Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Reportedly Launching on June 21; First Gameplay Trailer Coming Later Today

After a long wait and many rumors prompted by the developer's Steam backend tweaking, FromSoftware has finally announced that the first gameplay trailer for Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree will air later today at 4 PM Central European Time (7 AM Pacific Time) on YouTube. The trailer will be three minutes long.

The gameplay trailer announcement sent fans into overdrive, but there's more: renowned leaker billbil-kun reported that Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree may launch on June 21. Admittedly, he said he is not 100% sure. The reason is that he found the following retail special editions that are likely (but not assuredly) to launch alongside the DLC:

• Elden Ring: Shadow of The Erdtree (DLC included) – Goty edition (Game of the Year): 79.99 euros (physical copy available on PS5 and Xbox Series X)
• Elden Ring: Shadow of The Erdtree (DLC included) – Collector's Edition: 259.99 euros (physical copy available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X)

At any rate, it does sound like players won't have to wait too long still to dive into the expansion. FromSoftware (the sole owner of the IP since April 2023, as recently discovered) was announced nearly a year ago, on February 28, 2023, shortly after the game's first anniversary.

Launched on February 24, 2022, Elden Ring became FromSoftware's most successful game to date, having sold 20 million units in its first year. Just a few months later, the Japanese developer got substantial investments from Tencent and Sony, two of the biggest publishers in the gaming industry.

The game also earned unanimous critical acclaim, winning many Game of the Year awards, including Wccftech's from both staff and community. Elden Ring had previously received a perfect score in the official Wccftech review by Francesco De Meo:

I tried hard to find any faults in Elden Ring, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find any outside of some technical issues that the developers could fix via patches. I firmly believe that perfection doesn't exist and that it is always possible to improve, but I really couldn't think of anything that Elden Ring could have done better. As such, the game wholly deserves a perfect score, an honor I would have given only to a couple of other modern games, not only for its extremely high quality but also for what it accomplished with its open world and for how it will surely influence video games as a whole in the future.