Elden Ring Spoilers That Have Already Been Leaked

"Elden Ring" is the game everyone's been waiting for. The latest "Soulslike" game by FromSoftware arguably has generated more hype than any "Dark Souls" game ever did. That's partly due to the unique changes FromSoftware is bringing to the team's formula. "Dark Souls" games have always had a complicated, opaque mythology that needs to be explained rather than experienced, but "Elden Ring" brought in "Game of Thrones" author George R.R. Martin to construct the game's world and, hopefully, make its story more understandable. On the gameplay side of things, "Elden Ring" promises a fully open world that allows players to explore – and repeatedly die in difficult battles – at their own pace.

All fans officially know about "Elden Ring" is that it takes place in the Lands Between. Once ruled by an Elden Lord, the land is now under the rule of Queen Marika the Eternal and her demigod children. Players take the role of a Tarnished, called to the Lands Between to restore the Elden Ring and become an Elden Lord.

A treasure trove of spoilers for both the game's story and its mechanics made its way online prior to the title's launch. For anyone who wants to keep "Elden Ring" and its Lands Between a mystery, now is the time to turn away. For those of you who just can't wait to wrap their heads around what's going on in the game, it's time to look at all the "Elden Ring" spoilers that have already been leaked.

Beware of spoilers ahead for Elden Ring.

Fans have been desperately awaiting all the details about "Elden Ring" since the game was first announced, but some have found a unique way of getting the inside scoop on the game ahead of its official release. During the game's closed network test, players with jailbroken PS4s were able to datamine "Elden Ring" and uncover some of the game's most closely-guarded secrets. FromSoftware clearly understood the risk of players digging too deeply into the test run, which is why the devs placed a giant bear in the game that would kill any players who managed to find a way outside of the test's boundaries.

Unfortunately for FromSoftware, the developers couldn't predict this new PS4 exploit. The Verge released a report about the PS4 jailbreak on December 14, 2021, and spoilers for "Elden Ring" began making the rounds online just a few days later. Of course, until the game actually releases, FromSoftware could make as many changes as it wants to the leaked material. For now, though, it looks like several of the game's secrets have been unveiled.

The "Elden Ring" story trailer introduces the basics of the game's backstory. It opens by revealing that the fall of the world's demigods began with Godwyn the Golden's death. Newly leaked information from the game, however, seems to reveal that Godwyn is very much alive. The leaks show that Godwyn will actually be the game's primary blacksmith, and players will rely on his abilities to upgrade their weapons throughout the campaign.

In a leaked audio file from the game, Godwyn says, "I smith weapons to slay a god." Considering that the game's trailer claimed that Godwyn had died after the rune of death was stolen, how is it possible that he factors into the rest of the game's story? Another audio file features Godwyn quietly rambling about a Grail and (again) his ability to smith weapons. The speech is in line with characters from previous "Souls" games who lost their minds after taking part in horrifying events. 

Perhaps tragedy left Godwyn's mind damaged, even as his body lives on to assist future travelers. And maybe that's why the trailer shows Godwyn's corpse opening its eyes as black liquid oozes from beneath its eyelids.

One of the biggest changes that "Elden Ring" will introduce to the "Souls" ub-genre is an open world that puts a heavy emphasis on exploration. Since the first "Dark Souls" game, FromSoftware has been crafting worlds that seamlessly interlink different encounter areas, but "Elden Ring" will offer an open world in the more traditional sense. In November 2021, Bandai Namco finally released a gameplay preview of "Elden Ring" that gave players a taste of the variety of locations they would encounter throughout the game. The recent datamining leaks have revealed even more details about what's in store for adventurers come February 2022.

One file that's been leaked makes reference to "the other Eternal City." The speakers say that the city hides a "cradle chalice," and though the importance of the chalice has yet to be revealed, fans of the Souls series will likely remember the importance of chalices in "Bloodborne." In that game chalices were used to generate new dungeons that could be explored for unique loot and bosses. Some of the dialogue from "Elden Ring" has been leaked in a text file, and an unknown speaker makes reference to a secret path that leads through a well to the meeting place of "the Great Caravan" somewhere "under the capital." Secret paths and underground cities are nothing new to veterans of FromSoftware's previous games, but we'll have to wait until February, or the next round of leaks, to piece together how the Great Caravan fits into the game's story.

Games in FromSoftware's Souls series tend to have stories that are rich with details but difficult to understand. They're often told through item descriptions and opaque bits of dialogue threaded throughout the game, which turns piecing things together into a challenging mini game of its own. That makes this particular leak especially exciting for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of "Elden Ring's" main story.

Datamined files from the game's closed network test contain an entire quest's worth of dialogue. The dialogue comes from Millicent, a young girl suffering from "scarlet rot," and Gowry, the sage who raised her. Millicent is the daughter of Malenia who rules part of the Lands Between with her five sisters. Malenia once fought the giant Lord Radahn, and one day she will replace her mother Marika as Queen. Gowry asks that the players kill Millicent when Malenia ascends to the throne. Only then will Millicent "begin to flower" and become a "scarlet valkyrie." 

The branching dialogue seems to reveal that players have the option to either do as Gowry asks or to help Millicent escape her fate. There's no indication of how central this particular questline is to the main story, but fans already know from the game's official description that Queen Marika the Eternal and her daughters are a main focus.

If the leaks are to believed, many fan favorite methods of mowing down enemies from the "Souls" games will be returning to "Elden Ring." Datamining has revealed most (if not all) of the various weapon classes that the Tarnished will have at their disposal as they wander about the Lands Between slaying monsters. Many classes, from the greatsword to the warhammer, are "Souls" series regulars. Others, like the bow and crossbow, have seen their mechanical ups and downs over the years. There are also some exciting new additions, including the colossal sword and the glintstone staff.

Another returning combat enhancement is the ability to infuse weapons with various magical properties or elements. Players will be able to make their blades ignite into flames, poison enemies, or deal extreme amounts of physical damage. For anyone building a character with a darker aim on dealing death, blood and occult infusions will likely work perfectly, though gamers don't yet have a clear understanding of what they do in terms of augmenting damage. There were no major surprises in the weapons and infusions leak, but there are more than enough new touches to get fans' imaginations running wild.

The bosses of "Elden Ring" will likely provide some of the games most memorable moments. There'll be no shortage of monstrous death dealers for players to tackle during their exploration of the lands between, but another spoiler claims to reveal the identities of the six main bosses who will need to be dispatched in order to obtain the Great Runes. Players will take on the Golden Lord Godric, the Moon Lord Rennala, the Blood Lord Mohg, the Grace Lord Morgott, the Chaos Lord Hoarah Loux, and the Giant Lord Radahn. The last of these intimidating warriors can be seen in the game's story trailer.

The "Elden Ring" leaks uncovered a few other small insights into two of the bosses. There are three NPCs listed as Lord Rennala's children, meaning that Rennala's boss battle could be one to look out for. It wouldn't be the first time FromSoftware put players toe-to-toe with multiple bosses in a single fight.

Another audio file features an unknown NPC describing the location where Lord Radahn can be fought. "Now we find ourselves at a festival of combat," he says, "pitted against Radahn, once the strongest of the demigods." Radahn's strength level is supported by another audio file where a female NPC describes his battle, and victory, with a constellation of stars. Either she's speaking metaphorically, or Radahn is even bigger than he appeared in the trailer.

Two other big pieces of information came out in the "Elden Ring" leak, and they're going to provide plenty of fuel for speculation until the game's release. A massive text file containing huge chunks of the game's dialogue was uncovered during the datamining process. There are pages of text to pore over, but none of them label which characters are speaking which lines. Even without that key information, however, keen readers have been able to pull out some inferred story beats from the file's disjointed lines, and luckily for anyone truly committed to uncovering as much information as possible, another leak can work as a helpful guide.

A list of every NPC in the game has been revealed, and it can tell players quite a lot about what to expect throughout their time in the Lands Between. Queen Marika, the various lords, and Millicent all stand out because their names come up more often than others in the dialogue that's been revealed so far. Characters with names like Narrator and Talking Corpses are little more than interesting mysteries at this point, but others might be familiar to "Souls" fans (get ready to say hello to Patches once again). 

The extensive NPC list is also a reminder of the game's scale. There are over five dozen NPCs named, and it's hard to say for sure that everyone has been included.

Sometimes a soundtrack can tell a story of its own. Music can make or break a game's tone, and the music of "Elden Ring" has high standards to live up to. Half a dozen soundtrack files have been leaked, and they give an instant sense of how the game will feel. In one track, epic choral swells create a grandiose but unrelentingly eerie atmosphere. Another track that sounds like it comes straight out of a bloody fight scene uses a combination of chorus vocals and rhythmic strings to build the tension.

Composer Yuka Kitamura's talents are on full display in all of the music that has been leaked so far. It's no surprise that Kitamura also worked on the soundtrack for "Bloodborne," and clearly the horror elements that inspired the previous game's sound have been brought into "Elden Ring." Until Bandai Namco releases more in-game footage or a playable demo that's open to the public, listening to these tracks is the closest fans can get to experiencing the game firsthand.

You don't really need leaks to tell you how "Elden Ring" ends. After exploring every inch of the Lands Between and slaying countless monsters and foes, it will all come down to one last epic boss battle. "Dark Souls" had Gwyn, Lord of Cinder, while "Bloodborne" had Gehrman. Every "Souls" game has its own memorable final boss, and there's no reason to expect that "Elden Ring" would suddenly abandon this integral piece of the tried-and-true formula.

For all the information pulled from the game's closed network test, dataminers apparently came up empty on the question of the game's true big bad. Instead of giving a definitive answer, fans have surmised that there are several different possibilities, ranging from Queen Marika the Eternal to Malenia's many daughters (via GameCentric). 

Queen Marika might be the obvious choice for a final boss, since her offspring rule the various regions of the Lands Between, but FromSoftware isn't exactly known for making obvious decisions with their stories. For now, the final battle in "Elden Ring" gets to remain a mystery — but the leaks have definitely given fans a few credible hints.