Martin also jokes about his “totally addictive personality” stopping him from trying the game. “I did play video games a long, long time ago,” he said, pointing to Railroad Tycoon, Masters of Orion, and Homeworld as examples. “I would get sucked into it and weeks, months would go by. I’d be sitting there in my red flannel bathrobe going, ‘one more game, one more game.’ I had to go cold turkey.” Readers excited for The Winds Of Winter will probably be glad he hasn’t been sucked into the enormous RPG. Though, theoretically, the author could just speedrun it in 30-minutes. When asked about his involvement with the game Martin said, “[FromSoftware] made it clear that Elden Ring was gonna take place in, let’s say, the present of their universe. But, what they wanted me to write was what happened 5,000 years before that, that totally screwed up the world… So, I went back and wrote a history.” He also came up with “who all the characters were, who was killing each other, and what powers they had.” Martin only had good things to say about FromSoftware, calling Elden Ring “the most beautiful game I’ve ever seen.” He continued: “I’m very gratified to have been a part of it.” In his Elden Ring review, Ed called the game “an unmissable journey through the most impressive open-world to date.” The RPS Treehouse recently named Elden Ring their 5th favourite PC game of all time in this year’s RPS 100, too. Hopefully Martin finishes the Winds Of Winter soon, so he can finally play Elden Ring. You’re really missing out, George.
