Elden Ring is a huge task for both From Software and Kadokawa Games, who is bankrolling the operation: and it might not see the light of day for another year, at least.
So it’s important to build the framework of the story here so you aren’t asking “what does Kadokawa Games have to do with Elden Ring?! Well, From Software, of Souls fame, is owned by the Kadokawa Corporation, who also specializes in anime, manga, and many other cross-media projects. They are at the beck and call of their parent company, which includes financial allocations and directives.
Based on their latest financials, it’s clear that in a fiduciary sense, games are not a huge focus for Kadokawa (based on their latest breakdown, it’s the smallest division they have in terms of net sales when accounting for their publication, video, web service, and even “other” arms), and the pandemic has impacted the company heavily. The document indicates that Elden Ring will likely miss this fiscal year (throughout early 2022), indicating that it might not actually come out until mid-to-late 2022 at the earliest.
Interestingly, Kadokawa stresses that there is a “decelerated demand for repeating former works” in their games division, and cites “delayed development of new works” for gaming specifically. It’s kind of a Catch-22! They want to focus on new stuff, but it’ll have to wait. Elden Ring is also extremely ambitious, as Kadokawa calls it “From Software’s biggest title yet in terms of sheer volume.”
One of the few things we do know about Elden Ring is that it exists, and the head of the Xbox division has “played quite a bit of it.” To put things into perspective, Elden Ring was vaguely shown off at E3 2019 to a roaring response, and we haven’t heard much of it since.
So just like a typical George RR Martin project!
Kadokawa Investor Relations [Kadokawa] [Thanks Jeff!]
Source: Destructoid Elden Ring might not come out until mid-to-late 2022