Elden Ring‘s prized horned mount, Torrent, has now been revealed to have suffered a special attack during the development of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’s development.
Given the fact that Elden Ring is one of the largest and most comprehensive games to have been released in the last couple of years, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that some of the content that was created during development may have been cut in the final version of the game. At some point in the game’s history, it’s possible that a magical mount like Torrent (the game’s exclusive magical mount) had a few more tricks up its sleeve.
Data-miner and hacker Zullie the Witch, who specializes in Dark Souls and the Elden Ring, has discovered that the strange horse and goat hybrid appeared to have played a more active role in combat prior to the game’s release. In the course of his research, Zullie discovered a variety of unique animations that are exclusive to Torrent but were completely absent from the game’s released version. There are several different animations, one of which is a powerful backward kick with the potential to launch enemies into the air.
As a horse-like creature that transports players around and assists them in dealing with specific situations, as well as being absolutely necessary in defeating the Night’s Cavalry in Elden Ring, Torrent functions more as an extension of the player than as a separate entity in and of itself. Only while the player is mounted does it exist; once the player dismounts, it is no longer there to be seen. However, Zullie has discovered that Torrent does have animations for freely roaming around, despite the fact that Torrent does not have any exclusive animations for attacking or sitting down.
Because it enables players to launch enemies into the air and fling them around, Zullie believes that Torrent’s removed kick attack is entertaining in and of itself. Unfortunately, the disadvantage is that it is extremely difficult to get the timing just right, and it has little impact on the larger adversary. As a result of the numerous lesser-known mechanics and features in Elden Ring, it’s possible that FromSoftware came to the conclusion that there was little point in making torrent any more complicated than was absolutely necessary at some point.
The behavior of Torrent appears to have been simplified, which is consistent with FromSoftware’s difficulty in instructing players on how to play Elden Ring in the first place. Torrent’s behavior appears to have been simplified, and it’s possible that this had something to do with it. Players won’t have to worry about losing access to their mount or about it being killed or wounded by roaming enemies, which are plentiful in the game world, because Torrent will despawn immediately once he’s no longer being ridden.
Elden Ring players have already used Torrent to gain access to restricted areas, demonstrating that the horse-like creature is far from a pointless investment of time. As Zullie has previously demonstrated, she is an excellent source of information about cut and unused content in FromSoftware games, and it is highly likely that she will provide additional Elden Ring content in the future. A good chance that Torrent will make an appearance in at least some of them is also a possibility.