10 Things Alex Garland’s Elden Ring Movie Has to Get Right

The upcoming Elden Ring movie gives me both anticipation and fear. In case everything goes well, it can become a defining fantasy epic of the generation. If it fails, though… let’s not go in that direction. FromSoftware’s 2022 masterpiece is like the preceding Souls games made by the Japanese developer. But it is open-world. It deliberately withholds plot information and leaves it to you to figure out just what the hell happened to this world (FromSoftware’s games are always set in dead worlds populated only by monsters and hostile entities with a few sprinkling of friendly NPCs) from flavor text, environmental storytelling, item descriptions, and the like. 

Alex Garland is an interesting choice to direct one of the most-awaited video game adaptations. There are some brilliant movies in Garland’s filmography, such as Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Civil War. His TV show Devs also comes to mind with its abstruse concepts and interesting ideas. He brings a unique visual style and can make complex sci-fi concepts and plots digestible. Still, Elden Ring is a whole new ballgame. He will need to preserve Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R. R. Martin’s mythology (to satisfy the fans) and will also make it work as a coherent movie. The filming is done and now commences the lengthy post-production until the 2028 release. Here are 10 major aspects that the upcoming Elden Ring movie absolutely has to get right.

Quick reference:

Elden Ring MovieDetails

Title	Elden Ring
Director	Alex Garland
Writer	Alex Garland
Cast	Kit Connor, Ben Whishaw, Cailee Spaeny, Tom Burke, Havana Rose Liu, Sonoya Mizuno, Jonathan Pryce, Ruby Cruz, Nick Offerman, John Hodgkinson, Jefferson Hall, Emma Laird, Peter Serafinowicz
Based on	Elden Ring by FromSoftware
Genre	Dark Fantasy / Action
Studio	A24
Format	Filmed for IMAX
Release Date	March 3, 2028

1 A Tarnished Worth Rooting For

Elden Ring’s protagonist is called Tarnished. While the Elden Ring movie’s plot is not yet out, we expect it will center around a Tarnished. The word really means what you think it means here. They were disfavored and exiled by the Golden Order, the dominant religion and governing metaphysical law in the base game’s setting: The Lands Between. Books would be written if I were to explain it fully, so just know that the Tarnished is a very customizable character for us, the players. I don’t know how the movie will replicate that. At least, the Tarnished should have an actual character arc that is interesting enough – for example, someone like Vyke would be a good shout. Perhaps the Tarnished might also possess some of the iconic Elden Ring weapons too?

2 The Erdtree Must Feel Truly Sacred

The Erdtree is a gigantic golden tree that towers over The Lands Between. Wherever you are, you cannot escape its shadow. It is the centre, not just literal, but also theological and political. It is situated near Leyndell, the capital city. It also houses the Elden Ring, and that’s where the final battle in the base game occurs. Queen Marika the Eternal is imprisoned here after rebelling against the Golden Order and the Greater Will. Let’s hope Garland’s movie would not treat it as just a pretty backdrop. Again, I don’t know how it will come into play in the movie. 

3 The Tragic Story of Queen Marika and the Shattering

Queen Marika is the central figure in Elden Ring. She is the reigning Goddess and rules the Lands Between in the aegis of the Greater Will. But as mentioned above, she rebelled against the Greater Will, and this resulted in the Shattering, the central event that defines the current state of the Lands Between (well, it is shattered). The Shattering resulted in a war between Marika’s offspring, the demigods such as General Radahn and Malenia. The Elden Ring was shattered, and the fragments, called Great Runes, were stolen by the demigods. All this makes for great drama, as you can probably tell, and should be presented with restraint. It also should not be a passing footnote, for this is the event in the history of Lands Between.

4 The Lands Between’s Oppressive Sense of Scale

Elden Ring players would agree: the moment you step out into Limgrave, you are overcome with awe at the sheer immensity of the landmass, and the layered terrain that is constantly surprising in the way that you are never quite sure what the next ridge will bring. There is also a sense of disorientation. Much of the huge map is open to you already. Where to go next? Will you fight this giant knight-like and golden-armored horse rider patrolling before you? Bad idea. He will pulverize you.

The Elden Ring movie should give the same experience of existential dread at being almost like an insect among these towering edifices and giants always eager to squelch you beneath their feet. This makes me apprehensive, too, for it is nearly impossible to do justice to the Lands Between without a lot of CGI. 

5 A Sense of Scale, Not Merely Scenery

There is a difference between a game world that looks big and feels big. Elden Ring’s world feels big. Even longtime fans might be surprised to learn that you can see the Great Forge, where we fight the Fire Giant in Mountaintops of the Giants, as soon as you get into Limgrave. More than that, the ruins scattered around the Lands Between, inscriptions, and more hint at centuries or even millennia of history. 

And unless you are an attentive gamer and just enjoy the gameplay, you don’t see that. The movie, though, does not have the luxury of having an interactive element. So it has to bring out that sense of scale, not just in terms of size, but also the history of this fractured world. We know Elden Ring is “filmed for IMAX” (via Bandai Namco), which is promising but not the same as, say, The Odyssey completely lensed through IMAX cameras.

6 The Boss Battles Must Feel Like Biblical Events

Only Elden Ring and Souls fans know the sense of accomplishment one feels when they defeat a particularly difficult boss like Malenia or Promised Consort Radahn (in the DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree), the two most difficult bosses in the game. But fighting beings like Fire Giant, Dragon Lord Placidusax, and Bayle the Dread is an entirely different experience. They really do feel like gods and the battles carry operatic weight. 

I am sure the movie will feature many of these boss battles, and they should feel true to the game.

7 George R. R. Martin’s Political Intrigue

Miyazaki invented the Souls genre on his own and has worked on every single title in the series in some capacity. To construct the deep backstory of Elden Ring, he brought in George R. R. Martin. Martin, as you know, has written A Song of Ice and Fire, which spawned HBO’s Game of Thrones TV series, and that world of Westeros, Essos, and so on is also the source material behind other HBO shows like House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. 

Let’s just say the guy knows his world-building. It was he who created the mythology of Elden Ring: Queen Marika, her demigod children, and the like. I expect that political intrigue to be a part of the movie as well. Understandably, the movie has to focus on the Tarnished, but their arc won’t be as interesting or effective if the world-building is not on point.

8 More Environmental Storytelling, Less Exposition Dumps

If you are a veteran of Souls games, you know that unique quality of storytelling that defines these games. Unless you are paying attention to the world around you, you will finish the game, oblivious as to why you killed those monstrous bosses and restored this or that. I know the movie cannot recreate that exactly, but it could learn from movies like 1979’s Soviet film Stalker (a must-watch) to tell the story without really telling it, if you get my drift. Environmental storytelling, staging, and production design-driven storytelling instead of direct explanation and dialogue-heavy exposition. Otherwise, the pacing would be suffocating.

9 The Score Has to Match Miyazaki’s Melancholy

Elden Ring has beautiful music, and it also reflects the tone and feel of the story, which is mostly sad and melancholic. It is, after all, a dead world surrounded by death, genocide, despair, and tragedy. We don’t know who is composing the movie adaptation’s music, and likely they are yet to be hired. But A24 would do well recruiting the game’s composers:  Tsukasa Saitoh, Shoi Miyazawa, Tai Tomisawa, Yuka Kitamura, and Yoshimi Kudo. They brought a choral grandeur undercut by the game’s real sorrow. And Promised Consort Radahn’s music has to be one of the best pieces of video game music ever. It is both triumphant and mournful (like the boss). 

Whoever scores the movie must understand that the Lands Between’s music is both pleasing and a little unsettling. It works because it does not commit fully to victory. It always has grief and melancholy beneath the grandeur.

10 The Creature Design Must Be Game-Accurate

Except for Bloodborne (in which Miyazaki was influenced by H.P. Lovecraft), Elden Ring has the best creature design in FromSoftware’s history. There is a veritable army of horrifying and grotesque creatures with a number of appendages sticking out of the oddest places, beings with grafted arms studding them like branches on some obscene human tree, and more. They seem to have sprung out from the feverish imagination of a clinically insane person. There are the massive dragons, the Omens, the Erdtree Avatars, and whatnot. Garland’s team should not shy away from the game’s monstrosities.

What does the Elden Ring movie need to get right above all else? Let us know in the comments.

Elden Ring hits US theaters on March 3, 2028.