Sadly, Elden Ring loreheads think finding the mysterious final secret Miyazaki teased could be an impossible task
“We're left diving in an impossibly deep and murky well.”
Following a comment from Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki suggesting that there’s one small thing that hasn’t been discovered in the base version of the game, the Souls series’ top loreheads seem to have concluded that finding whatever he was referring to will be an incredibly difficult task, if not an impossible one.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, thanks to a fresh trailer, we now know that Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC will be arriving on June 21, 2024, giving folks a nice few months to prepare and maybe spend an entire day repeatedly slaughtering Mohg. While many fans have been busy dissecting and analysing the trailer, a couple have addressed what they think of the community’s chances of finding Miyazaki’s secret - sadly, they’re not looking too good.
For example, FromSoft YouTuber Zullie The Witch has suggested that they’d interpret the director’s comments as more likely referring to the fact the game includes a raft of little things Miyazaki thinks players haven’t found yet, rather than one big revelation. “Obviously it's more exciting to think there's some grand treasure hunt we can embark on to find Elden Ring's last secret,” they continued, “but I don't imagine there's any way we, or even FromSoftware, will ever conclusively know how much is left to find.”
Pointing to the fact that it’s very unlikely Miyazaki’s combed through every single lore video or tweet that’s been posted since February 2022 in order to make sure that he wasn’t just talking about stuff that's already been spotted, Zullie added that players have no way of knowing which of the things they spot are actually significant.
The result? “It's impossible both ways,” they say.
“Whatever we haven't found, it's not a map, dialogue, items, etc. That's all thoroughly documented at this point. It has to be something more ephemeral, an intention, connections, realisations, understanding, etc, which means we're left diving in an impossibly deep and murky well.”
Fellow Elden Ring lorehead Sekiro Dubi seconded Zullie’s take, adding that a language barrier could also be standing in the way of understanding any such hidden meanings, given Miyazaki’s likely most familiar with the Japanese version of the game. So yeah, “some stuff might be lost in translation”, especially given how obscure and occasionally slightly idiom-esque some FromSoft lore can be.
If you're after some top Elden Ring tips to help you prep for Shadow of the Erdtree's arrival — or just to head back into Elden Ring to hunt for secrets — make sure to check out our recent interview with some streamers who've beaten the game in unrthodox ways.