Elden Ring was released on February 25 this year and, just under six months later, publisher Bandai Namco has announced it's sold a staggering 16.6 million copies of the game. This makes it by far the biggest individual success in developer FromSoftware's history: the Dark Souls series has sold a combined total of around 27 million, while the most recent figure for Sekiro was 5 million copies sold as of summer 2020.
Clearly the mass market loves some demigod runes and a bit of body grafting. The news came as part of Bandai Namco's financial results (thanks, Gamebiz.jp) for the first financial quarter of 2023 (meaning April through June 2022), which show that the Japanese giant is in rude health: it reported videogame sales totalling ¥40.5 billion yen, a roughly 55% year-on-year increase, with 11,444,000 units sold over these three months.
Despite such sales, the publisher forecasts an overall drop in profit over this financial year. This is explained by both ongoing development investments and the lack of 'big' game launches it has over this time. Though, if Elden Ring continues to sell like this, the final picture may be a lot rosier. Investors certainly seem to think so, with the publisher's stock having risen to and held its highest-ever level (¥11,200 a share) since these results were published.
Sadly, the dry-as-dust numbers report didn't contain anything more juicy like, I don't know, a hint about the inevitable Elden Ring DLC. The game may be enormous but folk are slavering at the chops for a bit more of that Lands Between goodness: to the extent we've even seen a few fake 'leaks' of DLC titles and logo art. FromSoftware has developed some of the best DLC I've ever had the privilege to play (hello, The Old Hunters) and, with 17-odd million players and counting, the question with Elden Ring DLC is not if, but when.
