Resident Evil 4, Death Stranding and now Elden Ring.
What do these games all have in common? Well, they’re big-budget titles that have recently been ported over to mobile for gaming on the go, except Elden Ring. That’s still a maybe.
According to Reuters sources, Tencent, the world’s biggest gaming company, is pushing hard to get a mobile version of Elden Ring out to help them feel like they’re keeping up with their competitors. Tencent hasn’t been able to monetise a mobile game from a big IP since it released League of Legends: Wild Rift, and Pony Ma, Tencent CEO and Founder, says they’re starting to feel like they’ve “achieved nothing”.
The trouble is Tencent is hoping to release the mobile version of Elden Ring as a free-to-play game with microtransactions. While this works for other mobile games like Genshin Impact or PUBG Mobile, Elden Ring was intended to be played as a singular coherent story. Tencent has yet to clarify how it will tackle its microtransaction plans. Still, with slow development progress already being reported and the scrapping of their Nier game due to the lack of a compelling monetisation model, things aren’t looking favourable.
It might be more viable to offer the game at a once-off premium price like Resident Evil 4 and Death Stranding have done, instead of trying to force constant monetisation, but I guess that’s up to Tencent to decide. Perhaps their decade-long run of churning out AAA-level titles on mobile is coming to a sad end.
Neither Tencent nor FromSoftware have commented on these rumours, so take it all with a pinch of salt.
Would you play Elden Ring on mobile? If so, what would you pay to play? Let us know in the comments below.
