Elden Ring's pre-release build is a fascinating glimpse at what could've been

techradar.com:

It's no secret that Elden Ring houses significant unfinished content, and one modder's just highlighted this by accessing a pre-release build.

A known figure in Soulsborne circles, modder Lance McDonald has been hard at work ever since Elden Ring's launch back in February. Having previously datamined Elden Ring's November 2021 network test build — where he discovered you could originally get NPCs drunk — he's now gained access to Elden Ring's beta version, streaming it yesterday (August 11) via Twitch.

Confirmed via Twitter(opens in new tab), McDonald revealed this beta version is from “two months before the game released”. That includes “heaps” of unfinished content, such as «different items, enemies, mechanics, character names, and full debug camera mode». To achieve this, McDonald used a jailbroken PS4, advising viewers this beta version's “using the network test user interface”. 

Intriguingly, this debug camera lets you detach yourself from the playable character, finding new discoveries like multiple shipwrecks in the western sea. Confirming «this is my own work» (via NME), McDonald advised he patched the game to enable this feature, porting over «a bunch of code to make this work». It's a fascinating insight and you can watch Lance McDonald's Elden Ring Twitch stream(opens in new tab) right here.

I'm live on Twitch for something special, I'm playing through a pre-release version of Elden Ring (from 2 months before the game released!) with HEAPS of unfinished stuff, different items, enemies, mechanics, character names, and full debug camera mode. GO https://t.co/qDYEQN4VLs pic.twitter.com/c7Nc2XN5yWAugust 11, 2022

It's a known fact that video games always cut content during development. Sometimes a feature simply doesn't