Elden Ring Movie Discussed, Martin's Involvement Limited - IGN Fan Fest 2025

George R. R. Martin, renowned for his work on the Game of Thrones saga, has given the strongest hint yet that a movie adaptation of the hit game Elden Ring might be on the horizon. However, he also acknowledged a significant obstacle to his involvement in such a project: his ongoing work on the long-awaited book, The Winds of Winter.

Elden Ring, a collaboration between Martin and FromSoftware, became one of the top-selling games of 2022. Martin's role in crafting the game's intricate world and history was prominently featured in promotional efforts and is acknowledged at the start of the game's credits, alongside FromSoftware's Hidetaka Miyazaki.

During IGN Fan Fest 2025, when asked about his potential involvement in a sequel to Elden Ring, Martin cleverly sidestepped the question but hinted at the possibility of an Elden Ring movie. "Well, I can't say too much about it, but there is some talk about making a movie out of Elden Ring," he revealed.

This isn't the first time Martin has teased the idea of an Elden Ring film. Hidetaka Miyazaki, president of FromSoftware, has also expressed openness to an adaptation, emphasizing the need for a "very strong partner" to bring the project to life. "I don’t see any reason to deny another interpretation or adaptation of Elden Ring, a movie for example," Miyazaki told The Guardian. "But I don’t think myself, or FromSoftware, have the knowledge or ability to produce something in a different medium."

Despite the excitement surrounding a potential Elden Ring movie, Martin admitted to IGN that his involvement could be limited due to his commitment to finishing The Winds of Winter. "We'll see if that [the Elden Ring movie] comes to pass and what the extent of my involvement was, I don't know," he stated. "I'm a few years behind with my latest book, so that also limits the amount of things that I can do."

Martin's fans have been eagerly awaiting The Winds of Winter, the sixth book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series, for over a decade. In December, he candidly acknowledged the delay, saying, "Unfortunately, I am 13 years late. Every time I say that, I’m [like], ‘How could I be 13 years late?’ I don’t know, it happens a day at a time." Despite the delays, Martin remains committed to the project, though he admits the possibility that it may never be completed. "But that’s still a priority," he emphasized. "A lot of people are already writing obituaries for me. [They’re saying] ‘Oh, he’ll never be finished.’ Maybe they’re right. I don’t know. I’m alive right now! I seem pretty vital!"

The anticipation for The Winds of Winter has been compounded by the success of HBO's Game of Thrones, which premiered in 2011 and brought even more attention to Martin's fantasy world.

When discussing his contribution to Elden Ring, Martin explained to IGN how he assisted FromSoftware with worldbuilding. "…when they came to me, FromSoftware, they wanted the world. They knew the action of Elden Ring that the players would get into would be in the ‘present.’ But something had created that present, had created that world. So where did that world come from? And I've done a lot of world building, most notably on Westeros and the backgrounds of A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones. And I like doing world building. So what had happened 5,000, 10,000 years before the current day action in Elden Ring that led them to that place? And I had some ideas about the magic and the runes. There was a lot about runes. And I worked it all out."

Martin further elaborated on the collaborative process, describing how FromSoftware's team would visit him for brainstorming sessions. "It was interesting that the team flew in and we had a number of sessions and they would fly back and do their magic, and then they would come back here a couple months later and show me what they had, which was always amazing to see what they came up with."

When asked if all his written material was used in the game, Martin noted that, like any expansive fantasy world, there's always more to the story than what's shown on screen. "Yeah, I think especially when you're world building, there's always more that you actually see on the screen," he said. "And that's true of any of these big epic fantasies. I mean, you look at Tolkien and there are hundreds of pages of past history before you get to even the era of the Hobbit and dozens of kings and wars and things like that."