00:00A quest for Elden Ring's Vyke, the character who appears on the cover art, was apparently
00:19cut from the game. You'll probably recognise Vyke as the kneeling knight on Elden Ring's
00:23front cover. He appears only briefly in the final game as an NPC invader and boss who
00:28rewards you with his unique armour set and spear for defeating him. But it seems a bit
00:33odd that a character with such a small role would appear so prominently on the cover art.
00:39Well, that's because he was originally a much bigger deal, with in-game lore explaining that
00:44no other Tarnished was closer to the throne of the Elden Ring than Vyke.
00:48Elden Ring data miners have since uncovered a cut questline featuring Vyke using some unused
00:53voice line making reference to a knight in armour melting inwards. Unfortunately, no
00:59text or dialogue for Vyke has actually been discovered, but the quest seemingly would have
01:04had a few dialogue choices and offered a handful of rewards, ultimately unlocking Vyke as a summon
01:10in Stormvale Castle to help you fight against one of its bosses. It does seem really strange
01:14that such a prominent character with so much work put into it was cut, so here's hoping
01:20that future DLCs fill in some of the gaps. An Elden Ring modder has discovered a tragically forgotten
01:33NPC who's doomed to never fulfil their purpose due to an unfortunate typo. During the final phase of
01:39the boss fight in Raya Lucaria against Rinala, you will have to deal with a room full of sweetings,
01:44young scholars who crawl around and harass you as you fight the queen of the full moon herself.
01:50Several times throughout the fight, Rinala will call on three of these sweetings to form a bubble
01:54shield around her. The chosen sweetings could be any three in the room, except for one lonely soul
02:00in the back corner. A modder has discovered sweeting number 21 has the ID number of 1400830 in the game
02:09files, but a typo causes Rinala to call out for ID number 140008230, meaning that this particular NPC
02:20is never called and simply crawls around otherwise forgotten. So, next time you're running through
02:25Raya Lucaria, pour one out for this NPC, doomed to never reach their true potential due to a mis-pressed
02:32number two key. Hard to believe, I know, but data miners have discovered that Elden Ring's most
02:44notorious boss, Melania, used to be even more difficult to beat than she already is. By analysing
02:50and playing through the 1.0 version of Elden Ring, that is a version that's been untouched by patches
02:55or changes since the original game, a modder discovered several key differences with her attack
03:00pattern and abilities, making her significantly more aggressive. The most notable change is that
03:05version 1.0 Melania uses her old Waterfowl move that wasn't originally tied to any health loss
03:12and a similar but different attack called Melania Blade, which could be chained, all the while
03:17attacking more aggressively and blocking more overall. That alone sounds hellish, but the data miner goes on
03:23to detail other variations which include slightly different combos and increased use of the dreaded
03:29Scarlet Aeneia incantation. A pre-released build of Elden Ring has a quest that lets you craft a
03:41dream brew that makes NPCs chatty and sleepy. Essentially, it gets them drunk. Prolific modder
03:47Lance McDonald released a video where they explore an earlier Elden Ring build that included content which
03:52was ultimately cut from the game and was able to uncover a whole questline, NPC and other items which
03:58never made it into the final build. The quest involves a fully animated and voiced NPC named
04:03Jiko who is looking for ingredients to make his dream brew, which he explicitly says is a type of
04:08alcohol. Jiko says the dream brew will convince other NPCs to tell you their deepest, darkest secrets.
04:14If you agree to help him, Jiko gives you an item called Santrina's Crystal Ball, which you use to
04:19collect dense fog of sleep from napping creatures. Bring the filled vial back to Jiko and he uses it to make his
04:26brew, which you can offer to NPCs to open up additional lines of dialogue and hidden lore.
04:31McDonald brings the dream brew to Merchant Kale at his shop inside Church of L.A. in Limgrave,
04:37and after Kale drinks the brew, he falls asleep and has a nightmare about eyes being burned by a
04:42frenzied flame. Jiko then asks for two more vials of dream mist to make more dream brew, and it's then
04:47that McDonald discovers additional sleeping creatures, suggesting that this questline was pretty well formed
04:53before it was cut. Sure makes you wonder what other stuff was snipped from the final launch version,
04:57and if any of it is as fun sounding as getting NPCs drunk.
05:07When it comes to cut content in Elden Ring, there's one character whose dialogue in particular
05:12makes for an interesting dive into the game's lore. Godfrey.
05:16To be granted audience once more.
05:19YouTuber Sekiro Doobie discovered a selection of cut lines from Godfrey,
05:24and there are some interesting theories about what these new discoveries all mean.
05:27The dialogue seems to reinforce the idea that when it comes to the Elden Ring's shattering,
05:31Marika may have originally had a plan in advance to shatter the ring, which Godfrey knew about all
05:37along. If Godfrey was aware that the Elden Ring would be shattered, then the banishing of the Tarnished was
05:42actually a plan to remove them from the fingers slash greater will's influence.
05:46The consensus seems to be that Godfrey was initially meant to play an even larger role
05:51throughout Elden Ring, with a potential storyline that would take place in the past,
05:55based on the lines heard in Sekiro Doobie's video. There's nothing concrete here of course,
06:00just guesswork reading between the lines, but there is a lot to theorize about with some juicy
06:05tidbits nestled with Godfrey's lost dialogue. One of Elden Ring's earliest merchants was originally
06:18part of a long-running, tragic questline before From Software scrapped it. Kalei is the first
06:23merchant you stumble across in your adventures in The Lands Between. Remember an NPC dressed like
06:28Santa Claus? That's our guy. Aside from selling valuable items and offering some lore tidbits in
06:33exchange for chatter, you don't really get much else from Kalei, as he remains rooted to the spot.
06:38However, the merchant was once tied to a tragic subplot of the game. Speaking to him further would
06:44have led to a mention of The Great Caravan, which was once home to merchants like Kalei and something
06:49he yearns to find. Defeating Godric at Stormvale Castle would send Kalei on a quest to find The Great
06:56Caravan, with certain clues left behind to help you find the merchant's new location each time he moved.
07:02This would have continued until you reached the subterranean shunning grounds beneath Lendal.
07:06This place is eerie enough and is home to the Three Fingers, which relates to one of Elden Ring's
07:11bad endings, but it's also littered with bodies. Some current in-game lore explains the bodies are all
07:18the remains of the merchant caravan after it was accused of heresy and burned alive, summoning the
07:24flames of frenzy and despair. In Kalei's scrapped quest, he discovers the fate of his people and
07:30embraces the flames himself.
07:39A look back at the Elden Ring network test highlights some significant changes to the
07:43finished game. In November 2021, Bandai Namco held a network test for Elden Ring, allowing players an
07:49early glimpse of The Lands Between to test the game's online servers ahead of its full release.
07:53Things obviously changed in the final release, and fans noticed all sorts of little differences.
07:58One of the more unusual changes happened to White-Faced Var, one of the early NPCs you encounter
08:03near the First Step site of Grace. While he's largely here to offer some guidance for the newly tarnished,
08:08he used to be a lot meaner. In the final game, he mentions maidens and the roundtable hold,
08:13before telling you you're fated to die in obscurity. However, in the original network test version,
08:18he tells you that you're plum out of luck, and describes you as a bit-player, before telling you
08:24feel free to go off and die in a ditch somewhere. Charming.
08:35An Elden Ring fan has discovered that most of the game's song lyrics are just computer-generated
08:40nonsense. One of the aspects that makes Elden Ring so captivating is its music, which is chock full
08:45of haunting choral melodies. Intrigued by the meaning behind these songs, one Elden Ring fan dug a little
08:50deeper and found that although the lyrics may sound like Latin, most are actually just gibberish.
08:56Reddit user Magister Orgarni, a Latin student, has been studying the game's lyrics. They started with
09:02The Song of Lament, a beautiful piece sung by the game's siren-like creatures. According to their post on
09:07the PS5 subreddit, these lyrics are actually in Latin, but they were written by a lyricist who
09:13worked on just that one song. Curious about Elden Ring's other songs, Magister Orgarni contacted the
09:18game's music producers, who explained that 99% of the lyrics in the game are not in any language at
09:23all, and don't mean anything. Instead, the lyrics are computer-generated and adjusted to resemble
09:28ancient languages. Intrigued to learn more, they went on to analyse other tracks, and said that
09:33sometimes the lyrics resemble Latin, but they are not Latin. The goal was to simulate ancient language
09:38songs to enhance the dramatic feel of the player's experience. So, those are all the Elden Ring lore
09:45secrets that we've seen. If there's any that you've noticed, put it in the comments below to let us know
09:50what we've missed.
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