What If FromSoftware Worked With Other Writers?

Elden Ring remains highly-anticipated by everyone, the collaborative stab-‘em-up RPG between Dark Souls creators FromSoftware and Game of Thrones writer George RR Martin. The idea of getting a professional, proven author to pencil the most recent Soulsborne odyssey might sound exciting, but we at GFinity have received exclusive, (probably) reliable info that this is not the first time FromSoftware have worked with acclaimed literary writers - it’s just that none of the other projects made it to market. Here are some novelist’s takes on their celebrated material that you never got to see.

Read More: Elden Ring: Leaks, Release Date News and Everything We Know So Far

Tom Clancy

Did you know Tom Clancy sent Miyazaki a script years back, even before Ubisoft got their paws on his work? It’s hard to say how much of Lothric Strike Force Alpha actually made it into any of their games, as much of the original dialogue was covered in black redacted marker even before it got to FromSoftware’s PO Box.

The rest, as far as we’re told, was hard to discern; written on the back of an operational manual for a Sherman Tank and with loving doodles of President Reagen in the margins. We can confirm that Special Agent Jack Gael was attempting to find the Dark Soul in the Ringed City from Abyssal Insurgents, or maybe it was Soviets in Moscow, it wasn't clear. Either way, there was probably more usage of napalm than might’ve been expected in a standard fantasy setting.

Dr. Seuss

“I do not like these Demons’ Souls, I think they're questionable goals.”

Old King Allant was at a loss, his mighty brow began to cross.

What kind of warrior turned down Soul Arts? The very thought was hard to parse!

“Would you use them against Maneater? Or what about kindly Maiden Astraea?”

“I would not use them against Maneater, I would not against kindly Maiden Astraea!”

“Would you use them in a fight against the stalwart Tower Knight?”

“I would not use them in a fight against the stalwart Tower Knight!

Not against the Adjudicator, nor the prowling Penetrator!

I would not use Souls Arts in Latria’s Tower,

Or while battling the Storm King’s power!

These bosses that might seem so scary

Need not make anyone so wary.

For whenever I leave the Nexus Hub,

I just tell myself: Get good, scrub.”

Jane Austen

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of Havel’s Greatshield, must be in want of a backstabbing.”

Focusing on the complex gender politics and societal pressures of Anor Londo wasn’t anybody’s first expectation for a Dark Souls game, but Austen was determined to make it work in her only video game script, “Art and Artorias.”

When the Fire Keepers are told that only those who marry will inherit Sen’s Fortress, it begins a race to matrimony that sees them strive to establish themselves in high society. But just who is the stern landowner Mister Smough, and is there any truth to the ominous rumours that surround him? Everybody wants to know, and with the scandalous Lady Queelag determined to find a husband for her shy sister in the background, nobody knows how all this will turn out.

Frank Miller

“Drangleic. Her rooftops and parapets call to me. The long shadows cast by her towers. She’s beautiful and terrible. Beautiful and terrible. My feet pound across the wet stone as I run across the walkways, dodging those damn archers’ arrows. I’m old, aching, but still quick - a ragged laugh builds in my throat as I finally reach one of those damn archers and wrestle him to the ground. Puddles of rain splash beneath him. My thumbs crush his eyes. Crush them. Crush them good.

“It’s not for me. Never for me. I’m just thinking about her - Nashandra. Beautiful and terrible, like Drangliec itself. My darling Nashandra. What won’t I do for her in this pouring rain?”

Hmm. Probably better this one didn’t make the cut.

P.G. Wodehouse

The wise and humble little prince we see in Shadows Die Twice is all very well, but in the early drafts penned by P.G. Wodehouse, things were a little different. Originally a twenty-five-year-old noble named Kuro “Corky” Wilberforce, his lordship would bluster his way through countless Hirata garden parties, his long-suffering valet Wolf deftly intercepting meddling aunts (and the occasional crow-headed assassin) along the way.

But what’s reliable old Wolfy to do when his master accidentally gets engaged to the daughters of two different samurai clans? Why has Corky’s university chum Squiffy Botham nicked the Mortal Blade? And how long is that uncouth white serpent going to be staying in the spare room? By Jove, surely everyone’s going to need a rejuvenating cocktail by the end of “Right Ho, Sekiro!”