After weeks of DLC speculation, Elden Ring fans crash back to Earth as FromSoftware parent company hits them with a vague "we are currently working hard"

Elden Ring fans have been ravenous for DLC practically ever since they first played the game, but that hunger really spiked in the last few weeks as scores of fans stalked the game's Steam page looking for any signs of movement. Recent backend updates have yielded genuinely compelling evidence of development progress, so the community's hype was white-hot as the quarterly finance reports, including those from FromSoftware parent company Kadokawa, rolled in this month. 

Alas, all that excitement has only gotten Elden Ring fans right back where they were before the game came out: Hollowing in silence and coping their minds out. 

Kadokawa did release its financial report, and it did contain some interesting news: the company's snapped up Acquire, the developer of JRPG darling Octopath Traveler. The company also mentions Elden Ring multiple times in its report, but not in the way DLC-starved fans were hoping for. 

Elden Ring DLC does come up; there's a whole FAQ entry just for it. "What is the development status of DLC for Elden Ring and when will it be released" it reads. For optimistic fans, Kadokawa's answer was withering: "We are currently working hard on the development of DLC for Elden Ring but we have not announced a release date at this time." 

Elsewhere, Kadokawa outlines the "future outlook" for FromSoftware. It says "various measures are currently in progress for Elden Ring, including the development of major DLC, to maximize [lifetime value]." I'm frankly more intrigued by the FromSoftware-specific note that "we are also making progress considering schemes to expand the scope of our own publishing." 

All of this is to say that it's not looking good for the Elden Ring fans who were hoping Kadokawa would show up this month not only with a copy of the DLC signed by director Hidetaka Miyazaki but also a box of chocolates. We now know exactly what we knew yesterday: the Elden Ring DLC is coming. Now we wait and see if the game's February 25 anniversary brings any news. 

Meanwhile, other reports claim Elden Ring is getting a free-to-play mobile game with Genshin Impact-style microtransactions.