Modder finds Elden Ring ‘dream collecting’ content cut from final release

polygon.com:

Alone in a sweeping field, a wolf sleeps. It’s definitely alive: Its body heaves up and down with each breath. But it doesn’t wake when the tarnished approaches; normally, a wolf like this would attack.

Modder Lance McDonald found this wolf and others, alongside a napping land octopus — its tentacles crawling in on themselves — in the Elden Ring network test build from 2021. They were all removed from the live version of the game, however. When McDonald began looking around, he realized this was cut content pulled from Elden Ring after the network test, all of it tied to a mechanic and questline related to “dream collecting.”

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In the original content, the player would be required to find ingredients necessary to collect dreams — from enemies like those sleeping wolves and the land octopus. After collecting some dream mist and giving it to a monk, players will get a consumable “Dreambrew” that makes others tell their secrets, McDonald said.

McDonald found that this mechanic was likely a way to encourage players to explore more, but also included a “sprawling” storyline centered on the monk. But the true extent of dream collecting is still pretty mysterious.

Elden Ring has so many secrets, some of them hidden deep inside the game’s code. McDonald is one YouTube creator known for this sort of work, but others are digging into the game in similar ways. But with a game so big, it’ll absolutely take a while until we’ve found all its secrets.