Steamforged has recently announced a board game based on FromSoftware's Elden Ring. The company's publishing history hints at what it may look like.
Video games often use board games as a basis for their functionality. They use them for inspiration, such as with Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, or directly adapt them, like the digital versions of Wingspan and Catan. However, the rarer gem is the video game that is adapted into a board game. Steamforged Games, however, has already produced multiple board games based on well-known video games -- and it has a game based on Elden Ring on the way. Though exciting, this adaptation direction is largely unprecedented, and fans may be rightly nervous about whether the game can be reliably adapted.
Some companies have managed it. Stardew Valley, for instance, brought the farming sim to the tabletop in a brilliantly complex co-op resource management/engine-building game. Other publishers are picking up on the trend, too, taking TTRPG-inspired approaches to rules-heavy board games based on video games. Elden Ring itself is uproariously complex, and putting it in board game form will undoubtedly carry with it many difficulties. Thankfully, by looking at some similar games and Steamforged's own catalog, fans can make an educated guess as to what the game will look like once it's on their tables.
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Fans can rest assured that their favorite game is in good hands. Steamforged created the critically acclaimed Godtear, which, like Elden Ring, is a combat-focused game wherein players attack the opposing group in a relentless, power-driven attempt to rout other players using strategy and special abilities. What's more, every move and decision on the battlefield translates as it relates to the lore of the game, meaning that, even though the game is not a TTRPG, it is an RPG that's played on a tabletop.
This marriage of combat and lore is no doubt the major impetus for why FromSoftware decided to trust Steamforged to create a board game based upon their wildly popular and notoriously difficult Dark Souls franchise. Much like Godtear, players select a class and fight their way to glory with careful strategy, but there is the added element of exploration à la Dark Souls' original digital objectives. It's reasonable to assume that this will transfer over to Elden Ring, especially in terms of the complex class system that allows the board game to feel very much like the original game. This is to say nothing of the game's integrated AI component for boss battles.
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Naturally, there are many elements that should serve to differentiate the Elden Ring and Dark Souls board games. The lore of the worlds is deeply different, of course, but the games themselves are drastically different as well. For example, where Dark Souls is largely linear, Elden Ring has an open world. As a result, the Elden Ring board game could take a cue from the likes of engine-building games, allowing players various objectives and greater freedom while letting them use the objects and lore of the game to make themselves more powerful. The developers may also take cues from Resident Evil 3, another video game adaptation Steamforged took on. The game uses open-world styling and co-op gameplay to make it feel much more like survival horror than a combat simulator.
There is a great deal that goes into making a board game unique, and based on Steamforged's catalog, Elden Ring's will undoubtedly be distinct. Thankfully, for fans looking for indications as to what the series may look like, there is a great deal of guidance offered by Steamforged's previous publications. Regardless of what may come, fans will and should be excited about the board game version of Elden Ring.
Benjamin Bishop is a freelance writer for CBR and a linguist. He worked in literary criticism and focuses on the intersections of linguistics and popular culture. He strongly identifies with Pokémon, the Muppets, and any book he manages to get his hands on.
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