Elden Ring’s map has been secretly changing without anyone noticing

Elden Ring’s in-game map has been gradually evolving since the action RPG launched earlier this year, as Bandai Namco inconspicuously edited the game without players noticing.

The changes to Elden Ring’s map have been documented by YouTuber and FromSoftware aficionado Illusory Wall (thanks, VG247). In a recent video, they explain that the game’s post-release patches have made several secret cartographic changes, tweaking the game’s map to better represent its world.

Alterations have been made to each of Elden Ring’s regions, with the smallest of them removing roads, ruins, or other features from the map that don’t actually exist in the game. In other cases, small unidentifiable blocks, which might have represented rocks or ruins that never made it into the final game, have disappeared.

There are bigger changes, too. The game’s original map showed a couple of roads and bridges that would have better-connected areas of the early game, and other regions have been updated for accuracy. The area around Stormveil Castle, for example, didn’t originally show a moat or the damaged section of its entrance. 

Several visual details have also been added since the game’s release, better highlighting the walls of castles, as well as more clearly defining cliffs and roads. The icons of each area have also been radically changed. More color has been injected into the Limgrave and Caelid icons, for instance, which were previously bare beige. 

See all of the changes in Illusory Wall’s video below.

A well-kept secret

Publisher Bandai Namco has released a score of patches for Elden Ring since the game released back in February. The updates have rebalanced bosses, fixed stability bugs, and buffed spellcasters, but none of the official patch notes have ever outlined changes to the game’s map. Many players will have been oblivious to the changes taking place beneath their character’s feet.

Not all, however. Illusory Wall wasn’t the first to notice the edits, and Reddit threads from as far back as March noted the changes. However, their video does go a long way to properly document the tweaks, and show the original and new map side by side.

It’s unlikely the changes will have impacted your game much, even if you didn’t notice them. Most of the updates are relatively minor quality-of-life fixes that were likely introduced to make Elden Ring’s map that much more legible. But they offer an interesting glimpse into the minds of the FromSoftware team, and the game’s world might have looked like at one stage of development.