Sekiro Dubi, a data miner at FromSoft who previously investigated the Elden Ring cut quest and coliseum, recently shared data (opens in new tab) from in-game files that suggest plans for DLC. This information appears to have been buried in the Elden Ring longer than the data-mined evidence (opens in new tab) of possible DLC areas discovered by Lance McDonald and Zullie the Witch that we previously reported.

Sekiro Dubi's theory revolves around the numbers assigned to the loot that drops when a boss is defeated. In the screenshots shared in their original post, one can observe a sequence of major boss names with ID numbers of 9100-9135 that are not tied to recollection, and after 9180, such as Loretta's Greatbow and Marais Executioner's Sword There are item drops associated with minor bosses.

Sekiro Dubi points out that 30 codes for 9140-9169 are unused and claims they are reserved for DLC bosses; Sekiro Dubi made these posts on Halloween after the 1.07 update of Elden Ring, but these boss IDs appear to have been reserved this way since their release.

Sekiro Dubi cautions that the 30 reserved slots do not guarantee the number of bosses that may appear in potential DLC (opens in new tab). "This is not a hard cap, they can literally add similar flags like these wherever they want." They just reserved 30 flag IDs for DLC bosses, and they can also add bosses that don't require those flags."

It is difficult to draw definitive conclusions from this evidence, but it only further supports the fact that some sort of expansion or DLC will eventually appear. At this point, like Ashes of Ariandel in Dark Souls 3 and The Old Hunters in Bloodborne, From Software has had some sort of DLC in the lifecycle of every Soulsborne game except Sekiro content was released.

Due to the difficulties of pandemic development and Eldenring's undoubtedly exhausting development cycle, this timeline seems to be stretched, but I doubt we will wait as long as we did for Phantom Liberty (open in new tab) in Cyberpunk 2077. I will always be an optimist, so I expect to receive some information on the "Elden Ring" expansion in the near future. Until then, let's get back to the tea leaves of event flag ID numbers.