How Elden Ring fooled you with a single detail 

Did you notice this in your first run of Elden Ring? Did you even find this place at all? Let me know in the comments!

When I was going through this one, a player left a message saying "try rolling" in a corner but there was no secret wall, I was confused why it had hundreds of appraisals, but when I reached the clone of that room, there was another message saying the same thing in the same spot and I was CERTAIN I was going in a circle. 10/10 Had to go back and appraise both messages when I was done

I didn't realize it could be a reference to PT, but seeing how even Esgar could be a reference to Pyramid head it actually makes a lot of sense.

I loved that dungeon! It went from feeling progression to "wait a second" to "huh?!" to "errr what is going on?" to "ooooh, clever!". I wish we had more dungeons like that or the chest one. Also no more hero graves. Screw those graves.

After a lot of confused wandering around in circles, I started trying to use rainbow stones to mark off where I'd been. There was a moment where I placed a stone at a fork in the path, went down one branch, hit a dead end, then turned around and went back to what I thought was the fork I had just come from, only to find that the stone wasn't there. I legitimately wondered if I was going insane. 10/10, great experience

There's the one dungeon in Liurnia where the gimmick is illusory walls. It's really cool, but only if you're playing offline. If you're online, there'll probably be messages in front of the illusory walls, but if you aren't, it'll kinda go like this (at least it did for me): 1. You walk into the dungeon and notice the lever right at the beginning. Pretty weird, but ok. 2. You progress through it normally, until you reach a dead end. 3. The dead end looks kinda suspicious though. You hit it, and oh, It's an illusory wall. 4. You think, wait, if there is an illusory wall here, maybe there are more in the dungeon. 5. You backtrack through the dungeon, hitting any suspicious walls. You find some hidden areas with enemies and loot. 6. Finally, right near the beginning of the dungeon, you find a hidden path that leads to loot and a dead end. You don't fall for it, and hit the dead end to reveal the boss room door. 7. In keeping with the illusion theme, the boss itself is hidden and summons a crucible knight to fight you, kinda like witches of Hemwick. Not particularly difficult, but cool theming.

You also forgot to mention how there was another Boss Room in this dungeon. However, it's already opened and it has 2 Omen in there already. It's theorized that the 2 Omens beat you to the room first and killed the boss there. I found that to be really cool.

Best thing about this dungeon is that it is hidden optional dungeon inside another hidden optional dungeon (Shunning-Grounds). Which is something Fronsoft does in this game, filling it with secret areas and rewarding exploration. Not to mention, Shunning-Ground has EVEN another hidden optional dungeon/location.

The loop fake-out trick is actually a feature of several late game catacombs. It really took me by surprise the first time I encountered it, and I considered it a good way of making the later dungeons more interesting, making you think that you got turned around and questioning yourself as you move forward.

Honestly, if you have the option to do so, I highly recommend running all these caves and dungeons in co op. Not only do they become manageable but you sometimes gets invaded and it's pretty fun fighting in these hectic, labyrinth style areas. Definitely provides more enjoyment to an otherwise rather stale experience if you've done these dungeons countless times like I have

This dungeon got me exactly as intended. I even killed the first Omen in the spot where the corpse shows up later. I ended up backtracking after going down one more loop, not sure if I was losing my mind or what. Absolutely brilliant design.

I was strong enough by the time that I found this place where I managed to kill everything, going through the full illusion without a break. I ran around and around in the loop and when I finally realized what was going on I was taken back by just how cleverly done it all was. Hands down the best catacomb in the game. I'm sad I'll never get to enjoy the magic of experiencing it for the first time again.

I disagree with the statement that you made in the intro to your video. One of the main aspects of this game and the souls series that has made it so popular is it's combat system. I enjoyed enemies being the main focus in most of the dungeons because the combat is one of the best aspects of this game. Id rather the focus be more on the enemies and the combat than running around solving puzzles all day. Not that I don't enjoy puzzles, but I like the puzzle to combat ratio that elden ring has and I think more puzzles might slow down the pace of the game and take away from one of its best aspects.

i enjoy the combat enough that "uhhh, this one has..... enemies" is still a good dungeon to me but i can't deny the puzzle ones are really elevated.

I liked this dungeon because it felt like a realistic tactic crypt makers might do to ward off tomb robbers, which a lot of crypt gimmicks feel like they're supposed to evoke

I’ve played this dungeon twice now and I never knew it was a loop. I saw a platform. I hit the platform. I beat the dungeon.

Quite ironic that you mentioned BoTW shrines since they were even more criticized than ER's caves and dungeons (since at least on ER you have visual variety, don't take long and some challenge you in different ways, like the teleporting chest or Caelid's jails). The most egregious were the Shrines of Strength, which had you fighting the same enemy or enemy type. It wasn't very good. HOWEVER, both ER and BoTW's caves/shrines are optional with very clear challenges and rewards. People fail to see them as bite size and expect completely unique experience each times. Zullie the Witch made a video explaining how the reuse of content can be a clever use of communication in a matter of challenge and expectations. Not every cave or shrine can be unique, unless the game focuses on dungeon crawling.

That dungeon and the Giant top dungeon were the two dungeons that made me feel like a failure and I'm glad I wasn't the only one who experienced difficulty in figuring out how I deal with these dungeons. 😵‍💫

Me and my friends played through our first time together and when we found this dungeon we thought we were losing our minds. We thought we were going in circles until we finally made it to the end, we all had a good laugh then got mauled by the dogs.

Catacombs(dungeons) are all pretty repetitive and similar(which surprisingly makes sense considering man made things and bound to be very similar to one another, especially ones that are meant to be built in big numbers), but the caves in elden ring are very much unique and different from one another, each telling a story of it's own and having plenty of interesting surprises(varying in amounts from cave to cave ofc). This excludes tunnels(mines), I am just talking about *caves*. Edited side note: Great vid Levi! I like when youtubers take a closer look at things in games.

In this dungeon I somehow managed to beat all enemies using the last flasks and healing items I could scrape from the inventory, and limped around in circles confused. It was an experience to be sure.

I'm so glad someone talked about this. i thought i was losing it at 2 am playing through it.

Another cool trick fromsoft used that some might have missed: when I first did this dungeon and started to realize what was going on, I tried to leave blue pointers in the room I had already been in from the map. Only to find out that they actually are replicated in the loops! It’s cool that they thought someone might try to do that

Ever since patch 1.06 I'm invaded in dungeons constantly, they make a nice change from hotspots, this particular one seems to be always active, presumably due to it's location. Fun stuff though.

that is eerily weird that YT recommends this to me not even five minutes after i finished a run of this dungeon for the blood talisman. its not even like i searched for the dungeon or anything that YT might have cached, cause its like the fourth time ive cleared it and knew the route by now. I do still remember the first time i did this dungeon. When i saw the fakeout boss doors id gotten baited hook line and sinker, it even felt like id made it back to the start-but then noticed the grace was missing, i legit though the dungeon's gimmick was that it shifted shape like some house of leaves shenanigans. Tripped me out so bad lol.

After you've opened the door, you can also go to the boss room in the second loop and fight 2 more omens. I can't remember if there is a reward though.

I got on the pillar the first time because I had learned that stepping on them can get you to new places in previous dungeons. I didn't even think they were the same room, I just thought it was a duplicate above the original lol

the grave wort gave it away for me, I would always pickup things like that, so when I saw it on the alter I was confused for a split second, then I noticed that the previous level had a small platform to jump out of the pit area vs just stairs, after which it all clicked, genius design

The giants mountaintop catacombs is another fun one.

I remember playing the PT dungeon for the first time, when I was in co op, the experience was so unique and jarring and I loved the experience of figuring it out with my friend

That Talisman you get from beating the bleed dogs and swarm of flies guy is really nice. It gives you an attack buff whenever bleed procs near you.

This kind of creativity was the last thing I expected when playing, which is why I enjoyed it so much. It was incredible to be surprised by a puzzle based on a cultural hit!

This dungeon is one of the most memorable experiences for me. Sure there's a lot of more interesting things in the game, but this one stuck with me.

It's interesting how you talked about the shrines in BotW as a good way of doing what FromSoftware did with Elden Ring's dungeons. I have seen another person talk about all of BotW's shrines and they thought they were really lackluster, easy, uninspired, repeatitive and not well designed at all. I can't say much about all of Elden Ring's dungeons and BotW's shrines. The only thing I can say is that I enjoyed the shrines that I encountered while playing Elden Ring.

As someone who loves replaying this game as an arcane build, having to do this dungeon for the Lord of Blood's Exaltation sucks. This place has always unnerved me.

This was my favorite dungeon in the game, and it was mainly because it looped without me catching on until I wasn't finding the grace at the start when I was backtracking in the second loop. I found it to be horribly clever, and I wish more dungeons had this kind of time dedicated to them.

I really wish more dungeons were as unique as this! It was really fun going through this dungeon. :)

Didn't even finish the video yet, but as a destiny 2 player that bit at the beginning was HILARIOUS

I noticed something was up as soon as I picked up the glovewart at the beginning of the second loop. Still took me a bit to figure out, there's a similar dungeon that uses the trap chests to mess with your mind. Couple of loops, find the lever, and it even has a fake boss room with no fog wall.

I look at the ER dungeons like the chalices in Bloodborne. It's extra content for people who want more but it's not given the same attention as the main story areas. Filler for the map. Would I like the entirety of ER's map to be filled with the same attention to detail given to each area in Dark Souls 3 or Sekiro? Hell yeah! Realistically though, I don't think that's possible. Same as every other open world game there needs to be side content. They needed something for explorers and people who need levels to advance, and this is it. I mean it could be worse lol. I went through them all once and that was enough, but I am able to complete the main story areas many times. ER can be very similar to previous Fromsoft games if you just follow the main path and pretty much disregard most of the open world stuff.

I’m quite happy that the dungeons are this simple,last thing I need is to solve some bs puzzle while being chased by a horde

"I noticed how varied the shrines in BOTW are" lmao thats the funniest thing ive heard in a long time.

There are 3 or 4 total dungeons like this one, and they were my favorite dam dungeons, I remember them even better than I do Stormveil xD

I misser this dungeon on my first AND second run, with my third character i ran dragon incantantions. I found this dungeon by accident, completed the puzzle, and with a sungle agheel flame killed the boss and its dogs. Then went to the wiki to see if i missed something only to see people talking about how much they hated this. The best part of elden ring is that everyone can have a completely different experience on the same world. Nice work Miyazaki

"Nice try game but these corpses are not rag dolls!" The dungeon is pretty late game content so you either learn to pay attention to your surroundings (Pat on back I you saw through it), or (I guess) not and get your mind blown (eventually). Both experiences seem pretty sick

I liked this dungeon a lot, it was one of the few times I actually used rainbow stones for something other than gauging fall damage. Once I realized it was a looping mind-game, I dropped 1, 2, then 3 rainbow stones in each loop to keep my bearings and I figured out where to go without a guide pretty quick actually. I much prefer this over the invisible bridges in that Consecrated Snowfield dungeon that you pretty much need a message to point them out to you, but at least those who got the Beast Eye from Guraanq will know they hadn't found the Deathroot and keep poking around until its found. That's the only reason I looked up a guide to that dungeon and realized the path even existed. These bridges have been my bane since the Crystal Caves in DS1.

That first dungeon I actually used pebble stones and the colors to know if I was already there haha. One of the first times they were useful to me, aside from testing death falls!

I mean to be fair for fromsoft, this is their first open world title, they need to jam in way more content than the fully handcrafted experience of Previous souls title, so a lot of dungeon would most likely feels the same, but some dungeon were made so well so its not really a bad experience overall.

I was actually so stupid in this dungeon that I looped 20 times until I accidentally jumped on the pillar without even noticing that I was running in circles 😂

I have to say your statement of the shrimps are 100% correct but counter point runebear in consecrated snowfield.

3:55 You don't have to be holding the Beast-repellent torch in the hand, it just has to be one of your two weapons. You can two-hand the other weapon and the torch will still pacify beasts.

There is actually a second dungeon like this though I can't recall where, but it's main enemy was living jars.

I think the dungeon is less meant to represent you killing the enemies, more so that everything died as time passed. There are no blood splatters on the actual “corpses” themselves, which would have indicated us murdering them. Instead, it looks like the corpses died naturally, but very soon after we completed the loop.

I remember calling this the "Gaslight Dungeon", 10/10 Would run around in circles again!

there is actually a VRchat map of the PT playtest and a few downloads online, was terrifying in VR

Yeah that dungeon was a trip when I first went down there. I hadn’t been spoiled so I went through a bunch of cycles exhausting all of my supplies until I finally thought to go up the flame piller Thought I was losing my mind. Wish we had more things like that . Areas the play with spaces and mess with a players perspective

I was fooled for a few moment, but I don't have much time to act like one. I'm too busy trying to kill the Omen in the room with an imp, and by the time I'm done, I realize "-wait, since when is this game's engine able to do this wierd shit? And in a game of this caliber? They are too lazy to implement an actual loop in only 1 dungeon. You can't trick me FromSoft" BONUS: Yes, booting up D2 is damn tiring. I don't like the WQ theme.

Another fun part of this dungeon is that there are TWO bosses in it. If you go back to the boss room before actually completing the loop you can fight two omen and get an item from the boss chamber

Oh that dungeon, yeah although by complete accident I came across that on my first playthrough. Now I can't even find it on my second!

Mentioning BotW shrines as a positive example is hilarious, that game is known for having tons of repetitive shrines. Yeah some are cool, but after a while it all feels the same. I personally think these dungeons are a reference to Bloodborne, as that game had these too in a very similar manner

First I disagree with your initial statement, I think the dungeons/caves are sufficiently varied for what they are, but I will agree with you in that having more puzzle like ones would have been a overall funner experience. Secondly I now realize that I have not completed the featured dungeon lol. I thought things were a bit too easy with those two omen (which if anyone is having issues with dealing with two at once, you absolutely can just lead them back to the door as it's not big enough to let them through 😂), now I know I gotta deal with this blood boyo. Fun video dude, I look forward to seeing what else you have made!

This dungeon was the one that convinced me for awhile that Elden Ring had good dungeons In actuality though that's probably because I didn't play all of them, but this one was cool.

Your sense of humour is genius...This is some excellent content sir!

Him: dungeons have the same feeling booting up Destiny 2 has… Me who loves destiny 2 and elden ring: it is, acceptable

I did this dungeon, but there is a similar dungeon with a smaller loop before that I'd done, so the moment I came across the second loop I thought "Aha, it's a loop." There's also a fake path to the boss somewhere in there, very confusing.

I really enjoyed the catacomb in the 2nd snow area

I did found this place but honestly i didn't give it much thought, once i got to the 2nd loop i instantly knew what was going on and that the key was just to keep going forward, i didn't feel it was puzzle dungeon though it's a good one if you got the "am i in a loop?" experience.

I actually didn’t like this dungeon at all, I got through it relatively easily just from continuing running. I definitely don’t think every dungeon needs a puzzle especially if you’re trying to get through for a specific single item; it just makes it extremely annoying to go through.

that's so funny, i actually thought Esgar was pretty easy. i was running a Bloodhound build so all i did was one-shot the dogs and then stagger-lock Esgar until his tiny healthbar hit zero. i love that what build your running in a FromSoft game changes your experience with certain areas drastically

Watching this video just triggered a terrible memory that my mind had most likely intentionally blocked out not only of my experience in that loop, but of how many times I died to those two absurdly overpowered lobster shrimps.

Bro the shrines in BotW are not that variable. They all have the same look and even though every puzzle is different, it gets very boring.

This dungeon would've been cool, if they hadn't repeated the design so many times.

Reminds me of another dungeon that does kinda the same that it looks like you already went through but nope, Ice Watchdog gave a little scare when i basically run into its arms.

I don't think it removes the emersion, I think it simply adds to the dynamism. Having a capacity to affect the world or not affect the world and by doing so you can have a better understanding of the world around you that feels like dynamic gameplay elements working together cohesively

Uhg…click bait

Click bait title man

I did really love finding this dungeon and being so confused. I really wanted there to be more varied puzzles like this too! I sort of associated the dungeons with the catacombs in bloodborne which are all pretty similar are kinda the same thing all at once. so i didn't really mind the familiarity of the dungeons in elden scattered throughout. it sort of broke it up a bit. but i did really like the ones that varied the experience!

As someone who plays Destiny 2 almost everyday, it's scary how accurate your comment about it is

I remember running through this dungeon, and thinking I was going insane. Ultimately though I made it to the end, after like 2 hours.

Bad Pun followed by an explanation into "Please don't stop watching" is the classic youtube I'm here for. And that weird button stuff? *Italian Hand Gesture*

I was so confused when I did this dungeon, took me this video to realize that it was a loop.

It could be because of a biased memory, but I feel like the dungeons more often than not had unique qualities to them, whether it was gimmicks, visuals, or something else. Like with the dungeon where you get the first smith stone bell, at the very beginning you're faced with a giant hole and if you look down, you can see the boss. And then you keep revisiting this hole as you traverse the dungeon, but are lower in the hole and getting closer to the dungeon.

You got me with the highschool spit joke, ngl

Didn’t know it’s a reference to PT, but being stuck in an infinite loop is a common trope in eastern ghost stories. I was delighted in that catacomb, dropping rainbow stones to mark my levels after I suspect some tricks alleviation tricks were being played--they even had a fake boss room! It’s pretty awesome

“Vape chest dungeon” had me dying

I saw a phantom with that hood for the first time today and it took me until a minute later for my brain to go "oh hey wait, was that pyramid head? Or that guy from Bloodborne? Weird"

Figuring out how to avoid the frustrating battles actually is the puzzle of that dungeon you're showing in the very first clip

just like in high school caught me off guard lol, nice video

I love the LoZ twilight princess background music in your video, loved that game and it’s ost

For me, it's one of those unique things that definitely stand out, but also one of those places that I don't ever wanna see again.

I'll have to use that new knowledge of Carian Retaliation not working on Swarm of Flies in my next playthrough 😎😆😆

Feels like a throwback to some sort of mythology in which catacombs were designed to be as mazes in order to prevent the dead from walking back out. In other words, force the dead to remember that they were indeed dead.

I remember this dungeon, but I personally prefer the variation in the mountaintop of the giants (or the consecrated snowfield, it was one or the other) the one there had a similar looping theme, but with an added element of some enemies seemingly growing bigger after the first loop. Not only that, but the correct path has you lift an elevator to drop down the hole to a lower area, which may put the idea to check the elevator at the start of the dungeon, which uncovers a secret optional area with a spirit ash at the end.

I just thought i looped back around and tried to jump on the fire thing and destroyed the boss and I didn’t pay much thought to it. Thanks for telling me more about this.

3:47 This made me actually laugh out loud xD "And it does absolutely f*cking nothing"

im finishing up my first experience with ER now. Ran into this dungeon and loved it!!! Sadly it didn't trick me for very long at all as I am a user of dropping glow rocks on the ground to keep track of my progress in a new dungeon. So although I wan't tricked for long, I still loved it and hope to see more of this trickery but for more complicated/harder dungeons. Fun related story, the reason I'm such a fan of the glow rocks is because my first souls game was Dark Souls 1, and during my 1st playthrough back in 2014 I couldn't figure out how to get through Tomb of the Giants, a completely 99% pitch black underground maze, complete with death by falling off cliffs, huge giant skeletons, the works. Nightmare stuff at the time since I never played a game like it at this point. Since I prefer blind playthroughs, I had no idea the lantern would light up the area since its lighting effect didn't work unless equipped in your LEFT hand! So I assumed there WAS no way to see.....I ended up making my venture through this darkness full of insane giant skeletons with the only method I could think of......glowstones. I painstakingly took tiny steps at a time, as I could only basically see ledges if they were right at my feet, and the scary giant skeletons only visible by their creepy glowing eyes floating in the darkness. Step by step, i dropped glowstones to mark my trail. Needless to say it took forever, was absolutely terrifying, and a hilarious example of how much I was enjoying this strange and brilliant game.

My spidey senses got triggered by the glovewort and confirmed by the second omen…… still took a few laps to figure it out.

lmao I remember doing that catacomb for the first time. Spent more than an hour trying to find my way out without actually dying

The fact that the loops had differences completely slipped past me because I was sort of in a hurry. I just went through it, and came across the identical room with the 4 guys and thought "oh the dungeon just wraps around on itself, so i have to find where it branches". And then I think it happened again and I thought "im an idiot i just went in a circle again". And then finally made it to the boss. The idea that it was looping and not me getting lost was, well, lost on me.

I never did this dungeon in 3 playthroughs but at least now when I do it for that talisman I won't go insane...unlike the dungeon going to the haligtree...