Elden Ring had deep sleep and dream mechanics cut from the game

Sleep is a thing in Elden Ring. For example, the Sword of Saint Trina can actually build up an enemy’s sleep meter and make them doze off. It’s a status effect at the end of the day — one that takes a foe out of the fight while they snooze for a few seconds — but it could have been so much more.

Lance McDonald, known for datamining cut content from Soulsborne games, has posted a new discovery: an entire game mechanic cut from Elden Ring’s final release. Originally, some animals could be found sleeping in the wild — attacking them was an option, but otherwise, they’d be in such a slumber that you could run by and even bump into them without initiating combat. A material called Dream Mist could be collected from such animals and handed over to a cut NPC named Rico. Rico would then brew an item that you could use to put other NPCs in a dreamlike state, making them offer information they otherwise wouldn’t. It sounds a lot like Sekiro’s sake system, which allowed you to offer drinks to NPCs so that they’d open up a bit more. Fittingly, McDonald’s video is a collaboration with fellow YouTuber Sekiro Dubi.

We don’t know why this mechanic was cut from the game, but it’s possible it could come into play for future DLC. The same goes for the locked Limgrave coliseum, which McDonald also managed to get inside, revealing a potential PvP area.

Curiously, there is at least one dream mechanic that is left in the game — spoiler warning for the remainder of this article. The final step of Fia’s questline involves entering the Deathbed Dream within her mind and battling Lichdragon Fortissax. That leads to one of Elden Ring’s several endings, more of these sorts of connections seems ideal for potential DLC down the road.