FromSoftware’s Elden Ring has taken the world by storm. The game released to staggeringly positive reviews, and is poised to be FromSoftware’s most successful game yet. It deserves it, too, considering that Elden Ring feels like the culmination of every Soulslike since Demon’s Souls. Sporting an expertly designed open world filled with FromSoftware’s lauded deliberate combat, Elden Ring is the next evolution of Soulslikes and possibly open-world RPGs as a whole. It’s difficult to understate just how impressive the game is, and aside from some technical issues plaguing PC users, the Souls fandom has received it with open arms.
With a couple of weeks having passed, many are still working their way through the game’s surprisingly dense world. However, there are quiet but growing murmurs of what could come next. It has been rumored, thanks to some detailed leaks, that FromSoftware’s next major project will be a return to Armored Core. That will definitely be appreciated after nothing but Soulslikes, Sekiro, and smaller projects from the company for a decade. However, there are rumblings of post-launch content inbound for Elden Ring as well, and considering the history of most of the Souls games before it, DLC seems very likely.
The Main Evidence for Elden Ring’s Upcoming DLC
The rumors of Elden Ring DLC are not unsubstantiated, and some evidence pointing to it has been found already. YouTuber and Souls content creator Lance McDonald has become a recognized name in the community thanks to his creation of the 60fps Bloodborne patch. He has also done a lot of work examining the code and assets of Bloodborne and other games, which has left him uniquely prepared to explore FromSoftware’s latest title. In a currently unlisted YouTube video on his channel, McDonald has begun the process with Elden Ring, and has already turned up interesting results.
In Elden Ring’s starting zone Limgrave, players can find a coliseum. That isn’t out of the ordinary, but what is strange is that there is no way to get inside. McDonald pulled the camera inside the structure, and discovered something strange: the inside was modeled. There is an entire battlefield inside the coliseum, with swords stuck in the ground and a spectating area full of seats. Alongside a main entrance that seems to include a fountain, there are two lifts on either ends of the arena that currently lead to small, empty rooms. It feels like this coliseum is meant to serve as an arena for duels, which is supported by other circumstantial evidence.
There are a handful of these inaccessible coliseums spread throughout The Lands Between, and each of them has an NPC nearby. That generally indicates a location that the player is expected to return to, and the Limgrave location is even more noteworthy. Upon drawing near to it, an NPC invader will appear and will drop PvP-related items upon defeat. This suggests that these coliseums are meant to serve the same role as similar locations in the Dark Souls trilogy as dedicated arenas for player matches.
What Elden Ring’s DLC Might Entail
It seems most likely that Elden Ring is intended to receive multiple PvP arenas at some point to match the prior three Souls games. Dark Souls 1 and 3 received their arenas in DLC, while DS2 offered its own via two covenants available at launch. DS2’s approach trades accessibility for features, as it only supports 1v1 duels instead of up to four or even six players fighting in teams or free-for-alls. All games have at least two arenas with distinct layouts available, which hints that Elden Ring’s own coliseums may not all be as plain as the one found in Limgrave. Fortunately, adhering to this approach also means that there should be some singleplayer content added at the same time to sweeten the deal.
With singleplayer in mind, there is one other function that coliseums could serve. A year after its launch, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice received an anniversary update that added several new features. Chief among them were the Gauntlets of Strength available to those who had beaten the game. These were several boss rushes collecting different categories of fights, each ending with an upgraded version of one of the game’s climactic human enemies.
Clearing Sekiro's Gauntlets rewarded players with new cosmetics, alongside attack upgrades and a combat art employed by the upgraded bosses. This format would work well in Elden Ring, especially with the feature that allows players to have practice fights against any bosses encountered in the gauntlets. Some of the more unique Elden Ring fights would necessitate loading into a boss’ original room instead of a generalized arena, but the coliseums would suffice for most foes.
Though as mentioned previously, the coliseums would not be the end of any paid DLC content. If their features came in a free patch like Sekiro’s, then that may be the end of it, but there is another Souls trend that Elden Ring could follow. Aside from Demon’s Souls and Sekiro, all FromSoftware Souls titles have received major DLC expansions that add large areas for players to explore. The number of these varies between games, but they have all added to the replay value and lore of each title.
Elden Ring’s open world means that it would need to warp players to a new DLC location, and some design templates used by Souls DLC bosses are already present in Elden Ring. The game is certainly not in need of any extra content, but with its early success, it would be sensible for FromSoftware and Bandai Namco to capitalize on the opportunity. DLC is usually ready around a year after a Souls game’s launch, so fans should expect to hear more from Elden Ring over the course of 2022.
Elden Ring is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.