Players of Elden Ring are built different, at least according to some analyst stats. FromSoftware's landmark action-RPG has sold pretty well since its 2022 release, and a significant portion of those buyers have accrued significant playtime in the fantasy juggernaut.
Rhys Elliott, head of market analytics at Alinea Analytics, posted some numbers on Twitter about what Elden Ring's managed to achieve to date. The topline figures are nothing surprising: FromSoftware's last epic has shifted approximately 36.4 million copies on Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and it's brought in around $2 billion dollars in total revenue.
Those are the kind of numbers you get when you have people like Post Malone and multi-time WWE Champion Randy Orton openly talking about picking it up and becoming immersed in the struggle. It takes a certain kind of popularity to even grab their attention, and then they become part of the advertising by discussing it so publicly.
Elden Ring has sold 36.4M copies on Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox, generating $2B in revenue (@alineaanalytics estimates). Wildly, over 9.8M people have played Elden Ring for over 100 hours, with nearly 3.5M people getting all of the achievements/trophies. For reference, 10.9% of Elden Ring’s PlayStation players have the platinum trophy, while 10.5% of players on Steam and 3.9% of Xbox players unlocked all the achievements. Git gud, Xbox players! By many accounts, including my own, Elden Ring is one of the best games of all time. It’s an evergreen seller that will continue to be a cash cow for Bandai and FromSoftware for years to come. Elden Ring has sold another 2M copies across Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox this year, generating almost $110M. This means it’s outperforming many of this year’s high-profile releases. Even Elden Ring’s standalone run-based PvE spinoff, 2025’s Nightreign, has sold 7.8M copies and generated $282M in revenue. Hell yeah. More on Substack.October 22, 2026
But the real revelation of Alinea's findings comes afterward. Around 9.8 million of those players have put over 100 hours into roaming the Lands Between. That's a pretty significant chunk of the community.
It's hard to compare these things through hard data, but I would be surprised if this wasn't quite rare across role-playing games. I suspect the portion of the audience for Final Fantasy 7 Remake, any of the Yakuza series, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, or whatever who manage something similar is a smaller minority.
What's more, Elliott says almost 3.5 million have gotten every achievement. These people have more patience and gumption than I do, that's for sure. I've never been a trophy hunter in games, and I definitely am not tempted by any of FromSoftware's fare.
If you're included in these portions of Elden Ring, I applaud you and hope you have healthy coping mechanisms for the frustration and intensity they entail. "By many accounts, including my own, Elden Ring is one of the best games of all time," Elliott writes. "It's an evergreen seller that will continue to be a cash cow for Bandai and FromSoftware for years to come."
Considering there's a movie coming in 2028, there's a good chance the fanbase will only get bigger, too. Long live Hidetaka Miyazaki.
