Sekiro Dubi, who boasts a huge amount of data on "Elden Ring," has released a long video showing another version of the underground areas. These zones seem to be related to previous iterations of the Elden Ring, with "cataclysmic changes" that alter the world map to a greater degree, similar to the meteors that hit Rimgrave in the final game.

The vast underground areas of the Elden Ring, such as Siofra and Einsel, are the coolest part of the game, with winding side stories of successive civilizations in the Land of Narrows. Sekiro Dubi's video shows the conclusion of Fear's quest in the final game The data used by Sekiro Dubi includes a rough draft of how this area would appear on the world map, as well as a WIP mesh of the area that can be activated and explored in-game.

Another Deeproot appears to be almost mapped to the final Deeproot, but with a long rift extending northeast and an elevator to the Consecrated Snowfield area at the end of the game. as Sekiro Dubi points out in the video, this could have been the original way to access the snowfield, or things could have gone in the opposite direction and the Deeproot Depths were discovered via the elevator from the surface cut.

Another underground zone in the WIP seems to be related to the Cataclysm cut system that Sekiro Dubi introduced in his video last year: at some point in the development of Elden Ring, From Software was planning a world map-altering natural disaster, like the meteor that struck after Radahn was defeated. The meteor will cause the Eternal City of Nocturne to be cut off. Just as that meteor opened the way to the eternal city of Nocron, such a catastrophe was supposed to open other areas.

The second WIP underground zone is mapped in the final game where the Mogwin Palace is located, just below the Starscourge Ladern and across the rift from the Ciofra River. The area is a deep bowl-shaped structure with winding paths along its sides leading to the bottom. According to unused cataclysmic data, the crater once appeared in the vast boss arena of Starscourge Radahn. The lowest part appears to be large enough to support structures and exploration and may have served as another large boss arena.

Sekiro Dubi speculates that this zone may have been associated with the extant boss Astel. An unused animation of Astel falling from the sky like a meteor was discovered by fellow data miner Zullie the Witch, and the theory is that Astel was the meteor that formed the crater in Cut Cade, and players descended to fight as bosses at the bottom of this other Mogwin Maybe he was there.

This would certainly be a more logical way to reach Mogwin (or what would become Mogwin) than the portal teleportation business in the final game, but as in another starting point previously discovered by Sekiro Dubi, being logical is not always better is not always a good thing. The final zone of Mogwin Palace is an intriguing mystery that is first discovered during the exploration of Ciofra early in the game, and its full importance will not be revealed until much later. Mogwin will also serve as a subway stop for accessing the upcoming DLC "Shadow of the Erdtree."

However, the alternate Deeproot Depths really caught my interest: it could serve as a path to Deeproot or Snowfield (depending on which you are supposed to enter) and would have been a cool way to introduce either area. Like Mogwin, Deeproot and the consecrated Snowfield are rather nonsensical entrances in the final game: the Coffin Flop Kayak and the Secret Elevator each hide a second, even more secret elevator.

But the only truly lamentable piece of content cut from the Eldenring is the heartbreaking complete quest line of Merchant Kalé, discovered by Sekiro Dubi. This underused performance by voice actor Nabil El-Ahabi is phenomenal, and really ties the Three Fingers subplot together nicely, rather than hanging out with Hietta and feeding her "grapes" like some sort of sick person.