A player of Elden Ring recently discovered a different opening for the FromSoftware game, featuring an entirely new cutscene.
Sekiro Dubi published a video on YouTube revealing the discovery of a different opening to Elden Ring, present in an old version of the game. The previously unseen cutscene features Melina and Torrent. Typically, players begin the game at the Chapel of Anticipation, which inevitably leads to their demise, with Elden Ring properly beginning upon resurrection. However, Dubi discovered that instead of starting the main game at The Stranded Graveyard and working through the Cave of Knowledge, the game had players begin on a beach in West Limgrave. The discovery implies players landed in the sea and washed up on the West Limgrave beach after meeting their end at the Chapel of Anticipation.
Melina and Torrent, in the Elden Ring cutscene, walk through the shallow tide on the beach to meet the player, a meeting that usually happens in the Cave of Knowledge instead. The game lists the new location as a port on the old Elden Ring map available in the pre-launch Network Test, suggesting this was the player's arrival point in The Lands Between. Dubi found the files and reconstructed the cutscene, which features the Melina and Torrent meeting playing similarly to the one in The Stranded Graveyard, albeit with slightly different voice lines.
After the cutscene ends, players resume the game near a cave that drops into The Stranded Graveyard. One theory regarding why Elden Ring's developer decided to remove the alternate opening had to do with the game's open-world nature. Fears players may miss the opportunity the Cave of Knowledge offered as essentially a tutorial area led FromSotfware to place them there from the start.
Elden Ring Sequel is Set in a Brand New Land
Dubi's effort bears testament to the fact that Elden Ring is still foremost in the consciousness of many gamers and fans, who now wait for the eagerly anticipated sequel set to take place in a brand-new land. The Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree director, Hidetaka Miyazaki recently discussed the upcoming game's setting, "First of all, the setting of Shadow of the Erdtree is a brand-new land. It's a brand-new map separate from the Lands Between," he said. The director added, "In terms of setting and themes, it technically occupies the same space as the Lands Between, the same universe. But due to something story-related that we won't reveal today, this has become physically disconnected, and you'll travel to the Shadow of the Erdtree land as a separate place."
FromSoftware's Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree will be released on June 21, 2024.
Source: YouTube