A new interesting rumor has appeared when it comes to FromSoftware’s hit open world action RPG from last year, Elden Ring.
As revealed on Reddit, Lance revealed on a Discord chat that they intended for there to be 2 DLCs. Quoting Lance:
“Elden Ring was meant to launch with a Season Pass for 2 DLCs by the way. It was all 100 % planned.
No idea when it was cancelled exactly, it just never happened and then the Colosseums just randomly showed up for free.
They were missing tons of content, and now only 1 DLC is coming. Feels like Bloodborne what happened with that.
Yeah, Season Pass was 100 % the original plan.”
Colosseums were part of Elden Ring’s Patch 1.08, that arrived around December of last year. These areas provided new opportunities for various player versus player modes.
And then, in February of this year, FromSoftware themselves officially announced that they were working on a major expansion for Elden Ring, named Shadow of the Erdtree.
Given the circumstantial evidence, Shadow of the Erdtree was announced about a year after Elden Ring’s official release. Patch 1.08 came nine months after.
The release window does put it up in the air if it was possible that FromSoftware was planning a season pass, but it is possible.
What FromSoftware could have done was release the Colosseum a little early, and release only some of those PVP modes, with more to appear later.
Subsequently, they could have offered a battle pass of sorts within that season pass, so that players could earn their way to some coveted in-game items by playing in the Colosseum over and over. Certainly, the PVP could have been easier for even novice players compared to the actual narrative campaign.
We don’t know what the content of Shadow of the Erdtree will be, but under this season pass plan, FromSoftware could have planned for a less ambitious campaign to come with the Colosseum, that would be a lead in for what will be in the DLC.
Perhaps FromSoftware was ultimately correct in moving away from these plans. It seems that Miyazaki’s team intends to be diligent in development of Shadow of the Erdtree, instead of releasing new content immediately with a hope for a greater return on investment.
Of course, live service, season passes, and battle passes are not FromSoftware’s specialty. Their curiosity ultimately gave way to other choices, though it does make one wonder if From could actually pull it off.