another three million in nine months for a game that was released in February 2022 will do very nicely. It’s almost like the secret to AAA success is making a really good game.
Shadow of the Erdtree really was peak FromSoftware, and a reminder of just how good the developer has gotten at its own RPG formula. That’s probably why the immediate future for the series is taking a very different approach, with Elden Ring: Nightreign more of a co-op roguelike built for people whose favourite thing about FromSoftware games is hitting huge monsters with gigantic swords.
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