Elden Ring’s statues hide a creepy secret
FromSoftware/DexertoElden Ring has its fair share of creepy and unsettling moments, but it turns out that the freakiest incident happens completely by accident, with the statues becoming a lot scarier than intended.
While the Souls games made by FromSoftware aren’t often referred to as horror games, they often have deeply unsettling monster designs, like the jar people in Shadow of the Erdtree or Ludwig’s corrupted horse body in Bloodborne.
Elden Ring’s vast world can be beautiful and horrifying in equal measure, especially when pretty much everything is trying to kill you. In this regard, the fear comes from dragons and giant dogs pursuing you across the map rather than a subtle build-up that leads to a scare.
It turns out that Elden Ring does have a subtle scary moment, but one that happens accidentally. A user on the Elden Ring Reddit noticed that a statue’s head turns to follow you as you move around.
“Nah, if Elden ring had those mannequins that follow when you look away, I’d uninstall,” one user wrote, while another said, “I thought they pulled a Skyrim; use NPCs as statues/mannequins with the result not working as intended.”
A lot of people pointed out the statue’s similarities to the Weeping Angel monsters from Doctor Who, with plenty of quotes saying, “Don’t blink.”
As other users in the thread pointed out, this wasn’t an intentional scare on the part of the developers. This is actually a common texture-loading trick seen in lots of video games, where a high-quality model is swapped out for a less demanding one when the player moves far away.
“This would have been a killer enemy type for them to introduce, especially in that area surrounded by statues like this,” one player lamented, while another said, “Because this area wasn’t creepy enough already.”
It’s a shame this wasn’t an intentional design choice, as it would have been a perfect jump-scare moment. There are broken statues, gravestones, and monuments all over Elden Ring’s game world, to the point where they become part of the background. If one started moving when you weren’t expecting it, then it would have been one of Elden Ring’s most memorable moments.