Elden Ring Datamine Suggests Malenia Used to Be an Even Tougher Boss

gamerant.com:

Elden Ring is an open-world RPG with a vast number of weapons and play styles available. This means that each Elden Ring player’s experience with the game is likely to be unique to them. Players will have differing opinions on separate areas of the game’s map, which bosses should be done in which order, and even which ending is the best. But surprisingly, most Elden Ring players can agree on which of the game’s bosses is the most difficult, namely, Malenia, Blade of Miquella.

Malenia is one of the Elden Ring’s many optional world bosses, and she reaches the top spot on most boss difficulty lists due to being a deadly combination of fast, punishing, and extremely hard hitting. Malenia also has a unique life-stealing effect which causes her health bar to regenerate with every hit she lands on the player, and this coupled with her various combos means that all of a player's progress during the boss fight can quickly be undone in a matter of seconds.

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It may be hard to believe, then, but this boss fight was once even tougher in the 1.0 version of Elden Ring, which is the version of the game that can be found on game discs before any patches or updates. A FromSoftware-focused Youtuber named Kotn3l has made a video showcasing all the differences between the 1.0 version of Malenia and the version that was seen in Elden Ring upon the game’s release.

The video reveals many subtle changes that were made to Malenia’s boss fight, such as timings for attack animations and an increased propensity for blocking the player’s attacks. This 1.0 version of Malenia seems to have had increased aggression towards the player as well. Kotn3l’s video also reveals that an attack