Elden Ring Almost Let You Explore NPCs Dreams

A new video reveals a cut Elden Ring mechanic and quest that would've let you put different NPCs to sleep and learn about their dreams. Elden Ring has been a tremendous success, which is a relief for many given the long and almost torturous wait for the game. With that said, like any game, it had a lengthy development that saw many, many changes. Due to scale, time, and budgets, games often have to make compromises and remove things along the way. Elden Ring was no exception and it seems like a pretty significant feature and questline was cut just months before the game was finally released.

A new video from Lance McDonald reveals that there was a character named Monk Jiko that was fully voiced and animated that would've asked players to collect "dream mist", a fog-like substance that could be acquired from sleeping NPCs. After collecting enough, Jiko would give the player "Dreambrew", a drink that could be offered to different NPCs and put them to sleep. They'd then have different dreams that would be revealed to the player, but it's unclear if these just would've been described through text (as seen in this early version) or if they would've been more visual. One of the game's merchants is seen taking the drink and having a violent nightmare in McDonald's video. McDonald also noted that Jiko would've had a larger quest line that stretched throughout the entire game, but it was ultimately cut from the game.

It's hard to see what larger purpose this mechanic would have had. While interesting, it doesn't seem to have a massive impact on the gameplay. Ultimately, it just adds some new dialogue options, which probably explains why FromSoftware decided to remove the mechanic from the game. If the larger quest line from Monk Jiko was more grand, it could be more interesting, but details are scarce on what that would have looked like.

What do you think of this piece of Elden Ring cut content? Let me know in the comments below or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.