According to a datamine, there was nearly an Elden Ring weapon and armour degradation system similar to durability in the Dark Souls series – and it may have been removed quite late in development, as the open-world game seems to have several hints towards it.
The Dark Souls games have a system called durability which allows weapons and armour to become gradually more ineffective and eventually broken completely over time. Elden Ring launched without such a system, which is probably for the best, given that Dark Souls 2 durability was tied to fps on PC and so was completely messed up.
However, according to Soulslike game dataminer JesterPatches on Twitter, Elden Ring once seemed to have a durability system of some type. After digging through the fantasy game‘s files, they found references to weapons and armour being “broken” or “at risk” – presumably pop-up alert messages for when it happened, judging by the other things on the list.
It would certainly make smacking a wall 50 times a lot harder, so we’re glad weapon degradation has been cut. Nevertheless, there are clearly hints of it left in Elden Ring. The giant ants spewing acid may have worked like the rock worms in Dark Souls, for example, and the lone smithing table at the Church of Elleh – with its own tutorial message – suggests that these anvils were supposed to be all over the game and were cut out, perhaps because Master Hewg was all anyone needed. Regardless, it looks like Elden Ring was once an even tougher game than it already is.
Going through text files and getting scared for a moment.
I'm glad these are not a thing anymore. pic.twitter.com/y8hloQVDM5
— JesterPatches (@JesterPatches) May 20, 2022
Since you don’t have to worry about degradation, check out the best Elden Ring weapons and Elden Ring armour sets in the game.
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