Elden Ring

About

As of 2026, it's 4 years old.

Elden Ring launched in 2022 and became a phenomenon by being magnificent and almost gleefully unfair. It dropped you into a gorgeous open world with virtually no guidance, a difficulty curve like a cliff face, and bosses designed to kill you so many times that beating one feels like a genuine life accomplishment worth telling people about.

Its punishing 'Soulslike' combat and cryptic design — co-written with novelist George R.R. Martin — earned it a wave of awards and a fanbase that wears its repeated deaths as a badge of honor.

Beautiful, brutal, and triumphantly hard, Elden Ring is the game that made millions of people willingly die a thousand times and call it the best experience of the year.