Elden Ring mod to include Bloodborne-inspired boss
Fear the Old Blood, Tarnished.
Modding community The Garden of Eyes has revealed the first original boss it will add to Elden Ring in a forthcoming mod.
The Garden of Eyes Overhaul Mod is still in development, but will add unique weapons, armours, spells, and new mechanics in what is dubbed a "fan-made DLC".
The group's latest video is a showcase of new boss Oedon the Primeval Current, which combines the best of Elden Ring with Bloodborne.
It looks similar to final boss the Elden Beast with its cosmic aesthetic, but there's a reason for that: Oedon the Primeval Current is one of the "outer gods", mysterious beings responsible for many of the events before and during the game, but never manifesting as a physical form.
Until now. According to the Elden Ring wiki, The Primeval Current is an "esoteric and mysterious force" with a "connection to magic, glintstone, and stars".
The Garden of Eyes team saw this as an opportunity to elaborate on the game's lore. And so, this outer god is - in their vision - Oedon, one of the Great Ones from Bloodborne.
"The idea in our mod is that Oedon is actually The Primeval Current, and it is an outer god from the Elden Ring universe who was able to get into contact with the Bloodborne universe," explains the video showcase. "However, he could only communicate there by voice. However, he was able to beckon some of the creatures and some of the scholars from the Bloodborne universe in order to initiate a forbidden ritual to give him supreme power."
The modders gave Kotaku some further background: "As a way to gain ultimate power, [Oedon] tricked some of the scholars in Byrgenwerth to study the power of the Old Blood, and that its combination with the power of Glintstone magic is the key to true Insight, and beckoned them to The Lands Between to initiate a forbidden ritual, allowing him to reach his ultimate goal of becoming the Lord of Cosmic Blood, gaining the power of the Old Blood mixed with the power of Glintstone magic."
The Bloodborne reference continues as the boss was inspired by both a Lovecraftian god named Yog-Sothoth from the Cthulhu mythos and a new weapon called the Whispering Terror that shifts - Bloodborne-style - between blood and glintstone attacks.
As such, the boss comes in two phases: Oedon, the Primeval Current and Oedon, Lord of Cosmic Blood.
Of course, the big question is just how hard will the boss be? "Oedon is planned to be an end-game boss, so I would put it in a similar difficulty as Malenia," the team told Kotaku. "However, you have to take into consideration that it is a completely different experience as Malenia is more of a humanoid close-combat-focused boss, while this one is a large monstrosity with two different styles in its two different phases."
It's a truly epic looking battle that not only merges two of FromSoftware's finest achievements, but shows the effort and care the Garden of Eyes team has taken to stay true to Miyazaki's vision.
If this is indicative of the rest of the mod, we're in for a treat.
The Garden of Eyes Overhaul Mod is available in Early Access for Patreon subscribers, and will be released for free once complete.
As for official Elden Ring updates, expansion Shadow of the Erdtree is in development but its release date is unknown.
Check out the full Garden of Eyes showcase below.
