Spoiler Warning: This article contains spoilers for the final boss of Elden Ring expansion Shadow of the Erdtree. Proceed with caution!
Elden Ring expansion Shadow of the Erdtree comes with plenty of additional lore that ties up some of the base game’s loose ends and threads many more, but its final boss didn’t have a word of dialogue itself.
That seemingly wasn’t the original plan, however, as one player went digging into the files of Shadow of the Erdtree and found some cut dialogue that didn’t make it into the final version.
As reported by The Gamer, Reddit user LaMi_1 shared the brief snippets online, and though they don’t give much away, the dialogue would ironically silence some of the complaints voiced by players upon finishing Shadow of the Erdtree. Final spoiler warning for Shadow of the Erdtree’s final boss.
Antagonist Miquella must take down the player to usher in a new age, so in true FromSoftware fashion, he summons some help to do so. Miquella brings in Radahn from the past, but not the weak, puny (incredibly difficult) version of Radahn from the base Elden Ring, but a bigger and stronger version now imbued with magic.
Almost like a puppet, this Radahn doesn’t speak but proceeds to destroy the player, somewhat ominously swinging his giant blade without saying a word. And this was seemingly a very deliberate creative decision as FromSoftware did record dialogue for the fight, even though some players complained of Radahn’s silence, disappointed that what almost felt like an old friend had nothing to say.
“I am Radahn,” the cut dialogue began. “Born of red-maned Radagon, and Rennala of the Full Moon. A lion bred for battle.” Elden Ring fans have weighed in on its significance, with LaMi_1 themselves admitting the dialogues are “very generic and don’t reveal anything” but it would also “be cool to hear his voice.”
Tiloy22 leaned into that first point. “They may have cut it because it just wasn’t impressive or important enough,” they said. “It’s very generic dialogue and Radahn never spoke, so him saying something ‘meh’ might lose the impact. It’s like how people prefer for mute characters like Link [from The Legend of Zelda] to never speak.”
Shadow of the Erdtree, which arrived June 21, 2024, features bosses with which FromSoftware “really pushed the envelope” on what the player can withstand, director Hidetaka Miyazaki said ahead of its release. If you consider Radahn on of those, check out IGN’s extensive guide for everything you need to know about Shadow of the Erdtree’s new weapons, its various quest lines, and how to defeat the big man himself.
In our 10/10 review of the expansion, IGN said: “Like the base game did before it, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree raises the bar for single player expansions,” we said. “It takes everything that made the base game such a landmark RPG, condenses it into a relatively compact 20-25 hour campaign, and provides fantastic new challenges for heavily invested fans to chew on.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.