George R. R. Martin has not yet played Elden Ring: "people seem to want this Winds Of Winter book"

George R. R. Martin, the very author of Elden Ring's backstory hasn't even been able to play it yet. The reason? That pending book that is so popular among A Song of Ice and Fire lovers: "I have not played it because people seem to want this Winds Of Winter book," he said with a laugh on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS.

How did George R. R. Martin contribute to Elden Ring?

We knew that the popular American writer had been involved in shaping the backstory of the Elden Ring universe, but we had never heard it in such detail from his own mouth. Martin explains that he had conversations with From Software to find out exactly what they wanted from him: " made it clear that Elden Ring was gonna take place in, let’s say, the present of their universe. But, what they wanted me to write was what happened 5,000 years before that."

Martin reveals that it was those events that “totally screwed up the world" we see when playing Elden Ring. "So, I went back and wrote a history," he notes. He stresses that the bulk of his work was making decisions about where characters were, who killed others, and what powers they had. "It's the most beautiful game I’ve ever seen. I’m very gratified to have been a part of it.," he concludes.

Elden Ring, one of the decade's biggest hits

The Dark Souls phenomenon goes back a long way: the cult generated around Demon's Souls several years after its release, the explosion of the first Dark Souls and its establishment as a franchise, titles outside the license but with the nature of "close relatives" such as Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice... From Software has created a genre in itself, which many developers call soulslike.

And then there is Elden Ring, the open-world game by Hidetaka Miyazaki, whose ambition seems to have no ceiling. A commercial monster that has smashed records and that several months after its release continues to generate all kinds of content around it: mods, curiosities and mysteries, legends such as Let Me Solo Her... What will be next for the Japanese creative?

Elden Ring hit stores last February 25 and is available on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.

Source | Rock Paper Shotgun