Elden Ring's Malenia Was Almost Even Tougher

It's been months since FromSoftware released its masterpiece "Elden Ring," and for many, those five months provided more than enough time to get through the over 30 hours of content the game offers. But some gamers still can't get enough of "Elden Ring." For example, many data miners and modders have spent considerable time scouring the game's files to find deleted content. Some uncovered content includes removed horse mechanics and a lost colosseum.

Recently, data miners have gotten hands-on with an early version of the boss Malenia – which should delight gamers, as Malenia is considered the hardest FromSoftware boss to date and is loved by many (via Reddit). One player even made it their duty to slay the boss countless times for other players — ultimately being rewarded in the coolest way by admiring devs. According to data miners, that feat would have been much harder to accomplish in earlier versions of the game, where Malenia was even more difficult.

Recently data miners got ahold of the original 1.0 version of Elden Ring from Oct 8, 2021, before the first Network Test. This version of the game is only accessible on console discs, and, of course, many things in the 1.0 version are much different from how they appear in the final game. YouTuber kotn3l ported the AI, UI, and texts of the 1.0 version to the up-to-date PC version to showcase what they found. In his video, kotn3l noted that Malenia's 1.0 AI was very different from what made it into the final game.

One of the biggest changes showcased by the data miner was that Malenia frequently blocked attacks. Additionally, the boss was much more aggressive in Phase 1 and had different combos. Her Waterflow Dance ability was also different in the 1.0 version going by the name of Malenia's Blade. Additionally, the attack was much harder to dodge as the two flurries were independent. This meant players could get hit with a double flurry back to back without any warning. 

Phase 2 was also different in the 1.0 version. For example, Malenia's bloom explosion was slower, her clone attack did not build up scarlet rot, and her Aenoia attack was used more frequently. Anyone who wants to attempt the 1.0 version of Malenia can download the required files from kotn3l's Nexus Mods page, but there probably aren't too many players jumping at the chance to take on an even harder Malenia.