The messaging surrounding Elden Ring and FromSoftware games conveys that players task themselves with taking on incredible challenges, but players know victory sometimes demands a finer touch. Cutting a path to a boss or objective could leave players short on flask charges or FP when they need them most. That's why shortcuts and, sometimes, unintended skips can make the different in progression. One Elden Ring player has just such a skip for a notoriously frustrating area named the Brace of the Haligtree.
The path through the Brace of the Haligtree, starting from the opening Prayer Room grace and working toward the Elphael Inner Wall, Haligtree Town Plaza, and all the way down to the Haligtree Roots, is rife with danger. Haligtree Knights, the easiest of enemies on this path, wield explosive and poisonous sorceries. There are multiple encounters with two Cleanrot Knights and they often have back-up. That's not to mention the scarlet rot Erdtree Avatars, teleporting Revenants, Giant Miranda Flower, Crystallians, and a whole church full of the Kindred of Rot. It's also a multi-layered labyrinth.
Suffice to say, rather than butting their heads against a genuine army, it'd be kinder for players to unlock the Haligtree Roots grace and then hunt for items at their own leisure. That's what this skip intends to allow. It's also a humorous skip, the latest of many funny Elden Ring skips, and offers a fun trick that players may otherwise not realize.
The skip involves leaving the Prayer Room grace like normal, running past the first group of Haligtree Knights, and reaching the second arch stretching out from the current level of the castle. Run out on this arch and do a slight drop onto a lip of the tower. If the player walks around the tower, they'll find it's hollow and will obviously kill them if they drop, which is exactly what they'll do. Walk to the back corner of the inside of the tower, turn toward its center, and drop. If it works correctly, the elevator should rise, allowing the player to return and skip straight to the Haligtree Roots.
What the player is doing is effectively a suicide drop onto the elevator's button far below. If the player positions in the corner correctly, the player's body will drop directly onto elevator's button directly below. This triggers the elevator as if the player had walked onto it normally, which unlocks its use permanently. It will be available even after the player's death, just one more Elden Ring bloodstain in the name of progress.
Ultimately, the skip may seem cheesy, but it really doesn't take that much longer than a normal skip running from the Prayer Room to the Haligtree Roots. It's more a matter of knowing the right path, rather than being particularly timely or dangerous. If this makes the completion of the Haligtree that much more stress-free for some players, it'll have been worth it.
Elden Ring is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
