Elden Ring Just Slayed The Entire Dark Souls Franchise In This Key Metric

FromSoftware’s Elden Ring isn’t just racking up yearly game awards for the company, it’s also hauling in serious cash with impressive sales numbers. Bandai Namco, the game’s publisher, has announced that Elden Ring has sold 28.6 million copies as of September 2024. With a fresh surge in sales thanks to the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC that launched earlier this year, which managed to make the cut at The Game Awards as a nominee for game of the year.

These numbers are enough to surpass the sales total of the entire Dark Souls series. According to a post by industry analyst Daniel Ahmad, @ZhugeEX on social media platform X, this series has sold 27 million copies to date. These sales numbers have been over the course of three different titles that began back in 2012.

So it should be no surprise that Bandai Namco wants to keep the Elden Ring party going. One of the biggest surprise announcements at The Game Awards was the debut of Elden Ring Nightrein, which is scheduled to be released sometime in 2025. This new entry into the franchise will allow gamers to come together in a co-op adventure as they traverse an ever-changing world and confront deadly bosses at the end of each day. With the ultimate goal of defeating the Nightlord.

However, the future of FromSoftware and Elden Ring is still up in the air. Sony is apparently in talks with Kadokawa, Bandai Namco’s parent company, about a possible acquisition. This could potentially lead to future Elden Ring entries becoming exclusive to PlayStation hardware. Although these sales numbers might play a role in ensuring that this franchise remains multiplatform as Sony will look to recoup the money it’s going to spend in acquiring Kadokawa.