When I started Elden Ring Nightreign, I was going into it for the gameplay, not the story, but I now need to know more about these mysterious giants that FromSoftware has left almost entirely unexplained, despite them being the Souls series' biggest-ever creatures by a massive margin.
Although FromSoftware arguably takes a more direct approach to Nightreign's storytelling and narrative with its Remembrance quests and Journal entries, there are still a lot of things left up to interpretation. One of those things is what the hell those giant shadows – which, throughout the course of your expeditions, manifest into clearer humanoid figures – actually are.
There are theories, sure – like perhaps they're the spirits of big bosses being called to fight alongside the other Nightlords (thank you to our in-house FromSoftware lore head James Daly for that one) – but many questions remain unanswered. Now though, dataminer and FromSoftware expert Zullie the Witch has given us a better look at these mysterious figures in a new video (below).
Although they first appear as shadows at the start of any Day 2 expeditions, the giants' more 'solid' forms, which manifest over the course of the day, look more like humanoid trees, with branches and roots emerging from them. They also have glowing, blue branches growing inside them, which grow all the way out of the tops of their heads, where we can also see creepy human-like jaws, complete with teeth. What's more, they also have fully modelled legs and feet, despite the fact that you can't actually see them in regular gameplay.
Here's the kicker, though – Zullie the Witch estimates that these guys are around two miles tall – coming in at roughly 3,450m (or 11,319ft) – making them several times larger than any of the previous biggest foes and creatures from FromSoftware's Souls games, even Demon's Souls' massive 628m Old One. They also point to the giant buried skulls in regular Elden Ring's Caelid region, explaining that the size of those suggests that whatever big skeletons they belonged to would have been around 632m tall.
"Compared to the giants directly, this wouldn't even reach their knees," Zullie the Witch says, adding that if we're going to compare them to something, the shadowy, tree-like giants are "closer in size to the Erdtree itself", even though that's still significantly taller at 4,452m.
Something so massive surely has some real significance in the game, right? Well, uh, maybe, but consider this a spoiler warning before we get into some details about one of Nightreign's endings.
During the main ending for Nightreign, after defeating Heolstor the Nightlord, dawn breaks and we see a glowing light fall onto one of these giants. They slowly get up before eyeing up the Erdtree, and then simply turn away and begin walking in the opposite direction. This was the first ending I saw, and I'm frankly still as confused now as I was then. The tree giant bears some resemblance to Heolstor, raising further questions about where these guys came from and how they're tied to the Nightlords (assuming that they're not somehow one and the same).
FromSoftware isn't sharing, and right now, I'm just hoping it could offer some answers later this year with its Nightreign DLC. At the very least, I hope we get to fight one of the giants somehow – how cool would it be to take down a foe that massive?
While you're here, be sure to check out our Elden Ring Nightreign review, as well as our top Elden Ring Nightreign tips to take down the Nightlords.
