Elden Ring has proven to be a huge success, with millions of players dedicating significant chunks of time to exploring the game's massive open world. With plenty of quests to complete, bosses to slay, and secrets to discover, Elden Ring has enough content to keep fans busy for the long haul. However, a recent data mine leak may reveal at least one feature that was left on the cutting room floor.
Elden Ring data miner JesterPatches has discovered 128 unused files in the game, all of which are artwork of the various characters and NPCs that players encounter while exploring the Lands Between. What's of particular interest is that each character portrait has two versions: one that is dark and blurry and another that is brighter and lit up. This leads JesterPatches to come to the conclusion that it's quite possible a bestiary was planned for Elden Ring at some point during development.
It's difficult to come up with another logical reason why these image files would be in the game and why they would look like they do, so an Elden Ring bestiary does seem to be the most logical conclusion. Elden Ring has a large number of enemies and other characters that players encounter, so a bestiary definitely would've been helpful, though it's unclear if that was really FromSoftware's intention. If FromSoftware did prepare a bestiary for Elden Ring, it's unknown why the decision was seemingly made to cut it from the final product.
While it seems that the potential Elden Ring bestiary was cut before release, it's always possible that it could make its way back to the game as part of a future update. FromSoftware has already released multiple Elden Ring updates since the game's launch, some of which have focused on fixing bugs, but others have been more substantial, addressing fan feedback, making quality of life improvements, introducing new quest phases, and even adding a new NPC to the mix.
A previous Elden Ring update introduced new NPC Jar-Bairn and added NPC locations to the map to make traveling around the Lands Between a little easier for players. Considering this, it's entirely possible a future Elden Ring update could add the bestiary that was seemingly cut during development if fan demand is high enough, but no plans to that effect have actually been announced at the time of this writing.
FromSoftware has kept quiet about its plans for the game's future, though there are rumors that an Elden Ring DLC expansion could be in the works. Whether or not that comes to pass remains to be seen, but for now Elden Ring players will have to be satisfied with the huge base game.
Elden Ring is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
