Elden Ring dataminers discover Malenia used to be even harder to beat than she is today

gamesradar.com:

Hard to believe, I know, but dataminers have discovered that Elden Ring's most notorious boss, Malenia, used to be even more difficult to beat than she already is.

By analyzing and playing through the 1.0 version of Elden Ring (opens in new tab) - that is, a version that's been untouched by patches or changes since the original game was pressed to disc and played offline to avoid just such updates - Kotn3l discovered several key differences with her attack pattern and abilities, making her significantly more aggressive. 

"Upon encountering Malenia, her AI was [a] tiny bit different, unpolished even in this version of the game," explains Kotn3l in their video description (thanks, PC Gamer). "The most noteable change that she still has access to her 'old' 'Waterfowl, which modders have discovered before. This video aims to showcase some of her differences to the patched version."

The dataminer goes on to detail the differences which include her being more aggressive in Phase 1, boasting "slightly different combos", her improved blocking - "she blocks many, especially consecutive attacks" - and the recently-discovered "old" Waterfowl Dance. It also shows that the Phase 2 clone attack doesn't do scarlet rot build-up.

Talking of Malenia; an Elden Ring player has vowed to beat the infamous boss with a different build every day (opens in new tab) until DLC is announced… even though FromSoft has yet to confirm DLC is even coming to the RPG (opens in new tab). And did you see the speedrun attempt in which someone completed Elden Ring without leveling up or getting hit (opens in new tab)… without skipping the optional Grafted Scion boss fight?

Someone also recently completed a full three-hour run without getting hit (opens in new