FromSoftware's RPGs have been increasingly popular, going all the way back to Demon's Souls' original launch on the PlayStation 3. Now FromSoftware has released a major trilogy of Dark Souls that have become a subgenre of their own, multiple side projects like Sekiro and Bloodborne, and even had a third-party remake of Demon's Souls. Elden Ring, however, has reached a level of success unlike any FromSoftware game before it. It's even reached a point where fans are stumbling upon Elden Ring statues.
It's not so odd for malls or video game stores to put up promotional stands for upcoming or popular games. Statues, however, are a rarity. But that just goes to show how popular Elden Ring has become. A fan of Elden Ring from South Korea says that they visited a mall recently, only to discover a life-sized Malenia statue placed outside a gaming shop.
The Malenia statue is as any Elden Ring player would expect. She's tall, intimidating, has a prosthetic arm and legs, as well as her thin sword coming out of her prosthetic -- a sword certain to illicit flashbacks to many in-game deaths. There's even a skull embedded in the statue's base, just to remind Elden Ring players what she's all about. The entire statue has an impressive level of detail, showing that Bandai Namco has clearly taken the promotion of the RPG very seriously.
If any game deserves that level of promotion, Elden Ring is it, of course. The last time Bandai Namco shared sales information regarding Elden Ring, fans learned that it had reached a staggering 12 million copies sold over 17 days. It's been a month since, so its sales numbers have certainly reached even higher totals. For comparison, FromSoftware's previous top-selling game, Dark Souls 3, was confirmed to have sold 10 million copies in its lifetime.
There's no threshold of game sales for when a publisher will start promoting a game with statues, of course. But video game fans can likely count on their fingers how many other games they've seen get the privilege. Halo, Assassin's Creed, Mario, and League of Legends get life-size statues. And now Elden Ring does, too.
Obviously, a statue in a mall isn't a real measurement of success by any means. It is very cool, though. Malenia is a standout character for Elden Ring and it's wild to see her used in real life as a figure for advertising, a focus even outside of the game's audience. Here's hoping she doesn't get knocked over and broken.
Elden Ring is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
