00:00 A quest for Elden Ring's Vyke, the character who appears on the cover art, was apparently
00:19 cut from the game. You'll probably recognise Vyke as the kneeling knight on Elden Ring's
00:23 front cover. He appears only briefly in the final game as an NPC invader and boss who
00:28 rewards you with his unique armour set and spear for defeating him. But it seems a bit
00:33 odd that a character with such a small role would appear so prominently on the cover art.
00:39 Well, that's because he was originally a much bigger deal, with in-game lore explaining
00:43 that "no other Tarnished was closer to the throne of the Elden Ring than Vyke".
00:48 Elden Ring dataminers have since uncovered a cut questline featuring Vyke using some
00:53 unused voice line, making reference to a knight in armour melting inwards. Unfortunately,
00:59 no text or dialogue for Vyke has been discovered, but the quest seemingly would have had a few
01:04 dialogue choices and offered a handful of rewards, ultimately unlocking Vyke as a summon
01:10 in Stormvale Castle to help you fight against one of its bosses.
01:13 It does seem really strange that such a prominent character with so much work put into it was
01:18 cut, so here's hoping that future DLCs fill in some of the gaps.
01:30 An Elden Ring modder has discovered a tragically forgotten NPC who's doomed to never fulfil
01:35 their purpose due to an unfortunate typo. During the final phase of the boss fight in
01:40 Raya Lucaria against Renala, you will have to deal with a room full of sweetings, young
01:45 scholars who crawl around and harass you as you fight the Queen of the Full Moon herself.
01:50 Several times throughout the fight Renala will call on three of these sweetings to form
01:54 a bubble shield around her. The chosen sweetings could be any three in the room, except for
01:59 one lonely soul in the back corner. A modder has discovered sweeting number 21
02:04 has the ID number of 14000830 in the game files, but a typo causes Renala to call out
02:12 for ID number 140008230, meaning that this particular NPC is never called and simply
02:22 crawls around otherwise forgotten. So next time you're running through Raya Lucaria,
02:26 pull one out for this NPC, doomed to never reach their true potential due to a mispressed
02:32 number 2 key.
02:41 Hard to believe I know, but dataminers have discovered that Elden Ring's most notorious
02:45 boss Melania used to be even more difficult to beat than she already is. By analysing
02:50 and playing through the 1.0 version of Elden Ring, that is a version that's been untouched
02:54 by patches or changes since the original game, a modder discovered several key differences
02:59 with her attack pattern and abilities, making her significantly more aggressive. The most
03:04 notable change is that version 1.0 Melania uses her old waterfowl move that wasn't originally
03:10 tied to any health loss and a similar but different attack called Melania Blade which
03:15 could be chained, all the while attacking more aggressively and blocking more overall.
03:20 That alone sounds hellish, but the dataminer goes on to detail other variations which include
03:25 slightly different combos and increased use of the dreaded Scala Aenea incantation.
03:37 A pre-release build of Elden Ring has a quest that lets you craft a dream brew that makes
03:42 NPCs chatty and sleepy. Essentially, it gets them drunk. Prolific modder Lance McDonald
03:48 released a video where they explore an earlier Elden Ring build that included content which
03:53 was ultimately cut from the game and was able to uncover a whole questline, NPC and other
03:57 items which never made it into the final build. The quest involves a fully animated and voiced
04:02 NPC named Jiko who's looking for ingredients to make his dream brew, which he explicitly
04:07 says is a type of alcohol. Jiko says the dream brew will convince other NPCs to tell you
04:12 their deepest, darkest secrets. If you agree to help him, Jiko gives you an item called
04:17 "St Trina's Crystal Ball" which you use to collect "Dense Fog of Sleep" from
04:21 napping creatures. Bring the filled vial back to Jiko and he uses it to make his brew, which
04:27 you can offer to NPCs to open up additional lines of dialogue and hidden lore.
04:31 McDonald brings the dream brew to Merchant Kale at his shop inside Church of Elay in
04:36 Limgrave and after Kale drinks the brew, he falls asleep and has a nightmare about eyes
04:41 being burned by a frenzied flame. Jiko then asks for two more vials of dream mist to make
04:46 more dream brew and it's then that McDonald discovers additional sleeping creatures, suggesting
04:51 that this questline was pretty well formed before it was cut. Sure makes you wonder what
04:55 other stuff was snipped from the final launch version and if any of it is as fun sounding
04:59 as getting NPCs drunk.
05:08 When it comes to cut content in Elden Ring, there's one character whose dialogue in particular
05:12 makes for an interesting dive into the game's lore, Godfrey.
05:20 YouTuber Sekiro Doobie discovered a selection of cutlines from Godfrey and there are some
05:24 interesting theories about what these new discoveries all mean. The dialogue seems to
05:28 reinforce the idea that when it comes to the Elden Ring's shattering, Marika may have
05:32 originally had a plan in advance to shatter the ring, which Godfrey knew about all along.
05:38 If Godfrey was aware that the Elden Ring would be shattered, then the banishing of the Tarnished
05:41 was actually a plan to remove them from the Fingers/Greater Will's influence. The consensus
05:47 seems to be that Godfrey was initially meant to play an even larger role throughout Elden
05:51 Ring, with a potential storyline that would take place in the past based on the lines
05:56 heard in Sekiro Doobie's video.
05:58 There's nothing concrete here of course, just guesswork reading between the lines,
06:02 but there is a lot to theorise about with some juicy tidbits nestled with Godfrey's
06:07 lost dialogue.
06:16 One of Elden Ring's earliest merchants was originally part of a long-running, tragic
06:20 questline before From Software scrapped it. Kar-Lei is the first merchant you stumble
06:24 across in your adventures in The Lands Between. Remember an NPC dressed like Santa Claus?
06:29 That's our guy. Aside from selling valuable items and offering some lore tidbits in exchange
06:34 for chatter, you don't really get much else from Kar-Lei as he remains rooted to the spot.
06:38 However, the merchant was once tied to a tragic subplot of the game. Speaking to him further
06:43 would have led to a mention of the Great Caravan, which was once home to merchants like Kar-Lei
06:49 and something he yearns to find.
06:51 Seeking Godric at Stormvale Castle would send Kar-Lei on a quest to find the Great Caravan,
06:57 with certain clues left behind to help you find the merchant's new location each time
07:01 he moved.
07:02 This would have continued until you reach the subterranean shunning grounds beneath
07:06 Lendil. This place is eerie enough and is home to the Three Fingers, which relates to
07:11 one of Elden Ring's bad endings, but it's also littered with bodies. Some current in-game
07:16 lore explains the bodies are all the remains of the Merchant Caravan after it was accused
07:22 of heresy and burned alive, summoning the Flames of Frenzy and Despair. In Kar-Lei's
07:27 scrapped quest, he discovers the fate of his people and embraces the flames himself.
07:34 A look back at the Elden Ring Network test highlights some significant changes to the
07:43 finished game. In November 2021, Bandai Namco held a network test for Elden Ring, allowing
07:48 players an early glimpse of the lands between to test the game's online servers ahead
07:52 of its full release. Things obviously changed in the final release and fans noticed all
07:56 sorts of little differences.
07:58 One of the more unusual changes happened to White-Faced Vaar, one of the early NPCs you
08:02 encounter near the First Steps site of Grace. While he's largely here to offer some guidance
08:07 for the newly tarnished, he used to be a lot meaner. In the final game, he mentions maidens
08:12 and the Round Table hold, before telling you you're fated to die in obscurity. However,
08:17 in the original network test version, he tells you that you're plum out of luck and describes
08:21 you as a "bit player" before telling you "feel free to go off and die in a ditch
08:26 somewhere". Charming!
08:35 An Elden Ring fan has discovered that most of the game's song lyrics are just computer
08:39 generated nonsense. One of the aspects that makes Elden Ring so captivating is its music,
08:44 which is chock full of haunting choral melodies. Intrigued by the meaning behind these songs,
08:49 one Elden Ring fan dug a little deeper and found that although the lyrics may sound like
08:53 Latin, most are actually just gibberish. Reddit user Magister Organi, a Latin student, has
08:59 been studying the game's lyrics. They started with a song of lament, a beautiful piece sung
09:04 by the game's siren-like creatures. According to their post on the PS5 subreddit, these
09:09 lyrics are actually in Latin, but they were written by a lyricist who worked on just that
09:14 one song. Curious about Elden Ring's other songs, Magister Organi contacted the game's
09:18 music producers who explained that "99% of the lyrics in the game are not in any language
09:23 at all and don't mean anything. Instead, the lyrics are computer generated and adjusted
09:28 to resemble ancient languages." Intrigued to learn more, they went on to analyse other
09:32 tracks and said that sometimes the lyrics resemble Latin, but they are not Latin. The
09:36 goal was to simulate ancient language songs to enhance the dramatic feel of the player's
09:42 experience.
09:44 So those are all the Elden Ring lore secrets that we've seen. If there's any that you've
09:47 noticed, put it in the comments below to let us know what we've missed.
09:54 (electronic music)
09:56 (laughs)
Comments