Current Events > GRRM's time working on Elden Ring ended years ago

(+) Yeah! (+)

Video games unsurprisingly take a long time to create, and the process unfolds in different ways for every game. Elden Ring is like every other game in this respect, but its been under a microscope this week, in part because of the excitement from its fanbase, but also because we havent heard much about it in quite a while. Following the premiere of the new trailer at Summer Game Fest, the silence of a key creative mind on the project has been broken. That person, of course, is famed novelist and creator of the A Song of Ice and Fire series George R. R. Martin.

Martin was being recognized this week with an honorary doctorate awarded from his alma mater, Northwesterns Medill School of Journalism. During an interview about his life and career with Chicago PBS affiliate WTTW, Martins foray into game development was brought up. He spoke briefly on when he was part of the Elden Ring project. My work on it was actually done years ago. These games, theyre like movies. They take a long time to develop, says Martin.

Basically, they wanted a world created to set the game in. They wanted world building; as a big factor in fantasy and science fiction. And youre not only talking the characters and the plot, but the setting is almost as important as everything else, Martin says, then lists famous fantasy worlds such as J.R.R. Tolkiens Middle Earth. He continues about his development time on Elden Ring, I worked up a fairly detailed background for them, and then they took it from there.

It sounds like Martin has been hands-off the project since. He wraps up on Elden Ring and his time working alongside From Software with this: Its been several years since Ive last seen them, but they would come in periodically and show me some monsters they designed, or the latest special effects and cool things. But the game has been slowly developing and now its coming out in January, I believe, so Ill be as excited as anybody else to see it.

While the Game of Thrones creator isnt personally writing all of the juicy lore-full item descriptions himself, his early work on developing the setting and history of Elden Rings The Lands Between will echo certainly through the game.

https://www.gameinformer.com/2021/06/18/george-r-r-martins-time-working-on-elden-ring-ended-years-ago

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GRRM: Iunno, maybe like there's monsters in a cave or something

From Soft: Okay, thanks. Bye.

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wait did people think he was actually making the game?

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Well yeah he wrote the store/lore and From designed the gameplay/levels around it.

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SocialistGamer posted...

Well yeah he wrote the store/lore and From designed the gameplay/levels around it.

he didn't write the story

because it sounds like it's the same story as the dark souls games just with nouns changed

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george's time on asoiaf also ended years ago

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Freddie_Mercury posted...

george's time on asoiaf also ended years ago

Sad but true.

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Freddie_Mercury posted...

george's time on asoiaf also ended years ago

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DarthAragorn posted...

he didn't write the story

because it sounds like it's the same story as the dark souls games just with nouns changed

tbqh, I'd say calling anything in the Dark Souls games a story is a stretch. Just lots of lore and worldbuilding.

His involvement seems like publicity/marketing driven, nothing more. He was probably handed the completed story, which he returned to the developers later with some notes attached.

Source: my ass.
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moh82sy posted...

His involvement seems like publicity/marketing driven, nothing more. He was probably handed the completed story, which he returned to the developers later with some notes attached.

Source: my ass.

Nah it's probably legit, he actually has a long history of doing things like this.

this guy doesn't care lol

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Reminds me of when people thought Hayao Miyazaki himself was in charge of Ni No Kuni.

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Hayame Zero posted...

Reminds me of when people thought Hayao Miyazaki himself was in charge of Ni No Kuni.

Also Akira Toriyama and Dragon Quest

I wasn't aware anyone thought he did anything more than write the background of the world... something he is extremely good at and what was a huge factor in ASoIaF's success.

People were excited because that has been something largely lacking in most Dark Souls games, which focus more on atmosphere and gameplay than the depth of the story.