What you need to know
- FromSoftware's 2022 Game of the Year-winning fantasy ARPG Elden Ring was explosively popular when it launched on Xbox, PC, and other platforms that year, dominating industry conversation for months.
- It also sold an astounding 12 million copies in just a few weeks, and moved an additional 1.4 million units by the end of March 2022.
- Now, a little over a week before its highly anticipated Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is scheduled to release, it's hit 25 million copies sold.
- The news was announced on the official Elden Ring X (Twitter) account with a statement: "We have come a long way together. We are ever thankful for your passion and support."
FromSoftware's ARPG fantasy epic Elden Ring absolutely blew up when it first released on Xbox, Windows PC, and other platforms back in February 2022, with the game launching to widespread critical acclaim and quickly becoming a global phenomenon. For months, it seemed as if all anyone could talk about was its amazing open world and boss fights, and all that hype was reflected in its sales; Elden Ring famously sold 12 million copies in just a few weeks, and moved another 1.4 million units by the end of March that year.
Now, over two years later, FromSoftware is gearing up to release its long-awaited Shadow of the Erdtree DLC for Elden Ring on June 21 — and once again, the game has hit a monumental sales milestone as excitement for the expansion reaches a fever pitch. Specifically, Elden Ring has now sold over 25 million copies, which is more than double the sales the game had a couple of weeks post-launch.
The news was revealed in a post from the developers on the official Elden Ring X (Twitter) account, with the announcement accompanied by a statement: "We have come a long way together. We are ever thankful for your passion and support." You can see the post below:
We have come a long way together.We are ever thankful for your passion and support.#ELDENRING pic.twitter.com/EzqSs69QpPJune 12, 2024
To give you an idea of just how wildly successful Elden Ring is compared to FromSoftware's previous games, 2016's Dark Souls 3 reached over 10 million copies sold in 2020, with the series as a whole hitting 27 million sales at the same time. That means that in roughly two years, Elden Ring has sold nearly as many copies as three Dark Souls games did in nine.
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While the game has always been a popular pickup, some of its continued success in 2024 can undoubtedly be attributed to the upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree expansion; Elden Ring has been climbing up Steam's Top Sellers chart for several weeks now, to the point where it's currently the second-most sold game on the platform (Shadow of the Erdtree itself is in seventh). The only one beating it is Destiny 2, which at base is free-to-play and is currently in the middle of its excellent The Final Shape DLC.
With mere days left until Shadow of the Erdtree, newcomers swept up by the buzz for the DLC are likely jumping in now so they can experience everything the Game of the Year-winning RPG has to offer while also getting their Elden Ring character ready for the expansion. Note that you'll need to complete certain in-game objectives to actually start Shadow of the Erdtree, so make sure you know how to access Elden Ring's DLC before it drops on June 21.
Elden Ring is, without a doubt, one of the best (if not the best) games I've ever played, so it's awesome to see it continuing to be crazy successful and hit impressive sales milestones. Depending on how big Shadow of the Erdtree is (it's expected to be very big) and how well it reviews, maybe the hype for it will push the game to 30 million sales. Who knows?
Elden Ring is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games of all time, and I strongly recommend picking it up and beginning a playthrough now if you haven't done one already. That way, you'll have some time to experience what 2022's Game of the Year has to offer before the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC launches on June 21. Notably, the expansion is available to preorder on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and Windows PC now, and there's even a Collector's Edition with several awesome collectibles included.
