Elden Ring breaks Dark Souls franchise record!

We see more and more games succeed and others fail, and honestly, even though some mistakes are obvious, it's hard to know what will work out nowadays, or not. With that in mind, it's worth noting that, despite having many ups and downs, the industry still has games that surpass entire franchise sales records, as is the case with Elden Ring from FromSoftware, which managed to surpass the sales number of the Dark Souls franchise, also from FromSoftware!

The publisher of Elden Ring, Bandai, announced that the open-world RPG has already sold 28.6 million units, an increase of 3.6 million compared to the 25 million revealed in June. And as pointed out by @ZhugeEX on X, this means it has sold more than the 27 million from the Dark Souls series.

The point is not about the sales themselves, since it's a wonderful game and that can't be denied. The point is really the time it took for this number to be achieved by Elden Ring, which was released in 2022, and by 2024 had its first DLC, having sold just over 28 million in just 2 years. Meanwhile, the Dark Souls franchise started back in 2011 and its sequels in 2014 and 2016, totaling 13 years.

Elden Ring took advantage of the lessons learned from the beloved Dark Souls series, of course, and also marked FromSoftware's first foray into a more accessible open-world formula. Players struggling with a challenging boss could step back and spend time on weaker enemies, for example, so Elden Ring gained more popular appeal.

I'm glad that FromSoftware is using everything it has learned more and more, and now with a Elden Ring spin-off coming for players who have been wanting a cooperative mode, this number should continue to grow, with new players entering the genre!