This is the first gameplay trailer for Elden Ring, and boy does it have a lot of little
guys in it.
Who are they?
We might not have much official info from the devs, but with context clues and our knowledge
of previous From Software titles, we can make some pretty educated guesses.
This is Sister Mommydaughterwife.
She’ll help you turn your blood echoes or souls or gourd seeds or whisp essences into
newfound power.
She’s surrounded by an air of inescapable melancholy, but she’s also one of the few
sources of warmth and comfort in this brutal world.
This is Pilgrim Gary.
He’s a gentle traveler, drawn to these lands seeking to play some small spiritual role
in the world-altering events that are unfolding.
He looks like the Pilgrims from Dark Souls 3, or the Fish Wizards from Bloodborne.
You can probably kill him, if you’re a jerk.
These are the Mournful Bone Walkers.
These look like the same guys who hang out on the high wall of Lothric.
Glad to see they're still getting work.
This is a Buil...ding.
A buildDING.
This is Flat Stanley.
At some point you’ll descend into a cave and find him just sitting down there.
If you use the prayer emote in front of him for 3 minutes, he’ll give you a small jar
of honey.
The game will provide no further explanation.
This is The Wandering Pot, and we love him.
He’s the newest member of the mimic family.
There’s probably something really gross in there, and most of you would willingly
drink it.
This is Tomb Centipede Rafiel.
TCR is one of many dead lesser lords, brought back to life by the shattering of the Elden
Ring.
He’ll low profile your claymore hitbox and you’ll hate him.
This is the Tarnished Gatekeeper.
He looks really, really, really scary, but my bet is that he’s the guy you need to
fight before you get into the real game.
He’s got big Gundyr / Cleric Beast / Chained Ogre vibes.
His job is to make sure you understand the mechanics before moving out into the big scary
world.
Like a big fucked up driving instructor.
These are just some guys
This is Berserk from Berserk.
This is the Fashion Squad.
These could be NPCs, but their cool outfits and ghostly auras make me think they’re
summoned players.
Elden Ring has multiplayer, and we don’t have much info on it yet, but using a cube
to summon a bunch of Alexander McQueen runway rejects is really some classic From Soft shit.
This is The Pale Dragoon and he is legitimately the coolest fucking thing I have ever seen
This is Furry Artorias and he is legitimately the coolest fucking thing I have ever seen.
This is Girl Boss.
Following Fromsoft tradition, she’ll be one of the coolest fights in the game.
She’ll have multiple phases and a lot of surprising techniques.
Following internet tradition, she’ll generate the worst fan art.
This is The Blackened Spirit Knight, the normal enemy with a fuckin command grab.
This is the Wyvern of the Sunken Lands.
This is Cuphead.
*cheers voice* Yhorm!
These are the Burger Kings.
They’re priests of a quasi-catholic order, and you will almost certainly infiltrate their
cathedral basement rumpus room and kill their god.
This is the Spirit Stag.
Every fromsoft game has to have at least one boss fight that makes you feel super guilty,
but you gotta kill it if you want the pebble of radiance or whatever its guarding.
That’s this dude.
This is Cult Maiden Stendarr, and if you don’t bring her 6 cracked coins before you kill
the Spirit Stag, she will disappear and you won’t be able to buy any licorice root.
This Lady Pious, which is an ironic name because she hates god.
This is her friend, Loyal Blade Willhelm.
This is Manuscript Terry.
Such wisdom in these tomes… such power… hoohooohoo!l
This is Handor, a totally unique and weird non-boss enemy who probably took like 500
hours to model, animate, and program, but only shows up once, and for the rest of the
game you’re like “is Handor ever coming back?”
“Did they seriously make Handor for that one throwaway fight?”
Yes, they did.
They love doing that shit.
This is the Lost Giant.
He’ll be the semi-boss of a mandatory stealth segment.
This is Public Transit.
Fromsoft just loves to get your nude ass from one area to the next by having a big freak
reach out and grab you.
This is Kid Icarus.
Finally, this is Magic Horse.
The addition of Magic Horse might be Fromsoft’s cruelest ruse yet.
They’ve spent half a dozen fucking games conditioning us to think horses are gross,
horses suck, and horses deserve to die.
But then they’re like “hey, Rog’, we’re giving you a partner.
And yeah, it’s a horse.”
A total loose canon.
We know they can phase in and out of existence at will, and have an absolutely insane vertical
leap.
So now we’re trapped between our innate desire to love and protect this beast, and
our awareness of its ability to destroy us.
Magic Horse is the most compelling new character of 2021.
So there you go.
That’s all the guys in Elden Ring so far.
We’ve reached out to ask if they’ll be adding more weird guys in the full game, but
chances are we won’t know more until it definitely, really hits shelves in January
2022.