In Elden Ring, there was almost a Dark Souls déjà vu during the first boss fight

For the beginning of Elden Ring something was apparently tried that would have reminded us strongly of Dark Souls.

At the beginning of the Elden Ring, the transplanted scion rushes us – a boss who puts us in our place, speaks, kills. Dataminer Zullie the Witch has now discovered that other candidates were also cast for this “bouncer role” during the development process. One of them would have immediately brought back memories of the first part of the series for Dark Souls fans.

Alternative candidate for opening boss

It’s all about this: Dataminer Zullie the Witch has once again dug into the Elden Ring game data and discovered “remnants” of alternative candidates for the first boss fight, so to speak. This is because their IDs still exist in a previous version of the arena’s map files. Zullie presents them to us in a video.

Alternative candidates: Among them is, for example, the Crucible Knight, which we encounter more often in the game – and which involves us in cool, but also quite challenging fights. The far more interesting candidate, however, would have been the avatar of the earth tree. A look at an alternative opening fight with him should trigger a hard-hitting déjà vu for Souls fans.

Here you can see for yourself:

link to YouTube content

That looks like Dark Souls 1: As the starting boss, the avatar of the earth tree is extremely reminiscent of the asylum demon that was supposed to make us a snail in the first part of the Dark Souls series. There are visual similarities: both are tall, massive, have similar stance, outgrowths, and wield heavy weapons – and they do it in very similar ways.

Zullie explains that both opponents have the same basic attack patterns, noting that it would have been fun to bring back memories with this, but switching to a more varied alternative makes sense.

By the way, here you can take a closer look at the transplanted scion – if you dare:

Wait a minute, what about Demon’s Souls? Fans who played the original or the remake will probably have the image of the Vanguard Demon in their minds. In fact, this one also bears a strong resemblance to the Earth Tree Avatar and the Asylum Demon. Zullie refers to him as a “spiritual predecessor”. The fact that the first two Souls games had a very similar start makes it even more understandable that this option was not chosen for Elden Ring.

What do you think would have been the best choice for the opening boss? Would you have been happy about a Dark Souls 1 or Demon’s Souls déjà vu?