Developer FromSoftware has a long history of including a series of self-referential items and characters across its roster of games, which has already continued into Elden Ring in a number of ways. However, as is often the case with the developer's add-on content, Elden Ring's upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree DLC will mean new lore for the Lands Between, and possibly solidify some connections between FromSoftware's latest titles and its various spiritual predecessors.
Of course, as fans of the FromSoftware catalog and most recently Elden Ring might already be aware, the idea of connecting all the developer's titles is often seen as controversial. That being said, while it may not have been the intended canon for the Soulsborne series to all be connected, there is a lot that can be learned about the strength of the themes that FromSoftware designs into its games and lore by tracing these links across games.
A Rundown of Fan-Favorite FromSoftware Call-Backs
There are a number of items and characters that appear across most FromSoftware titles, with some being spiritually related and others being directly pulled across all universes. Fans of Elden Ring's build variety and the items that can boost them, like the Blue Dancer Charm, might recognize that the item's utility of increasing damage at low equip load previously appeared as Dark Souls 3's Flynn's Ring. Starting small with items like this that have similar uses in and out of combat, FromSoftware clearly isn't against bringing concepts from one game to the next, especially if they're popular among fans.
On a more specific note of things that are directly lifted from one game to the next would have to be the Moonlight Greatsword and the character Patches. A favorite among fans, the Moonlight Greatsword appears across many FromSoftware games, ever since the second King's Field, where it was the final tool crafted by the White Dragon Seath in order to defeat the Black Dragon Guyra. Patches, on the other hand, has made appearances as a cowardly enemy and trickster from as far back as the early Armored Core games, through Dark Souls and into Elden Ring.
A Look at Trees from Dark Souls' Great Hollow to Elden Ring's Erdtree
Apart from the items and utilities lifted from game to game, there are also a handful of themes that FromSoftware appears to be interested in spreading throughout its entire catalog. One of the most pronounced themes is that of trees, something that is often used by the developer to indicate life, decay, and the gargantuan scope of the world that might otherwise go unseen.
Reaching back to long before Elden Ring's Erdtree was the focus of fans hunting down FromSoftware's sprinklings of lore, the first Dark Souls introduces the presence of the Great Hollow, a giant tree that the rest of Lordran appears to rest on top of. Another strong tree theme appears in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, where the Divine Dragon (a white dragon wielding a Korean variant of the Moonlight Greatsword) is depicted to both live inside a giant tree and be one with the natural obelisk.
Even the first phase of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice's Divine Dragon fight includes pruning the unkempt roots so that the full creature would lift through the clouds and fight the player head-on. These themes go much further into the design of the Divine Dragon, as the enemy model itself can be seen to have bark across its body to symbolize the life that it gives, as well as rot beneath the bark to show the decay that came from being abused by its worshipers.
Finally, fields of trees appear all over the FromSoftware catalog, from the endless forest that extends out beyond Ash Lake in Dark Souls, to the countless Erdtrees in the final boss room against Elden Ring's Elden Beast. In more than one case, these expanses of giant trees almost appear to imply that there are more worlds than the ones that are explored within the game they appear. A prime example comes from Bloodborne, as the Hunter's Dream and various Nightmare Frontiers appear to all be on top of giant pillars or trees, with hundreds more in the distance that could house even more deities and greater wills.
Patches Could Be the Ultimate FromSoftware Deity
Circling back to how Elden Ring could use the opportunities presented by Shadow of the Erdtree's expected exploration of Elden Ring lore, exploring this new DLC could lead to closure for some characters. This could include Patches, who has already had an impressively revealing questline in Dark Souls 3's DLC that shows the nature of the character and does some work to set up one common theory to connect back to Bloodborne. In the case of Patches, he appears in the Ringed City DLC as the friendly NPC Lapp, who will help the player through boss fights and guide them toward the end of the adventure.
This new look at Patches through the lens of Lapp reveals an impressive amount about the character, as this appears to be a version of the trickster who hasn't become jaded by his experiences in the bleak, grimdark worlds of FromSoftware. It sets up the backstabbing behavior for Patches across his many FromSoftware appearances, largely as a world-crossing figure who punishes the greedy and does whatever he can to survive from one location to the next.
More than anything though, it also sets up a framework that each of these worlds and their deities have only led to ruin, which in turn gives Patches the broader perspective to be distrustful by the time Elden Ring comes around. From this interpretation of the character, Patches could be the connecting thread that extends across all of these worlds, usually killing off faithful followers of respective deities until he finds the player willing to fight and kill these lords.
This perspective from Patches also helps to hit the consistent theme that the characters who covet power and use it to rule, like Dark Souls' Gwyn or Elden Ring's Greater Will, are doomed to be usurped by the player. If so, Patches could be the most influential figure in FromSoftware's whole franchise, killing unworthy players and assisting proper god slayers.
Elden Ring is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.