Publisher of Elden Ring and Dark Souls, Bandai Namco, has reached out to American fantasy author Brandon Sanderson about a collaboration potentially happening in the future, he has revealed.
During a live stream this week, the author, best known for the Mistborn and Stormlight Archive fantasy novels, unboxed a package he has received from Bandai Namco.
The video shows the author receiving a large Elden Ring package which, upon opening, contained a sword, cloak and various other bits of merchandise based on the From Software game. The package also came with a note from Bandai Namco themselves.
“They are interested in perhaps doing something together, is what that says,” Sanderson said on the stream. “I am as well, actually. This is how I roll: I actually have a pitch for them in the back of my head… so I may have to send them my pitch and see what they think.”
The author also went on to say that he has already thought up a pitch for a Souls-like game.
“I always have a pitch for everything. That’s the thing. Like, ‘if I were ever going to do a Soulsborne game, what would I do?’ You guys know what happened when I thought, ‘I wondered what I would do if I ever wrote a Magic: The Gathering story?’
“I spent four years developing a Magic: The Gathering story so that when Magic contacted me and said, ‘hey, do you want to write a story?’ I could say, ‘yes, I already have one, and I will write it!” And I did.
“The same way, I’ve been thinking, ‘what would I do if I did a Soulsborne sort of game?’ Obviously, I don’t get to decide that, right? But I have it in the back of my head, so maybe you guys will hear something from me. I have some ideas… I always have ideas.”
Elden Ring is a collaboration with fantasy author George R.R. Martin, which Sanderson has previously argued during a live stream earlier this year that he should have been the one to have written it over Martin.
“Most of [these requests] go to the agent these days, but sometimes they pop up for me, but let me be salty,” he said.
“From Software decides to make a fantasy game and partner with a fantasy novelist, right?
“And they choose someone who spends his days blogging about the NFL, rather than the person who has played their games since King’s Field, and has listed their games among his top 10 consistently over time? What are you thinking, people?
“If you don’t know, they went to George, and made a game with George, and I’m like, George doesn’t play video games. George has no idea. So anyway, there you go.”
Sanderson, whose critically acclaimed Mistborn novels received a Fortnite crossover in May 2021, potentially one of the biggest games out there today.
It will be interesting to see what both Bandai Namco and Brandon Sanderson will come up with in the future.
