Tencent is reportedly working on a version of Elden Ring for telephones, according to three Reuters sources.
Tencent Holdings and Sony Interactive Entertainment teamed up in 2022 to acquire almost a third of the shares Elden Ring developer FromSoftware; Tencent owns 16.25% of FromSoftware’s shares, while Sony owns 14.09%. Everything else is owned by FromSoftware parent company Kadokawa Corporation. At the time it made the investment, Tencent did not mention any potential projects, such as one Elden Ring mobile game. Tencent is the largest gaming company in the world. It is both a major player in the vast Chinese gaming market and a huge influence on publishers and developers outside of China, such as League of Legends developer Riot Games, which was acquired by Tencent in 2015.
Elden Ring More than 20 million copies were sold worldwide, making it one of the biggest games of 2022. Legendary game creator Hidetaka Miyazaki directed the game, adding influence and world-building Game of Thrones author George RR Martin. Elden Ring is a fantasy action game set in a vast, beautiful world called the Lands Between. Tencent plans to make Elden Ring “a free-to-play game with in-app purchases” in the style of miHoYo’s Genshin impactaccording to Reuters.
How will Elden Ring fit on a phone screen, connected to microtransactions? That’s not clear. According to Reuters, development is slow Elden Ring‘s mobile version. A few days ago, Reuters reported that Tencent has canceled its mobile game Nier due to issues with the monetization strategy. Tencent has struggled to find a big hit based on existing IP since publication League of Legends: Wild Rift, and as a result, the gaming sector is struggling, according to Reuters. Tencent Chairman Pony Ma said last week that the company feels left behind as competitors develop new, successful games – “leaving us with the feeling of having achieved nothing”, he said.
However, bringing premium games to mobile isn’t unheard of. Last year Capcom posted its Resident Evil 4 remake on phones. Part of the game is free to play, but access to the entire game costs $59.99. Hideo Kojimas Death stranding is also available on iPhones for $19.99. The big difference between these games and a potential Elden Ring postage is the pricing structure; an upfront, higher price tag is what players have come to expect for a premium experience Elden Ring.
Neither Bandai Namco nor Tencent responded to Polygon’s request for comment.