There must be something in the water in Hollywood with all of the video game adaptations in recent years. Minecraft was a smash hit propelled by memes, evidently proving to be enough of one to raise the eyebrows of serious distributors like A24. Per an announcement from Bandai Namco, the publisher of critically acclaimed open-world RPG Elden Ring, an adaptation of that game is in development by Civil War's Alex Garland.
Like Minecraft before it, Elden Ring doesn't lend itself especially well to an adaptation on first blush. As is From Software's wont, the story is loose and disconnected, and the player is left to put the pieces of it together – sometimes literally. With the game's extensive background lore penned by George R.R. Martin of "never finishing Winds of Winter" fame, however, it seems far more likely that any adaptation will turn to the setting's fictional history instead of trying to translate the experience of actually playing it.
Were I a betting man, I'd wager that Garland's film will focus on the events leading up to the Shattering of the titular Elden Ring, which was an explosive endpoint to familial and political tensions brewing within the family of demigods that ruled the Lands Between prior to them falling from grace and then getting promptly slaughtered by the player character. There are plenty of colorful characters to choose from, lots of potential for Game of Thrones-esque intrigue – and Garland has even worked in games before, so at the very least, he understands them as a medium. I'm cautiously excited for this one – at least more so than the weird multiplayer-only spinoff dropping later this month.
