Elden Ring Is Smashing An All-Time Record
Good news travel far, so it wouldn’t be that surprising to see Elden Ring surpass Cyberpunk 2077’s record in the following days.
This article is more than 2 years old
Compared to the cinematic industry, which has its own measures of success, like box-office earnings, the gaming industry has to rely upon sales numbers and concurrent gamer counts to measure the game’s success upon its release. Elden Ring, a 2022’s action RPG developed by From Software, is the latest game to set record-high numbers, with nearly one million concurrent players enjoying the game this past weekend.
According to PC Gamer, Elden Ring is setting record-high numbers, with more than 953,000 players enjoying the newly released action RPG in the second weekend after its release. While that doesn’t give a fair estimation of sales/owner numbers or the total number of players across all platforms, the game likely sold several million copies on PC alone, not to mention console releases. Along with the recently released Horizon Forbidden West, which is currently only available on Sony’s PlayStation consoles, Elden Ring has been one of the best-reviewed releases in 2022 and maybe ever.
However, the game isn’t without its issues, especially on the PC. The cloud-save issue which caused numbers of players to lose hours of progress has been addressed, but the frames-per-second lock and glitchy mouse-and-keyboard controls still plague the game. The former is especially frustrating for gamers with monstrously powerful gaming rigs, whose visual experience would be greatly enhanced if the came could run past 60 fps, but the latter is an entirely different problem. In addition, Elden Ring’s PC controls seem poorly designed, and From Software is aware of this — and it’s working on addressing this issue.
Interestingly, the number of record-setting releases has grown more common in recent years, thanks to massive improvements in gaming hardware and really great storytelling. Gaming companies nowadays don’t shy away from employing acclaimed writers to work on their upcoming releases, as is the case with From Software, who employed Game of Thrones’ George R. R. Martin to work on the game’s elements. So it’s quite reasonable as to why the game performs so well on all sales and concurrent player charts.
But what’s even more interesting is the fact that those same releases almost always suffer from errors. Elden Ring has minor graphics issues, most of which were addressed, the aforementioned save issues (also addressed), and the poor PC controls. 2021’s New World had an incredibly high player count, which plummeted due to various issues within the game. Lost Ark had massive server congestions, which could be caused by a huge number of bots. And don’t get us started on Cyberpunk 2077, which had over one million concurrent players upon its release but was so poorly optimized, it nearly sunk its developer.
Luckily, Elden Ring’s current issues only revolve around PC controls, which could be easily circumvented by using Xbox controllers. Those that don’t have access to an Xbox, or any other type of controller, will have to hold out until another patch arrives. But let’s focus on what’s really important here; the massive number of players enjoying Elden Ring, which only attests to the game’s greatness. Good news travel far, so it wouldn’t be that surprising to see Elden Ring surpass Cyberpunk 2077’s record in the following days.
