Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson, best known for creating the Mistborn novels and penning the final books in The Wheel of Time series, has been contacted by Elden Ring publisher Bandai Namco about collaborating on a future project.
During a livestream on his personal YouTube channel, the author was given a promotional Elden Ring goodie bag containing a prop sword, cloak, map of the Lands Between, and a woodcut image of Elden Ring boss Malenia. It also contained a letter that suggested Bandai Namco would be interested in working with Sanderson in the future (thanks, PC Gamer).
Sanderson didn’t read out the letter in full, but said: “They are interested in perhaps doing something together, is what that says – which I am as well.”
“This is how I roll,” he continued. “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.”
Sanderson compared this preliminary idea with the pitch he sent to Wizards of the Coast that eventually turned into his 2018 Magic: The Gathering novella, Children of the Nameless.
“If I were ever going to do a soulsborne game, what would I do? You guys know what happened when I thought, ‘I wonder what I would do if I ever wrote a Magic: The Gathering story?’”
“I spent four years developing a Magic: The Gathering story, so when Magic contacted me and said, ‘Hey, do you want to write a story’, I’m like, ‘Yes, I already have one and I will write it’.
“In 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, but I just 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.”
Sanderson has previously said he's keen to work with Elden Ring developer FromSoftware, even expressing his dismay that the studio chose to collaborate with George R. R. Martin on the game, rather than him.
Speaking on a Q&A panel earlier this year, he said: “Let me be salty. “FromSoftware decides to make a fantasy game and partner with a fantasy novelist, 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 as among his top 10 consistently over time.”
“What are you thinking, people?”
“They went to George and made a game with George, and I’m like, George doesn’t play video games. George has no idea.”
During this latest video, a co-host asked Sanderson if the Bandai Namco goodie bag also contained a note apologizing for hiring Martin to work on Elden Ring. Sanderson responded that the publisher “should have hired George”, suggesting there's no bad blood between them.
Of course, a collaboration between Sanderson and Bandai Namco isn’t certain, and mutual interest doesn’t guarantee the two will ever find an opportunity to work together. If they did, it’s not certain that Bandai Namco would want Sanderson to contribute to a video game. It might rather commission Sanderson to pen an Elden Ring book, comic, or other extended material, following in the footsteps of the Bloodborne graphic novels and Dark Souls lore books.
