Elden Ring game trailer delivers on George R.R. Martin hype

At this point, it would seem that Geoff Keighley and Elden Ring are eternally linked (or at least linked until the game comes out next year). For what surely felt like years, Keighley was badgered by the Souls lovers of the world for an Elden Ring reveal, and then earlier this year, he was finally able to deliver it during his Summer Game Fest event. Keighley isn’t done with bringing us new Elden Ring trailers, as The Game Awards served up another one that Souls fans will want to check out.

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While previous trailers have focused chiefly on Elden Ring‘s open world, this new trailer focuses on the game’s story. The trailer is somewhat cryptic, but it effectively sets the stage for the game nonetheless. It mostly seems to give us the story so far, detailing a war between demigods sparked when an item called the Rune of Death was stolen.

Image credit: Bandai Namco

Toward the end of the trailer, we hear that the characters of Elden Ring have “inhabited a fractured world” since that war, with the suggestion that the player can change things. Going into this trailer, we knew that the Elden Ring had been broken, and its shards – known as Great Runes – had fallen into the hands of the demigods, who then went to war with one another. Players will collect these Runes as they play in an attempt to restore the Elden Ring and become an Elden Lord.

The truth is that large parts of this story will probably remain cryptic until the game is out and we can make better sense of all of these pre-release teases, but as story trailers go, this one is pretty compelling. For starters, it looks beautiful, and though we don’t get to see any gameplay, the aesthetic is definitely enough to pull any Souls fan in.

The story will hopefully be a good one as well, as it was crafted by Hidetaka Miyazaki – the mastermind behind the Souls series, including Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice – and A Song of Ice and Fire writer George R.R. Martin, who assisted in worldbuilding. That’s a pretty potent pair when it comes to fantasy writing, and given what we’ve seen so far, all the promise and potential of the creators of these historic pieces of media will very likely deliver with Elden Ring.

Thankfully, this trailer debuted with no word of a changing release date. Originally slated to release on January 21st, 2022, Elden Ring was eventually delayed to February 25th, 2022 – a release date that’s still sticking as of this latest update. Here’s hoping that the February 25th date is the one that sticks for good because there is a ton of anticipation riding behind this release.