No matter what you choose to do, you’ll probably die again and again trying to do it, sometimes for hours. That’s because the mistiming of a button press will make you fall to your death or open you to attack. Even the most experienced gamers will die dozens of times in a dungeon before reaching the boss — the main villain at the end of a game level.

None of this makes Elden Ring sound like a crowd pleaser, but the video game — a collaboration between the creative director Hidetaka Miyazaki and the “Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin — is on track to become the best seller of the year, with 12 million copies sold within a month of its release in February.