'Elden Ring' Player Stumbles Across Incredible Feature That Was Cut From Game

There's so much to love about Elden Ring, but one of my favourite things in the game is the sheer unpredictability of the game's enemies.

At any given moment you have no idea what threat might be waiting for you around the next corner. It could be a proud knight with gleaming gold armour and a deadly blade. Or it could be a massive dog with a head twice the size of its body. You just don't know.

If the standard enemies in Elden Ring are too vanilla for you, take a look at some of these wild mods!

There are so many great enemies in Elden Ring that it might have been nice to have the option to keep track of them. As it turns out, we might well have gotten that ability in an earlier version of the game. Newly discovered Elden Ring files suggest that FromSoftware's open-world RPG was supposed to have a bestiary at one point.

While digging through the game's files, Twitter user JesterPatches stumbled across a number of icons representing the game's various enemies. While it's just speculation, it's widely believed that these icons would have been part of an in-game bestiary that could be filled up by defeating foes.

"Looking through the game files I came across a few icons making me believe that a bestiary was planned at some point," Patches wrote. "There are 128 icons showing different NPCs. Each NPC shown has 2 icons, one greyed out and another one filled in, so it could be not found and found."

Patches added that there were no major bosses present in the files, suggesting that this bestiary was a way to keep track of the regular enemies. Inasmuch as a a bird with knives strapped to its legs can be considered regular.