With time you will piece together the story and setting of Elden Ring but so much of the deep lore of the game is hidden from the player. We've gone hunting through Elden Ring to help you understand the story a little more and pick up on some secrets about the lore that you may have missed.
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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. Carlay 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 Carlay, 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 Carlay and something
06:49he yearns to find. Defeating Godric at Stormvale Castle would send Carlay on a quest to find the
06:55Great Caravan, with certain clues left behind to help you find the merchant's new location each time
07:01he moved. This would have continued until you reach 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 Carlay's scrapped quest, he discovers the fate of his people and embraces
07:30the flames himself.
07:39A look back at the Elden Ring network test highlights some significant changes to the
07:43finished game. 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 Round Table Hold,
08:13before telling you you're fated to die in obscurity. However, in the original network test version, he tells
08:19you that you're plumb out of luck and describes you as a bit player, before telling you feel free to
08:24go 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 of
08:45haunting 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
09:07on the PS5 subreddit, these lyrics are actually in Latin, but they were written by a lyricist who worked
09:13on just that one song. Curious about Elden Ring's other songs, Magister Orgarni contacted the game's
09:18music producers who explained that 99% of the lyrics in the game are not in any language at all,
09:24and 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 in the comments below to let us know
09:50what we've missed.