Elden Ring Has Now Outsold the Entire Dark Souls Franchise

FromSoftware titan Elden Ring has now outsold the entire Dark Souls franchise thanks to a sales boost seemingly spurred by expansion Shadow of the Erdtree, though still ahead of spin-off Elden Ring Nightreign launching next year.

Elden Ring publisher Bandai Namco announced the open world role-playing game has now sold 28.6 million units, up 3.6 million from the 25 million revealed in June. And as pointed out by @ZhugeEX on X/Twitter, this means its outsold the Dark Souls series’ 27 million.

FromSoftware launched Elden Ring in February 2022, meaning its reached the impressive 28.6 million sales figure in two years and ten months. Dark Souls, meanwhile, arrived in 2011 with follow-ups Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3 arriving in 2014 and 2016 respectively.

Elden Ring enjoyed the lessons learned from the beloved Dark Souls series, of course, and also marked FromSoftware’s first foray into the more accessible open world formula. Players struggling with a challenging boss could step away and spend time on weaker enemies, for example, so Elden Ring gained more mainstream appeal.

The franchise is only growing too, as FromSoftware has just announced co-op spin-off Elden Ring Nightreign, in which up to three players are dropped into a condensed version of Limgrave from the main Elden Ring and simply tasked with surviving. Enemies and structures are procedurally generated to allow for a varied experience, with players encouraged to battle to grow stronger and survive the night, when a boss appears.

Surviving three days and nights spawns a major boss for players to take down, and the game has eight in total for players to conquer. IGN has already played the game and you can read our impressions here. And be sure to read our big interview with Elden Ring Nightreign’s game director for an even deeper dive.

Elden Ring Nightreign could even boost the Dark Souls franchise itself, as it’s already confirmed to feature bosses from the iconic series and potentially other FromSoftware titles.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.