Around 350 people worked on Elden Ring

As an avid gamer and FromSoftware fan, I was eagerly anticipating Elden Ring, and it exceeded my lofty expectations when it launched early last year. This expansive open world action RPG somehow achieved near-universal acclaim while selling over 20 million copies in its first year. But how many developers did it take to manifest the rich fantasy realm of the Lands Between? Surprisingly, only about 350!

FromSoftware‘s Lean Development Team

According to various reports, Elden Ring was developed by a team of just around 350 people at FromSoftware. As a comparison, studios developing similar large scale AAA open world games often employ developer teams of 500-2000 across multiple locations! For example, Assassin‘s Creed Valhalla had well over 1000 credited developers.

So how did this relatively compact development group delivered such an enormous, dense fantasy world rife with secrets and customization options?

Organizational Structure Fuels Efficiency

FromSoftware maintains a focused and specialized organizational structure, with various teams and leads coordinating closely under the direction of legendary game directors like Hidetaka Miyazaki. By retaining talented veterans and not over-expanding, they promote tight iteration and worldbuilding unhindered by communication breakdowns. They also outsource certain aspects like localized translations and additional quality assurance testing to external partners.

Figure 1: FromSoftware‘s Development Hierarchy

Empowering Individual Creativity & Ownership

FromSoftware divides their specialized talent into smaller project teams of at most a few dozen developers. This preserves individual creative freedom instead of restrictive bureaucracy. Developers shape more aspects of their design domains instead of just executing. This ownership over distinct game areas likely fostered the incredible environmental storytelling and world cohesion that Elden Ring nails so well!

The Core Team Responsible for Elden Ring‘s Vision

So which teams specifically would have driven Elden Ring‘s direction? As Director, Hidetaka Miyazaki likely provided the initial worldbuilding ideas and mythology. Various programmers then enabled ambitious features like seamless open world traversal and mounted combat. The art and design teams handcrafted the sweeping vistas and hundreds of balanced weapons/spells. Composers like Tsukasa Saitoh created another emotional auditory experience.

While I‘d love to credit each individual developer, here are likely some key creative leads:

This veteran talent drove Elden Ring‘s momentous evolution from prior FromSoftware greats into an open world masterpiece. Their bold vision manifesting with just 350 developers makes the achievement even more outstanding!

Elden Ring‘s Commercial Dominance Validates the Vision

While critical acclaim and Speedrun records are nice, have players actually been purchasing and playing through Elden Ring‘s dense world? In short – yes, in droves! The game has dominated sales charts since launch. Let‘s analyze the data:

As the figures show, Elden Ring exceeded expectations across regions and mediums. FromSoftware even attributes over 95% of their >1000% revenue growth in 2022 to Elden Ring! For their parent company Bandai Namco, Elden Ring was the primary driver of their impressive 23% sales growth last fiscal year.

Redefining Gaming with Just 350 Passionate Souls

Elden Ring will likely go down as an all-time great that redefined open world gaming and accessibility of punishing Soulslike combat. That only around 350 skilled developers managed to manifest this sprawling realm still boggles my mind given its unprecedented detail and secrets.

It reflects the potent creative chemistry and processes forged across over a decade at FromSoftware under Hidetaka Miyazaki‘s direction. Their organizational focus and project team structures breed boldness, ownership, and attention to detail. Combine that with the guidance of gaming visionaries like Miyazaki, and I suppose mastery is inevitable!

Of course, the proof is ultimately in the grail filled with glowing runes – over 20 million times and counting! Here‘s to FromSoftware‘s passionate team that reminded us what gaming can achieve at its peak. May we all become Elden Lords.

What do you think? Did around 350 developers seem like enough to develop such an intricately designed open world masterpiece like Elden Ring? Let me know in the comments!