Elden Ring, the hotly anticipated fantasy souls styled title coming out of FromSoftware, has been delayed but fans can still get an early glimpse of the action through the newly announced Closed Network Test.
While much of the gaming world has been feverishly waiting for the release of the much hyped Elden Ring, ever since its announcement back during E3 2019, it seems the majority of us will have to wait a little longer to take on the work of FromSoftware. A delay to the full release of this utterly gorgeous looking adventure was confirmed yesterday night, meaning that the release date is now slated for 25 February 2022. That adds around a month to the expected launch date, but the announcement from Publisher Bandai Namco isn’t all bad news.
Beta Test
At the same time as delaying the final release of Elden Ring, Bandai also kicked open the doors to its Closed Network test. Not officially called a beta event, this early hands on with the multiplayer components of Elden Ring will run from 12 Nov – 14 November 2021. Sign ups are open already and anybody interested in helping test the foundations of this online action will be able to put their name forward over at the official Elden ring website now. If you are successful you’ll be able to jump in across the following play sessions:
Session 1 – November 12th (Fri) from 3:00am to 6:00am PT
Session 2 – November 12th (Fri) from 7:00pm to 10:00pm PT
Session 3 – November 13th (Sat) from 11:00am to 2:00pm PT
Session 4 – November 14th (Sun) from 3:00am to 6:00am PT
Session 5 – November 14th (Sun) from 7:00pm to 10:00pm PT
A word of caution, however. This event is only open to owners of PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series consoles. Other platform owners will have to make do with whatever leaks onto YouTube for now.
In order to get you hyped for the limited test, there’s also a brand new trailer to accompany the news. You can check it out above. While we don’t expect to see a huge amount of narrative to this test, glimpses of the world and the player interactions may give us a handle on what to expect when we plunge into this epic fantasy adventure. Be swift and ruthless, registration for the Elden Ring Closed Network Test end on 1 November.