Elden Ring fans discover 'cut' sword behind frenzied speculation has, in fact, been hiding in plain sight the whole time
Even a year-and-a-half after release Elden Ring retains mystique, secrets, areas of the game that even the most dedicated cannot fully unravel. This is of course by design and has been the way ever since Demon's Souls, with FromSoftware always aiming to leave plenty of room for player interpretation: it's arguably one of the reasons that the lore of these games really sticks with people.
But one player tool does divide people: data-mining. Folk have been doing this with the Souls games for years and, while it's fascinating to see some of what was left behind in the process of crafting such magnificent worlds, too often these datamined elements are presented under the banner of «cut content», as something held-back rather than something that didn't fit.
A minor example of this is a greatsword that is seemingly not in the game, but does have icons showing it in three different variations. This sword is seen first in an ancient and weathered sheath; then it is seen sheath-less as a beautifully preserved blade, an archetypal greatsword; finally it is seen charred and twisted, as if forged anew in some demonic fire.
FromSoft's games always have weapon upgrade paths, but rarely do these upgrade paths transform a weapon's look and presumably attributes entirely, and the presence of the sheath in the first version of this weapon suggested that this weapon was at some point associated with a quest to get it out of there: a trick the developer has pulled in the past is giving you a weapon that can be used but is next-to-useless in its current state.
As can be seen in the below and several other videos, this greatsword has inspired speculation about its place in the Lands Between and why it never made it into the final game.
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