Elden Ring Gameplay Trailer Reveals January 21 Release Date, Game Has Free New-Gen Upgrade

At long last, we finally have a gameplay trailer for Elden Ring, and it's actually even better than we anticipated. After being quiet about the game for two years, publisher Bandai Namco and developer FromSoftware released a new Elden Ring video as part of the Summer Game Fest Kickoff show. The trailer caps everything off with another surprise: Elden Ring will launch on January 21. Yes, Elden Ring is coming sooner than just about any of us expected. And if you thought this would feature the same exact type of combat as Dark Souls, you were very wrong.

The trailer featured much more acrobatic abilities than we're used to in the Souls series or Bloodborne, with characters leaping up into the air and slamming down their swords to deal massive damage. There will be a mix of sword, magic, and gadgets as we saw in Sekiro, but the huge bosses seem to harken more to From's earlier games than the duel-like bosses in its latest title. One boss appeared to be made up of multiple corpses, which is a FromSoftware trope that seems to make its way into nearly every game the studio touches.

There will also be mounted combat, which we haven't seen from the studio's other games, and FromSoftware previously said it will have a more open structure than its past games--but the walking pots and other grotesque beings make it very clear this is still From at heart.

It appears there will also be more cooperative elements than in past From Software games, though it's unclear if this will just take the spirit-based form we're familiar with or something more substantial. (A press release mentions traversing the world "alone or online with friends." It will also feature stealth elements, and "seamlessly" connected dungeons to explore.

It was unclear in advance of E3 whether the game would be making any sort of appearance. Publisher Bandai Namco's E3 showcase is scheduled for Tuesday, June 15, but it's made no promises about what we'll see there--be it Elden Ring or otherwise. That a new Elden Ring teaser has emerged is an exciting development, as Bandai Namco and From have been exceedingly quiet about the project since it was first revealed back at E3 2019. Leaked videos did make their way online earlier this year, but they were very low quality and said to be from older versions that were no longer representative of the game.

Elden Ring represents a collaboration between From Software and A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones creator George RR Martin, who consulted with From on the game's lore. Xbox boss Phil Spencer told us last year that he had already been playing Elden Ring, describing it as director Hidetaka Miyazaki's "most ambitious game." It's set for release on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. A free upgrade will be available for PS4 players to the PS5 version, while the Xbox versions will offer Smart Delivery support. For more, check out our Elden Ring preorder guide.