The mockups for the unused horses and Umibozu are mostly just me playing around with the fact I found the model size values in Elden Ring forever ago. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing how big the Umibozu would've been, or even how giant the HorseGiant was. Knowing FromSoftware, the real model for Umibozu could be significantly weirder than anything you'd expect from the regular depictions of it, even with how diverse some of them actually get. I realized the shot of Kalameet and his prototype at the end might be something of a non-sequitur for some, especially if you started with Elden Ring and never played the original Dark Souls, so if that's the case, I do have this older video that gives a bit of context to it: ua-cam.com/video/qBtDF2Pve-o/v-deo.html
Umibozu could also refer to a scrapped godwyn boss fight as he resembles a sea monster in some regard. It may explain why it is removed so as to not reveal much of the dlc. If not it’s probably a servant of godwyn or something similar, what with his nautical themes
It's crazy to think that there's barely a limit to how huge something like that could be. It could be five times as large as your mockups, and it would still work from a gameplay perspective. This mountainous creature, barely making any sound as it slowly swings its hand down to swat you.
In my head I imagined it as a way to stop the player from leaving the map. Like how GTA5 has sharks and Subnautica has Ghost Leviathans. Of course this would mean that the player would have had to be able to swim somehow.
@@Noctislolig thats another idea that i had, maybe if whenever you walked off of those underwater cliffs that kill you a pitch black hand grabs you and pulls you down, just a thought, not sure how practical it would be but it looks cool in my head.
I loved that on repeat playthroughs, you can notice Midir hiding behind the floating building from afar if you used a binocular. And then he would fly down to the cliff once you crossed the bridge.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but for some reason this huge, barebones, untextured, humanoid model, just standing there in the water, feels so much creepier than anything that actually made it in the game. And there are some scary things in the game.
@@masa5300not bloodborne creepy sure but I've genuinely been jumpscared a few times by the beastmen of Farum Azula and one exceedingly bad jumpscare from a black dumpling in Volcano Manor.
There’s a lot of scary things in this tbh I agree, they brought back the basilisks and those things jump out of the rot lake and scare you, The dragons may not appear scary and strong at first but as you continue to progress through the game those bastards hit harder than a truck coming at you full force, the sea creatures overall are just uncomfortable to fight, except the jellyfish’s, they’re cute, then those dark spirits that live in the catacombs with the scythe lookin weapons that make weird insect noises can be spooky, Godwyns face and entire body is scary at first, when I made it to his body I thought he was gonna fall down or leap at me and it was finna be a boss fight till I saw fia there and I saw Rogier getting death blight in stormveil castle by godwyns face, underrated one is Castle mourne with those dog humanoid beasts and them hanging around this fire with someone h4nging on a n**se, what’s even crazier is the fact that this game is inspired by the anime Berserk and berserk is pretty messed up so this game is already set on crazy
Umibozu has matbins called 'seaweed' and 'tentacle' among the few files that remain for it, so it most likely was a sea creature of some sort, even if "umibozu" wasn't literal.
I feel like this kind of suggests a boss version of the weird octopus monsters you fight around the map in wet areas. Like maybe you would enter a cave that is filled with them and then at the end you fight a much larger and more detailed version of the normal big ones. It would also explain why it is amongst some of the less important bosses, just being an upgraded version of a preexisting normal enemy.
@@Toxin_E-07 As long as i stay out of the ocean itself im good. Huge eldritch monsters and the ocean are two things you do not mix together, ever. Under any circumstances.
Eh not for me. However the loch ness monster that got scrapped in RDR2 and model used in GTA 5 Cayo is more terrifying to me. Seeing the model up close is like seeing the monster under your bed.
I like it a lot! Even if it was just sitting somewhere staring, not doing anything. In Bloodborne, the watchful presence of the amygdalas, and the two which are capable of grabbing you, are the best example of this kind of entity in a souls game imo. And it’s so cool that they are only visible under certain conditions.
Telling you '"You can fight this boss later" is one thing. Making it mechanically impossible to reach, and just having them stare at you menacingly, though... "Don't even try to reach that guy, for your own good." Like the Rune Bear from the network test
It would also work from perspective of mythology accurate umibozu since they only attack if you speak to them (they take every word directed at them as offensive even hello)
Honestly I kinda wish there where more passive weird NPCs like that. Like the dragon in DS1 or the bug friend in DS2. Just some weird, unique... thing, minding it's own business.
I've always been afraid of shores in game, because I always pictured an easter egg where a huge monster comes up from the depths to kill you. This concept was probably started by things like the fish in Jak and Daxter to keep you from venturing too far into the sea.
Can you imagine, triggering an event flag somewhere deep in the files, and then when you happen to look out into the ocean, all you see is that humanoid head staring at you - and if you look directly at it, it disappears... so out of the corner of your eye, as long as that water is in-view and rendered, it follows you and just stares.
For some context, the reason why Umibozu are usually depicted as humanoids is because they're the vengeful spirits of monks that drowned, and presumably became so large because they had more spiritual strength. They're almost always depicted as pitch-black because their body is made from thunderclouds (which might be why they usually appear only during bad storms).
Interesting that the body of water encircling the Lands Between is referred to as "The Sea of Fog" or the Tarnished travelled "across the fog". Given the context that Umibozu form out of thunderclouds, it could be possible that monsters form out of the fog. Hence why the journey is heralded as treacherous. I have always found the lack of ports in the Lands Between odd, especially considering the shipwrecks. Another point of interest lies in Elphael, with many guards keeping watch on the sea. Or all the damage on the sea facing walls of Stormveil Castle. Most of this has little to no explaination. It generates questions as to what exactly the Lands Between is/are, and what this sea of fog contains.
@@sleep_enjoyer13i think the shipwrecks might have been non tarnished warriors who tried to go to da LB and become elden lord. But unlike them the tarnished could just respawn and washup on shore if they got shipwrecked
I find the seas of Elden Ring particularly fascinating, because of how little we know about them. There's a bunch of references to people coming across the sea, and I can't help but wonder what those places are like and what's going on there - Are they affected by the shattering too? I guess it also ties in to the bigger mystery of how we're completely missing the context for the name "The lands between" - "between" what, exactly?
It could be the lands between life and death. We know that the residents of the lands between are in a state of life, death and rebirth, due to the rune of death being removed from the Elden Ring. When the residents die, they don't actually really die, their souls just go to the Erdtree to await their rebirth. It seems to be sort of a state of purgatory. In christianity, purgatory is also the state between death and heaven, and going to heaven could be interpreted as being a rebirth in a sense. Although, during our adventures in the lands between, we see death constantly spreading from Godwyn's corpse, so the name is probably just a remnant of Marikas golden kingdom. As for the other lands, we don't actually know whether they are affected by the shattering like you mention, but i'm more interested in if whether or not they are affected by the Erdtrees cycle of rebirth. We don't really know if people die outside of the Lands Between, we do know however, that the Tarnished only begin to resurrect after being granted grace again, notably our own character. Due to this, we can probably assume that the residents of other places aren't affected by the Erdtree or the Elden Ring, which would mean that other gods could be affecting the other landmasses outside of the lands between in other ways.
@@juegosofgaming1215 Yes there is. The roman-catholic Church during the late middle ages promised ones sins could be lessened while they were in purgatory if they bought letters of indulgence from the church. This was one of the major factors leading to Martin Luther’s protestant reform.
@@vandagylon2885can it be technically considered "black" or just devoid of color? Like a black hole how it just absorbs light, the Umibozu is just a giant man with only it's eyes appearing 3D while the rest of the body seems to fold in on itself and make the background appear to be in front of it, if that makes sense
So, odd speculation: the only way to escape an Umibōzu in folklore is to give it a "bottomless barrel" and leave. In the old map layout for Elden Ring as you showed at 1:12, the area looks vaguely familiar to the Dragon Communion Church, with the Umibōzu there If you check the Elden Ring map in that exact area, there's a barrel just floating there where the creature used to be.
My biggest dissappintment as a big elden ring lover is that they never capatalized on the water. In each souls game i always like to periodically stare at the ocean and speculate what horrific things must exist there, we got a good taste of that in bloodborne with orphan of Kos. I was expecting something big with the water, coming into elden ring they teased me so bad with the map ever since the game dropped and i started searching and seeing the map expand the more i felt certain that we would get something i was especially hoping for a monster or a ship, may be a ship crash id have loved a teleporter that takes me way out onto one if the boats for something even if its just a dungeon ir something i feel so upset seeing this video and knowing they definitely thought about giving it to me
Like that boss fight on the way to the tower right next to the concentrated snowfield. bro when everything went dark I was EXPECTING somebody that big was coming out, I didn't open my eyes until I was already dead
@@AManWithAVoice oh my god, same! I thought for sure it was giant monster time... And the patroling guard suddenly being a corpse with an item drop, so unsettling!
"Giant being in/approaching from the sea" was also something that was cut from DS2. Perhaps this concept will make an appearance in a future game or DLC. Third time's a charm
I always loved the area on the shore where you can look out to the ocean and see a ton of wrecked ships with all the drowned zombies nearby. I always thought it would be neat if you could get out there with one of those teleporters and it would be an area entirely of wrecked ships and jagged sea rocks. Could have been where you would fight this boss.
It was a real missed opportunity to not place it as a boss hidden behind Castle Morne. Fighting a featureless black giant with empty white eyes on a tiny half-submerged island as it tries to drag you into the sea would be scarier then anything in Bloodborne.
That model doesn’t exist, it’s something Zulie put in for the sake of the video (and I guess clickbait). The video is about the unused code with that name.
I would've loved a second try on the Old Iron King boss fight. I really feel that if it had been a bit more similar to the DS1 hydra fights then it would've been much better.
I always thought that one part of the coastline in Limgrave, with all of the zombie sailors staring ominously out at that huge circle of shipwrecks was like, SCREAMING for a boss encounter, or something special to happen. It would make sense that they built that little area up specifically for this, but couldn't get the boss fight to actually work in a satisfying way.
That’s exactly what I thought while watching the video! I’ve been replaying the game with mods recently and I passed by that again and it feels so strange to be there with not much else. The moment they showed the Umibozu next to the ships all I could think about was it emerging from the water and coming to the shoreline
I got quite the opposite feeling. I mean yeah, something could have been placed there. But the zombie people aren't there because of that something, they are there because it's the furthest possible location from the Erdtree and they are trying to escape the Lands Between. It's a mass of hopeless people destroyed by the current condition of the Lands Between, wailing at the sea waiting for something to happen
@@Hyperversum3 I do like that theory! I do also wonder if perhaps they are from the broken ships, as they are supposed to be reanimated corpses. Perhaps then that could link both? The umibozu or whatever else destroying the vessels that could possibly be their escape, and their bodies washing ashore, forever fated to be trapped with no hope of escape, even in death.
I appreciate the imagery you made for this. It'd be nice to see more water battles in the souls series, the Hydra in DS1 shooting water from behind the trees is one of my favorite Dark Souls moments.
We have some unused dialogue from Godfrey which suggested early on in development, he would as an NPC task us and the rest of the tarnished to go across the sea and find the elden ring. This unused boss might have been used early on as the "boss that wrecks you right at the start but you come back later to kill it" game trope that fromsoft loves. The result of the fight would have it shipwreck us, either to be found by Melina in the Stranded Graveyard or with us climbing up to the Chapel of Anticipation after our ship was destroyed. This would serve as an explanation of why our starting out at the chapel randomly with no idea how we got up there.
my theory- Elden rings coast lines are littered with shipwrecks and castaway zombies (IDK the names), so I feel like its a distinct possibility at one point this was meant to make coastlines more dangerous, either guarding shipwrecks, and the loot, or snatching those who got too close to the waters edge and dragging them into an alternate arena to fight. It always struck me as odd that we find all sorts of things on the coast (at one location there even seems to be a castaway onyx lord taking shelter in some rocks) but no major threat or explanation for WHY there are so many shipwrecks.
This also went through my head when watching this video. Especially early in game I often wondered what was up with all these shipwrecks and wether there'd be a way to get to them at some point. I also rather distinctly remember one bigger coastline with a whole lot of these "zombie" dudes that barely attack and slowly walked towards the ocean. Felt really eerie going through there. But in the end it was pretty disappointing that this was nothing but small "enivronmental oddities".
@@Populon993 the ocean and flowing water are the border of the spirit realm. Every fight dealing with spirits/immoral essence is done on water. The Tibia Mariners, Rennala, the Jellyfish spirit ashes, etc. You can also see a lot of spiritual activity around Ice. Flowing water acts as a purifying balm for rot and poison as well.
I remember staring at those ships off of the wailing dunes on my first playthrough. I had a strong feeling they were placed there for a reason. I'm now 100% certain they will be relevant in a DLC.
Always amazes me how much content gets left on the cutting room floor in these games. It's probably not that unusual for game development, but it does make you wonder "what if...?"
Pretty much all Fromsoft games have a lot of cut content or stuff that's changed drastically from the original concept. I think Bloodborne and Sekiro had less headlines over cut stuff, but with BB there's everything related to the Chalice Dungeons. Demon Souls had some levels in the Nexus scrapped. Dark Souls 1 had different roles tied to some NPCs. Oscar would have been your rival that chose the opposing faction tied to your ending. He served Frampt if you sided with Kaathe and vice-verca. Andre was originally evisioned as Gwyn's long lost son. Dark Souls 2's development is a whole mess of a story. Dark Souls 3 had a very different plot in the beginning, and tried some ideas that would later be scrapped before being implemented later in Sekiro and Elden Ring (stealth, horse enemies, day/night cycle, etc.). Some bosses were also scrapped from the base game and reworked in the DLC like the Demon Prince (probably why that fight turned out so good). All studios leave some stuff on the cutting room floor, but it's always something to think about.
All games have cut content but in most games it's just "it was a new character that didn't pan out" or a cool boss idea, levels and such. But with games with mystery lore details like fromsoft and it's relatives these invoke more mistery. And with their record of bringing back unused concepts we never know when these things may come back, even on a different game.
It really fits with games that don't have an overtly scary tone, just one or two things that don't quite fit become a lot scarier and I'm for it Also ready to relive the PTSD Jak and Daxter gave me every time I'd try to skip to the cannon on top of that tower on the beach as a kid
@@paralam2175 I want to see their takes on a soulslike game where the setting is their take on a neo future dystopia. Fromsofts worlds are usually pretty dressing and bleak anyways, I wanna know how disturbing they could get if they ramped up a lot of the common themes of sci fi future dystopias like a dying world, mass consumerism, late stage capitalism, climate damage, body modification, and other themes and just crank some or all of them up to a horrible, scary, depressing 11. You know how everybody was hyped about the body mods in Cyberpunk 2077 before the game came out? You just KNOW Fromsoft would have a field day pushing the limits of imaging futuristic cyborgs by giving us enemies and bosses that have multiple limbs, or transform into giant centipede monsters with 30 legs and 8 arms all holding gunsabers and a split open face that turns from human to a predator-esque gnashing mandibles or something crazy in a gruesome looking Cronenberg-meets-Transformers transformation.
I love how even after all this time, you’re still able to make Elden ring videos and I’m all up for them :) I know content for ER may be exhausted so feel free to take as much time or time off making the videos as you want :)
This is actually one of my most favorite creatures in mythical folklore. It's terrifyingly fascinating. I'd never want to hop in an ocean boat, like ever!
this is why i love stuff like the ningen and umibozu (both coming from the japanese folklore), its always so creepy to see something so giant yet so humanoid in a big storm or antarctic depth
@@BadModderIt's also the name of a cryptid resembling a white whale-person, no idea why they decided to call it that. Technically not folklore, but apparently it's pretty popular in Japan anyway.
This kind of feels like "monster that kills you if you try to venture too far into the water" which is pretty common in games. We probably wouldn't have fought it at all.
One thing that popped into my mind were the giant summoned skeletons. They seemingly surface from the ground, are huge, have beam attacks. I base this on nothing but my guess, but I could see their animations or idea (of a large thing resurfacing, attacking and disappearing) being reused for the huge skeletons, which always looked a bit strange. Connection between water creatures and death is also suspicious.
that’s exactly what came to mind for me, maybe the mariner summons were supposed to be a standalone boss, before they were scrapped of course. it’s the closest thing in game to the theory
The fact that this was uploaded the day after I had my D&D players encounter an Umibozu is insane. I literally used that first image of the "humanoid umibozu" you put up, the one with glowing eyes staring at the tiny ship.
After defeating the misbegotten warrior in south, being so close to the sea I wondered about a boss where you'd just wander into the sea standing on or under the water fighting some monstrosity that destroyed the ships in the distance. I hope they bring Umibozu back for the dlc.
That might be my favorite spot in the whole game because it feels so secluded. Like after you beat that boss and just look out into the water, you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere. It's cool
great that there are people who also felt that this place had a specific charm. the grey color of the sea and sky, the rain, the wind and all that empty water
With all these bigger and smaller references to the deep sea that From put into their games I hope so much that we get some full on ocean-themed game from them some day.
Fromsoft really likes to bring up the sea, huh. Ash Lake, the Fishing Hamlet in Bloodborne, the concept of the Deep in DS3, the large lake in Fountainhead Palace in Sekiro, etc.
@@leithaziz2716They take heavy inspiration from Shinto, and an important part of Shinto is the concept of kegare, or something being unclean or defiled. An example of something kegare is stagnant water, as it's a breeding ground for disease, parasites, insects, and is just generally unclean, as opposed to flowing water, which tends to filter itself and is generally clean unless something else is affecting it. Fun fact: in DS1 when Solaire talks about time being convoluted, a more accurate translation is that time has become/is becoming stagnant. This suggests that the flow of time has slowed down/stopped due to the prolonging of the Age of Fire, and that Lordran has essentially become a "pool" of stagnant time. I think it's possible that the Undead Curse was a byproduct of this, similar to diseases that fester in pools of still water, the curse was a disease that festered in a pool of still time, but (minor spoilers) with The Ringed City it seems like it was a much more intentional curse than that. A more clear example is The Deep in DS3. It's described as both water and Humanity, and is a stagnant pool of humanity dregs, which produces numerous carnivorous insect-like creatures. Centipedes are another good example, as they're considered kegare as well and show up in BB (the vermin The League hunt are centipedes) and Sekiro as corrupting agents. There are also the centipede demons of DS1, which are likely meant to represent the corruption of Izalith. There's probably more I could go into but if you're really interested I'd recommend looking up something like "dark souls and shinto." I can't think of any channels in particular that go over it, though maybe Last Protagonist does. I know he goes over a lot of "lost in translation" stuff which should include some stuff like Solaire's dialogue. TL;DR: There's a lot of water and other stuff across the games for reasons
There were those rumors of a nautical, deep-ocean Souls game by From that emerged months ago. It was supposed to be set in Aldrich's Age of the Deep, and the concept was SO awesome. I'm pretty sure it was fake but it's still a great read, whoever came up with that had a golden idea.
I so very much want this concept to materialise as a game...and please, oh please may there be an abundance of merfolk! Merfolk are severely underutilised in fantasy games :(
I KNEW there had to be something about those sinking ships! Ever since I took notice of the sunken ships out in the water, I told myself "There had to be something out there". In fact, I thought we'd get a situation like the underwater Headless fight in Sekiro where we'd fight a giant monster in or even beneath the waves of Elden Ring. This might also explain my first ever death in Elden Ring being me having jumped into the water in an attempt to swim.
If Umibozu was in the game I would be terrified, since seeing a giant black humanoid with no facial features besides glowing white eyes and slowly walking out of the ocean towards you is pretty terrifying.🐱
Curiously enough, that's a scenario which has always terrified me, like, I have nightmares about it every now and then or just the thought of it makes me uneasy. Yet, a bunch of other stuff (say, seeing blood or getting on a plane) won't even bother me. It's not a phobia, but I guess it's as close as it gets to one 😅😅😅
Silly idea... but what if Godwyn becomes the Umibozu? Considering how big he is and his aquatic features: his face (where his golden hair still hangs) looks like a oyster or clamshell and the merman- or fishtail he has. I would also like to mention that Godwyn's merman tail reminds me of what the Greco-Roman mythological god of the sea Triton (the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite) looked like, if look at classical art depicting Triton. Edit: Thank you for the likes dear readers 😊 Edit 2: Typo
If UmiBozu was fought in/near water, it may be connected to Those Who Live In Death, since undeath and aquatic life seem to be closely connected in Elden Ring, but another possibility is that since many modern depictions of UmiBozu tend to be amorphous blobs (e.x. Pikmin 3 and Nioh) that it could have been a really big version of a Silver or Mimic Tear.
Well, I feel like that's finally a decent explanation of the enormous human skulls we find across Caelid and the Mountaintops of the Giants. That could also mean we might not fight them off the coast somewhere, but perhaps on a cliff face with the Umibozu standing next to us.
I always love learning about unused bosses in games. Like stages, mechanics, common enemies, music, etc is cool and all. But bosses, no matter the game, always tend to send chills down my spine. Like they feel like elusive creatures. dangerous threats we narrowly avoided. myths told through the years that used to be true. Like, looking through game files to find them always feel as though youre hiking through the mountains at night, and recording your journey, you get back to your cabin or house safe and sound, but going through the footage you discover the entire time you were being stalked by a mountain lion.
1:16 The half-island on the map is the dragon communion church in Limgrave, right? Given that the path in the released game is now a tunnel under the ocean, I have a suspicion: The umibozu guards the landpath by either sweeping you away with a wave or the path is submerged as long as the umibozu lives. Imagine you just want to explore the island and suddenly you get ambushed by a giant boss. I would never trust any beach again.
@@misery1500 There is a chest that takes you to the middle of Caelid despite being near the start of the game, another that puts you deep in a mine with rot bugs everywhere. There is ample reason to not trust chests.
Imagine if you have to go on a horse section trying to get to that boss while he's hitting you from a far , then when you get to him you find out that he's actually an entire moving dungeons that you have to conquer
The Umibozu are super terrifying. I can't imagine how horrifying it would've been to have a From Software imagining of one, especially if it was fully out in the ocean
That beach close to the shack with the merchant who sells you the zweihander always felt so strange to me, the place is filled with those zombie dudes walking towards the water with ships sinking in the distance. The place always felt like it was the perfect arena for a giant boss to jump out of the water or a giant enemy crab to dig out of the sand. I'd guess there could've been a good spot where we'd fight whatever Umibozu was sopposed to be in game.
There is a common phenomena across all cultures of a "call of the void" in which people have the urge to walk into the sea and die. It's very possible that with Marika's removal of normal death, those "zombies" are hearing that call and doing their best to truly die. Combine that with the fact that bodies of water are associated with spirit and the border between life and death and things start to really vibe - Hell it makes Godwyn's slow decent into an aquatic form make more sense, he's the prince of death who lives on, he's stuck in that border realm of the ocean of spirit. If you subscribe to the idea that Marika pulled death through into the world of the living to make them one (evidenced by those who Live in Death) and you could see why she would be so distraught and regretful upon the incomplete death of Godwyn - she was partly at fault for his suspended state of life within death.
My roommate and I are 29 hours into a region-locked playthrough and just finished all of Weeping Peninsula last night, and it's crazy how few unique items are at that exact location when you use an interactive map. That entire southwestern portion is incredibly barren, in fact, so a unique boss fight and drop would have helped give it some replay value
I can imagine how the umibozu fight turned out to be, probably with you trying to lure it out while it trying to lure you in and make you fall into the ocean
I find it interesting that this is in the files, since there's that one beach that feels like...super empty and pointless, the one with all the Hollow-like enemies just wandering around doing nothing, guarding nothing. It kind of stands to reason that that's where this thing would appear, maybe as a night-boss.
Seeing the ominous man shape standing in the ocean and then "Umibozu" pop up on screen made me scream since that nioh mission traumatized me lmao Edit: Also to have an actual thought, I wonder if it was meant to follow you on ALL shorelines if you got too close to the water. In DkS2 main bosses were supposed to stalk and attack you throughout their zones, like if the Old Iron King could pop out of any lava zones to swing at you. Maybe an attempt to revisit the concept?
Yeah, I also immediately thought of umibozu from nioh, especially from nioh 2, because that version had more humanoid features, like face and more humanoid-looking form when he fights you on the platform
How delightful, a combination of several phobias wrapped into something you get to absolutely clown on when you figure it out. One of very many reasons to enjoy FromSoftware games ^_^
@@rangedpluto1367 It’s been a long time theory that the planet Pikmin takes place on (post-apocalyptic Earth) is actually haunted/cursed by an Umibozu which is why everytime someone tries to land on the planet or pass it the ship either malfunctions or hits an asteroid causing it to crash into the planet leaving the pilots stranded.
Imagine just strolling along the shore with all those groups of slow moving undead grabbers and all of a sudden a black mist forms and goddamn smashes them to pieces, either staying mist like or into some kind of form, that would be quite an impression for quite an empty feeling area
Thanks, any time these NPCs turn up where there's only a tiny bit of text for them, I get wistful hoping they'll get finished later. It took a while but we got a few bosses like that from Dark Souls III in Elden Ring.
With the many giant shorelines around Limgrave with a huge number of zombies roaming them, I could see a situation where one of those shorelines would turn into a boss arena and that giant boss would rise out of the water. Maybe even have a Wolnir style fight where you attack the hands until it sinks back into the ocean once defeated.
The way that I choose to interpret The Umibōzu (if it is added in DLC or mentioned) is that The Tarnished most likely came to The Lands Between from across the sea, and it might have been The Umibōzu caused their ship to be wrecked upon entry. So, naturally, as umibōzu are prone to do, it stalks the tarnished from the sea, waiting to drag its quarry to the depths.
Im so glad i clicked on that bell many months maybe 1 or 2 years ago not sure ! I knew Zullie would be back, someday.... and i didnt want to miss it. Many content creators gave you credit and you deserve it Zullie.
Considering all the sunken ships in the background of the shores I wouldn’t be surprised if this was originally supposed to be the explanation for why, and I spent the whole game on the coasts of limgrave thinking “oh boy I sure do hope no unholy abomination comes and kills me from the water”
Besides just being a stylistic choice with medieval broken ships on the maps, you can see many ship wrecks on coasts in the southern areas of the game where you can actually stand on a beach. One of these is Redahns arena, where you previously theorized Astrels unused flying animation could have been. Maybe this was also a place you could’ve fought these enemies since there are multiple ship wrecks you can see?
Man, that's some striking visual! As for how the player could fight it, maybe it'd be just like the Umibozu fight in Nioh, where the player's standing on a dock and the Umibozu sometimes gets within sword range. The hydra from Dark Souls 1 is a great example - the hydra from the original God of War would work, too.
Seeing as how many depictions of the Umibozu are large, pitch black humanoids, maybe it was planned to be a hidden / nighttime boss, similar to the Night’s Cavalry bosses that dot the lands between, but instead at the beach filled with the shambling corpses, seeing as how it looks like they’re there from a shipwreck or something similar
The mockups for the unused horses and Umibozu are mostly just me playing around with the fact I found the model size values in Elden Ring forever ago. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing how big the Umibozu would've been, or even how giant the HorseGiant was. Knowing FromSoftware, the real model for Umibozu could be significantly weirder than anything you'd expect from the regular depictions of it, even with how diverse some of them actually get.
I realized the shot of Kalameet and his prototype at the end might be something of a non-sequitur for some, especially if you started with Elden Ring and never played the original Dark Souls, so if that's the case, I do have this older video that gives a bit of context to it: ua-cam.com/video/qBtDF2Pve-o/v-deo.html
Have you noticed how on top of the stranded graveyard, there appears to be a statue of Mohg carrying Miquella?
Umibozu could also refer to a scrapped godwyn boss fight as he resembles a sea monster in some regard. It may explain why it is removed so as to not reveal much of the dlc. If not it’s probably a servant of godwyn or something similar, what with his nautical themes
@@RobleViejo I led with the fact they had no remaining assets, so I didn't think it was necessary.
Great to have you back Zullie, we've all missed you and your work😃
It's crazy to think that there's barely a limit to how huge something like that could be. It could be five times as large as your mockups, and it would still work from a gameplay perspective. This mountainous creature, barely making any sound as it slowly swings its hand down to swat you.
Imagine if the Umibozu wasn’t a boss, but something that you would see in the distance destroying a ship every now and then
In my head I imagined it as a way to stop the player from leaving the map. Like how GTA5 has sharks and Subnautica has Ghost Leviathans.
Of course this would mean that the player would have had to be able to swim somehow.
@@Noctislolig thats another idea that i had, maybe if whenever you walked off of those underwater cliffs that kill you a pitch black hand grabs you and pulls you down, just a thought, not sure how practical it would be but it looks cool in my head.
@@NoctisloligWAIT SUBNAUTICA HAS A MAP BORDER?
@@joaoborgesrodriguesalves6554ah, a new person soon to be traumatized by what lies around what they already didn’t know
@@joaoborgesrodriguesalves6554it does and its horrifying
I’m imagining a Midir situation
where you look out to the coast and see this thing staring at you before going back under the ocean
Oh my dear sweet Christ that would be terrifying
If it’s not in the DLC I’m rioting
@@aztecserpent5525 it will not be in DLC :)
I loved that on repeat playthroughs, you can notice Midir hiding behind the floating building from afar if you used a binocular. And then he would fly down to the cliff once you crossed the bridge.
whats this from?
@@darkdruidsvale Dark Souls 3 DLC.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but for some reason this huge, barebones, untextured, humanoid model, just standing there in the water, feels so much creepier than anything that actually made it in the game. And there are some scary things in the game.
no
Scary things in this game? Like the doggos? lol
@@masa5300not bloodborne creepy sure but I've genuinely been jumpscared a few times by the beastmen of Farum Azula and one exceedingly bad jumpscare from a black dumpling in Volcano Manor.
There’s a lot of scary things in this tbh I agree, they brought back the basilisks and those things jump out of the rot lake and scare you, The dragons may not appear scary and strong at first but as you continue to progress through the game those bastards hit harder than a truck coming at you full force, the sea creatures overall are just uncomfortable to fight, except the jellyfish’s, they’re cute, then those dark spirits that live in the catacombs with the scythe lookin weapons that make weird insect noises can be spooky, Godwyns face and entire body is scary at first, when I made it to his body I thought he was gonna fall down or leap at me and it was finna be a boss fight till I saw fia there and I saw Rogier getting death blight in stormveil castle by godwyns face, underrated one is Castle mourne with those dog humanoid beasts and them hanging around this fire with someone h4nging on a n**se, what’s even crazier is the fact that this game is inspired by the anime Berserk and berserk is pretty messed up so this game is already set on crazy
It's called the uncanny valley look it up
Umibozu has matbins called 'seaweed' and 'tentacle' among the few files that remain for it, so it most likely was a sea creature of some sort, even if "umibozu" wasn't literal.
Good catch, I'm always forgetting to check the matbins.
I feel like this kind of suggests a boss version of the weird octopus monsters you fight around the map in wet areas. Like maybe you would enter a cave that is filled with them and then at the end you fight a much larger and more detailed version of the normal big ones. It would also explain why it is amongst some of the less important bosses, just being an upgraded version of a preexisting normal enemy.
@@InsertJack also all the boats you can see kinda points towards a sea monster kind of boss it could be close to a kraken of some sorts
I’ve been hoping that the dlc has something to do with the ocean. Fingers crossed.
@@Toxin_E-07 As long as i stay out of the ocean itself im good. Huge eldritch monsters and the ocean are two things you do not mix together, ever. Under any circumstances.
The idea of a giant regular man just emerging from the ocean is terrifying
Eh not for me. However the loch ness monster that got scrapped in RDR2 and model used in GTA 5 Cayo is more terrifying to me.
Seeing the model up close is like seeing the monster under your bed.
"Hi my name is Umibozu, I'm here to talk about your Torrent Insurance"
"regular man" Yeah lets ignore that the thing looks like it just crawled out of *the darkest corner of hell.*
I like it a lot! Even if it was just sitting somewhere staring, not doing anything. In Bloodborne, the watchful presence of the amygdalas, and the two which are capable of grabbing you, are the best example of this kind of entity in a souls game imo. And it’s so cool that they are only visible under certain conditions.
At least it isn't emerging from behind a giant wall
Having a giant dude just standing out there menacingly staring at you would add a whole lotta atmosphere to this game.
Yeah! Like, just off the shore. Doesn't inteeract or attack, is just there. Spooky!
Telling you '"You can fight this boss later" is one thing. Making it mechanically impossible to reach, and just having them stare at you menacingly, though... "Don't even try to reach that guy, for your own good."
Like the Rune Bear from the network test
It would also work from perspective of mythology accurate umibozu since they only attack if you speak to them (they take every word directed at them as offensive even hello)
Anyone is welcome.
Nobody can leave
Honestly I kinda wish there where more passive weird NPCs like that. Like the dragon in DS1 or the bug friend in DS2.
Just some weird, unique... thing, minding it's own business.
I've always been afraid of shores in game, because I always pictured an easter egg where a huge monster comes up from the depths to kill you. This concept was probably started by things like the fish in Jak and Daxter to keep you from venturing too far into the sea.
THAT FISH. That thing scared me as a kid 😂
if you shoot the water in the lake of resident evil 4 before the lake boss, itll come out of the water and insta kill you/jumpscare lmao
Spore did that for me. I tried to swim out into the ocean once and decided to never do that again
@@hobabo9703My fear of water in games also came from Spore
There was also that giant squid in an Assassin’s Creed game I believe.
The thing about this model that really scares me are the eyes, seeing this motionless, humanoid figure with those eyes is really uncanny
Can you imagine, triggering an event flag somewhere deep in the files, and then when you happen to look out into the ocean, all you see is that humanoid head staring at you - and if you look directly at it, it disappears... so out of the corner of your eye, as long as that water is in-view and rendered, it follows you and just stares.
The eyes in the thumbnail gives me Terraformars vibes.
For some context, the reason why Umibozu are usually depicted as humanoids is because they're the vengeful spirits of monks that drowned, and presumably became so large because they had more spiritual strength. They're almost always depicted as pitch-black because their body is made from thunderclouds (which might be why they usually appear only during bad storms).
Japan lore be scary
Interesting that the body of water encircling the Lands Between is referred to as "The Sea of Fog" or the Tarnished travelled "across the fog". Given the context that Umibozu form out of thunderclouds, it could be possible that monsters form out of the fog. Hence why the journey is heralded as treacherous. I have always found the lack of ports in the Lands Between odd, especially considering the shipwrecks.
Another point of interest lies in Elphael, with many guards keeping watch on the sea. Or all the damage on the sea facing walls of Stormveil Castle. Most of this has little to no explaination. It generates questions as to what exactly the Lands Between is/are, and what this sea of fog contains.
Damn, I can't believe shinto myth has a reference to Ultrakill
@@sleep_enjoyer13i think the shipwrecks might have been non tarnished warriors who tried to go to da LB and become elden lord. But unlike them the tarnished could just respawn and washup on shore if they got shipwrecked
A pitch-black giant made of thunderclouds brings to mind Darkbeast Paarl or the Abhorrent Beast. That'd be a pretty cool sight
I wouldn't be surprised if Godwyn's body was originally meant to be this Umibozu
That would be so DISTURBING just watching his dead eyes stare back at you as his corpse floats through the sea.
Good point. Especially since he is part merman.
The figure on the map at 1:19 does have striking similarities to Godwyn's corpse as found in game. This would have been terrifying.
the beast on the map shown at 1:16 looks incredibly similar to how Godwyn's body ended up looking, which definitely lends credence to that theory
oh that would have been cool, and also make sense since we already fight demigods in the game.
I find the seas of Elden Ring particularly fascinating, because of how little we know about them. There's a bunch of references to people coming across the sea, and I can't help but wonder what those places are like and what's going on there - Are they affected by the shattering too?
I guess it also ties in to the bigger mystery of how we're completely missing the context for the name "The lands between" - "between" what, exactly?
A take I saw recently is that it's a vertical relation - It's "the lands between" Nox underground and Farum Azula in the sky.
It could be the lands between life and death. We know that the residents of the lands between are in a state of life, death and rebirth, due to the rune of death being removed from the Elden Ring. When the residents die, they don't actually really die, their souls just go to the Erdtree to await their rebirth. It seems to be sort of a state of purgatory. In christianity, purgatory is also the state between death and heaven, and going to heaven could be interpreted as being a rebirth in a sense. Although, during our adventures in the lands between, we see death constantly spreading from Godwyn's corpse, so the name is probably just a remnant of Marikas golden kingdom.
As for the other lands, we don't actually know whether they are affected by the shattering like you mention, but i'm more interested in if whether or not they are affected by the Erdtrees cycle of rebirth. We don't really know if people die outside of the Lands Between, we do know however, that the Tarnished only begin to resurrect after being granted grace again, notably our own character. Due to this, we can probably assume that the residents of other places aren't affected by the Erdtree or the Elden Ring, which would mean that other gods could be affecting the other landmasses outside of the lands between in other ways.
@@FrederikSeerupNielsenthere is no purgatory in Christianity
@@juegosofgaming1215 Yes there is. The roman-catholic Church during the late middle ages promised ones sins could be lessened while they were in purgatory if they bought letters of indulgence from the church. This was one of the major factors leading to Martin Luther’s protestant reform.
Dantes Inferno moment@@juegosofgaming1215
This would’ve added a far bigger emphasis on the horror genre in Elden Ring and I wish they kept it in the game.
The concept of a giant, dark humanoid rising up out of the water is not something I knew I was afraid of but now that I’m aware of it it’s TERRIFYING
Oh don't worry there's alot of terrifying folklore from Japan
Yes, scary black man.
:o@@vandagylon2885
@@vandagylon2885can it be technically considered "black" or just devoid of color? Like a black hole how it just absorbs light, the Umibozu is just a giant man with only it's eyes appearing 3D while the rest of the body seems to fold in on itself and make the background appear to be in front of it, if that makes sense
Fr I would shi my pants if I saw this thing just staring at me from the ocean, especially if it only spawned at night
So, odd speculation: the only way to escape an Umibōzu in folklore is to give it a "bottomless barrel" and leave.
In the old map layout for Elden Ring as you showed at 1:12, the area looks vaguely familiar to the Dragon Communion Church, with the Umibōzu there
If you check the Elden Ring map in that exact area, there's a barrel just floating there where the creature used to be.
That's a fun observation!
Good thing that folklore isn't real because how the fuck am I getting a bottomless barrel 😂
@@hylianroCut the bottom out of a barrel
@@hylianro💀 smol brain
@@hylianroHave you tried removing the bottom part of the barrel?
My biggest dissappintment as a big elden ring lover is that they never capatalized on the water. In each souls game i always like to periodically stare at the ocean and speculate what horrific things must exist there, we got a good taste of that in bloodborne with orphan of Kos. I was expecting something big with the water, coming into elden ring they teased me so bad with the map ever since the game dropped and i started searching and seeing the map expand the more i felt certain that we would get something i was especially hoping for a monster or a ship, may be a ship crash id have loved a teleporter that takes me way out onto one if the boats for something even if its just a dungeon ir something i feel so upset seeing this video and knowing they definitely thought about giving it to me
This is literally my biggest fear playing these games. Like my heart dropped KNOWING that this was possible 😓
Like that boss fight on the way to the tower right next to the concentrated snowfield. bro when everything went dark I was EXPECTING somebody that big was coming out, I didn't open my eyes until I was already dead
@@AManWithAVoiceI had been having trouble with corrupted data I thought my game messed up wheat blacked out.I got it fixed though.
@@AManWithAVoice oh my god, same! I thought for sure it was giant monster time...
And the patroling guard suddenly being a corpse with an item drop, so unsettling!
@@metalheadparkey FR!!!!!
Thank you for keeping Kings Field's music alive, always great to hear these bops
Its not kings field ost anymore, its zullie ost now xD
That's King's Field music? It sounds very Zelda like
@@yourdad5799 Zullie uses the zelda ost too, that's probably why you thought that :D
hee ho
Same, they introduced me to "Dark Reality" from Kingsfield. Still my fav track
"Giant being in/approaching from the sea" was also something that was cut from DS2. Perhaps this concept will make an appearance in a future game or DLC.
Third time's a charm
We got old iron king. He kind of is "big thing approaching from sea" except the sea is molten iron/lava instead of water
Holy crap I almost forgot about that
Shadow of erdtree has so many potential bro istg if they fumbled
I always loved the area on the shore where you can look out to the ocean and see a ton of wrecked ships with all the drowned zombies nearby. I always thought it would be neat if you could get out there with one of those teleporters and it would be an area entirely of wrecked ships and jagged sea rocks. Could have been where you would fight this boss.
I remember seeing a skeleton wearing a crown on the shore, I wondered how a royal found themselves like that
I feel a humanoid-shaped featureless void like that is more terrifying than the actual boss would be
It was a real missed opportunity to not place it as a boss hidden behind Castle Morne.
Fighting a featureless black giant with empty white eyes on a tiny half-submerged island as it tries to drag you into the sea would be scarier then anything in Bloodborne.
From likes to mess around with ideas as they make the game, these are probably ideas that havent been fully realized
That model doesn’t exist, it’s something Zulie put in for the sake of the video (and I guess clickbait). The video is about the unused code with that name.
@@TRSRM jebaited again :( the giant human shadowy model is cool though
I would've loved a second try on the Old Iron King boss fight. I really feel that if it had been a bit more similar to the DS1 hydra fights then it would've been much better.
Imagine it was Godwyn
I always thought that one part of the coastline in Limgrave, with all of the zombie sailors staring ominously out at that huge circle of shipwrecks was like, SCREAMING for a boss encounter, or something special to happen. It would make sense that they built that little area up specifically for this, but couldn't get the boss fight to actually work in a satisfying way.
That’s exactly what I thought while watching the video! I’ve been replaying the game with mods recently and I passed by that again and it feels so strange to be there with not much else. The moment they showed the Umibozu next to the ships all I could think about was it emerging from the water and coming to the shoreline
@@Dageekandnoob Yeah, that stretch of coast always felt really foreboding, like there just HAD to be something huge and terrifying there.
I got quite the opposite feeling.
I mean yeah, something could have been placed there. But the zombie people aren't there because of that something, they are there because it's the furthest possible location from the Erdtree and they are trying to escape the Lands Between.
It's a mass of hopeless people destroyed by the current condition of the Lands Between, wailing at the sea waiting for something to happen
@@Hyperversum3 I do like that theory! I do also wonder if perhaps they are from the broken ships, as they are supposed to be reanimated corpses. Perhaps then that could link both? The umibozu or whatever else destroying the vessels that could possibly be their escape, and their bodies washing ashore, forever fated to be trapped with no hope of escape, even in death.
Came here to say I love your work, Zullie! Truly. It always brightens my day. Thank you!!!!
I appreciate the imagery you made for this. It'd be nice to see more water battles in the souls series, the Hydra in DS1 shooting water from behind the trees is one of my favorite Dark Souls moments.
We have some unused dialogue from Godfrey which suggested early on in development, he would as an NPC task us and the rest of the tarnished to go across the sea and find the elden ring. This unused boss might have been used early on as the "boss that wrecks you right at the start but you come back later to kill it" game trope that fromsoft loves. The result of the fight would have it shipwreck us, either to be found by Melina in the Stranded Graveyard or with us climbing up to the Chapel of Anticipation after our ship was destroyed. This would serve as an explanation of why our starting out at the chapel randomly with no idea how we got up there.
i think our body is put in the chapel along with many other tarnished whose bodies were recovered, tho it still doesn't make sense how we're put there
Just binged all your recent uploads. Love having you back zullie, we missed your insights! Take your time and enjoy the DLC when it drops
Thank you for awesome video as always Zullie!
So nice to see your videos again!
While he might have been a mockup, I still love the Umibozu you used here.
my theory- Elden rings coast lines are littered with shipwrecks and castaway zombies (IDK the names), so I feel like its a distinct possibility at one point this was meant to make coastlines more dangerous, either guarding shipwrecks, and the loot, or snatching those who got too close to the waters edge and dragging them into an alternate arena to fight. It always struck me as odd that we find all sorts of things on the coast (at one location there even seems to be a castaway onyx lord taking shelter in some rocks) but no major threat or explanation for WHY there are so many shipwrecks.
This also went through my head when watching this video. Especially early in game I often wondered what was up with all these shipwrecks and wether there'd be a way to get to them at some point. I also rather distinctly remember one bigger coastline with a whole lot of these "zombie" dudes that barely attack and slowly walked towards the ocean. Felt really eerie going through there.
But in the end it was pretty disappointing that this was nothing but small "enivronmental oddities".
Somewhat on topic, isn't there a bunch of ships wrecked off the coast of Radahn's arena? I remember wondering what was up with them.
@@Populon993 the ocean and flowing water are the border of the spirit realm. Every fight dealing with spirits/immoral essence is done on water. The Tibia Mariners, Rennala, the Jellyfish spirit ashes, etc. You can also see a lot of spiritual activity around Ice. Flowing water acts as a purifying balm for rot and poison as well.
maybe they are supposed to be all the ships carrying player character Tarnished to the Lands Between.
If ur theory is true they could have Made a side quest to get in a ship and get pulled down into a boss fight
I remember staring at those ships off of the wailing dunes on my first playthrough. I had a strong feeling they were placed there for a reason. I'm now 100% certain they will be relevant in a DLC.
Ahahah. And I guarantee you - its not
@@0DanteMayCry0We'll see. This game is still likely to get another 1 or 2 DLCs.
@@EdgyDabs47more like unlikely
So happy to see you making videos again when i first started elden ring i was obsessed with you channel ❤
Always amazes me how much content gets left on the cutting room floor in these games. It's probably not that unusual for game development, but it does make you wonder "what if...?"
FromSoft just be like: Give us time. That "what if" will be brought to life one day
Pretty much all Fromsoft games have a lot of cut content or stuff that's changed drastically from the original concept.
I think Bloodborne and Sekiro had less headlines over cut stuff, but with BB there's everything related to the Chalice Dungeons.
Demon Souls had some levels in the Nexus scrapped. Dark Souls 1 had different roles tied to some NPCs. Oscar would have been your rival that chose the opposing faction tied to your ending. He served Frampt if you sided with Kaathe and vice-verca. Andre was originally evisioned as Gwyn's long lost son.
Dark Souls 2's development is a whole mess of a story. Dark Souls 3 had a very different plot in the beginning, and tried some ideas that would later be scrapped before being implemented later in Sekiro and Elden Ring (stealth, horse enemies, day/night cycle, etc.). Some bosses were also scrapped from the base game and reworked in the DLC like the Demon Prince (probably why that fight turned out so good).
All studios leave some stuff on the cutting room floor, but it's always something to think about.
"What if"
Fromsoftware releases DLC to answer your questions*
All games have cut content but in most games it's just "it was a new character that didn't pan out" or a cool boss idea, levels and such.
But with games with mystery lore details like fromsoft and it's relatives these invoke more mistery.
And with their record of bringing back unused concepts we never know when these things may come back, even on a different game.
yep, and that makes all the "out of bounds" or concepts in their books/codes so intersting, mainly in ds1, demons and dragons dogma
Ugh i want more really unsettling stuff like this in games, it makes me feel so uncomfortable but i love it
I hope they make a really REALLY disturbing game someday, like a Bloodborne 2.0 with more horror. Or at least let the SOTE DLC be like this.
It really fits with games that don't have an overtly scary tone, just one or two things that don't quite fit become a lot scarier and I'm for it
Also ready to relive the PTSD Jak and Daxter gave me every time I'd try to skip to the cannon on top of that tower on the beach as a kid
Pirate Souls soon Age of The Deep from Aldrich’s premonitions wait on it man.
@@zarteenelden ring does have a grimmy dark fantasy vibe though
@@paralam2175 I want to see their takes on a soulslike game where the setting is their take on a neo future dystopia. Fromsofts worlds are usually pretty dressing and bleak anyways, I wanna know how disturbing they could get if they ramped up a lot of the common themes of sci fi future dystopias like a dying world, mass consumerism, late stage capitalism, climate damage, body modification, and other themes and just crank some or all of them up to a horrible, scary, depressing 11. You know how everybody was hyped about the body mods in Cyberpunk 2077 before the game came out? You just KNOW Fromsoft would have a field day pushing the limits of imaging futuristic cyborgs by giving us enemies and bosses that have multiple limbs, or transform into giant centipede monsters with 30 legs and 8 arms all holding gunsabers and a split open face that turns from human to a predator-esque gnashing mandibles or something crazy in a gruesome looking Cronenberg-meets-Transformers transformation.
Im still glad your back from that long rest, keep up the dope content!
I love how even after all this time, you’re still able to make Elden ring videos and I’m all up for them :) I know content for ER may be exhausted so feel free to take as much time or time off making the videos as you want :)
I like how even with so little assets he could've worked out somehow in the lore. Miyazaki knows how to add sense to anything
lmao
that's called being a lore addict though
The story structure is designed around this: 'frame stories' are like fallen leaves, and the fallen leaves tell a story...
@@user-qv5sm5dw1vyeh, in my opinion I’m not a fan
This is actually one of my most favorite creatures in mythical folklore. It's terrifyingly fascinating. I'd never want to hop in an ocean boat, like ever!
this is why i love stuff like the ningen and umibozu (both coming from the japanese folklore), its always so creepy to see something so giant yet so humanoid in a big storm or antarctic depth
@@OsnoloVrachdoesn't ningen just mean mortal
@@BadModderIt's also the name of a cryptid resembling a white whale-person, no idea why they decided to call it that. Technically not folklore, but apparently it's pretty popular in Japan anyway.
i need more of these everytime they come out i watch them instantly ❤🙏🏽
This kind of feels like "monster that kills you if you try to venture too far into the water" which is pretty common in games. We probably wouldn't have fought it at all.
You can't swim in Elden Ring
I wonder if Elden Ring tried to implement swimming at some point during its development. Sekiro figured it out.
@@leithaziz2716imagine swimming in Havel’s gear
@@SaladDongs True, but maybe they wanted to try something other than "fall off a ledge and die"
@@Scatmanseth
Imagine swimming in Hoslow attire
I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying the fabric will stain and look really ugly afterwards.
One thing that popped into my mind were the giant summoned skeletons. They seemingly surface from the ground, are huge, have beam attacks. I base this on nothing but my guess, but I could see their animations or idea (of a large thing resurfacing, attacking and disappearing) being reused for the huge skeletons, which always looked a bit strange. Connection between water creatures and death is also suspicious.
that’s exactly what came to mind for me, maybe the mariner summons were supposed to be a standalone boss, before they were scrapped of course. it’s the closest thing in game to the theory
Funnily enough,the giant half skeleton is based on another yokai ,the Gashadokuro.
The fact that this was uploaded the day after I had my D&D players encounter an Umibozu is insane. I literally used that first image of the "humanoid umibozu" you put up, the one with glowing eyes staring at the tiny ship.
Great to see your work again, Zullie! Hope youre feeling better than last time!
After defeating the misbegotten warrior in south, being so close to the sea I wondered about a boss where you'd just wander into the sea standing on or under the water fighting some monstrosity that destroyed the ships in the distance. I hope they bring Umibozu back for the dlc.
legit thought that something horrible was going to rise out of the water after that boss fight and offer me a covenant with it lmao
That might be my favorite spot in the whole game because it feels so secluded. Like after you beat that boss and just look out into the water, you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere. It's cool
great that there are people who also felt that this place had a specific charm. the grey color of the sea and sky, the rain, the wind and all that empty water
@@tannerpickleI hope the DLC gets some more ocean-esque vibes.
After all, water and death go together in this games, both gameplay wise and lore wise.
@@ValentinoMarino11 that would be cool. Man I'm mainly just excited to see what new weapons/weapon types we get in the DLC.
With all these bigger and smaller references to the deep sea that From put into their games I hope so much that we get some full on ocean-themed game from them some day.
Fromsoft really likes to bring up the sea, huh. Ash Lake, the Fishing Hamlet in Bloodborne, the concept of the Deep in DS3, the large lake in Fountainhead Palace in Sekiro, etc.
@@leithaziz2716They take heavy inspiration from Shinto, and an important part of Shinto is the concept of kegare, or something being unclean or defiled. An example of something kegare is stagnant water, as it's a breeding ground for disease, parasites, insects, and is just generally unclean, as opposed to flowing water, which tends to filter itself and is generally clean unless something else is affecting it.
Fun fact: in DS1 when Solaire talks about time being convoluted, a more accurate translation is that time has become/is becoming stagnant. This suggests that the flow of time has slowed down/stopped due to the prolonging of the Age of Fire, and that Lordran has essentially become a "pool" of stagnant time. I think it's possible that the Undead Curse was a byproduct of this, similar to diseases that fester in pools of still water, the curse was a disease that festered in a pool of still time, but (minor spoilers) with The Ringed City it seems like it was a much more intentional curse than that.
A more clear example is The Deep in DS3. It's described as both water and Humanity, and is a stagnant pool of humanity dregs, which produces numerous carnivorous insect-like creatures. Centipedes are another good example, as they're considered kegare as well and show up in BB (the vermin The League hunt are centipedes) and Sekiro as corrupting agents. There are also the centipede demons of DS1, which are likely meant to represent the corruption of Izalith.
There's probably more I could go into but if you're really interested I'd recommend looking up something like "dark souls and shinto." I can't think of any channels in particular that go over it, though maybe Last Protagonist does. I know he goes over a lot of "lost in translation" stuff which should include some stuff like Solaire's dialogue.
TL;DR: There's a lot of water and other stuff across the games for reasons
@@PunkZombie1300 Is that why Miyazaki keeps adding swamp levels into all his games?
There were those rumors of a nautical, deep-ocean Souls game by From that emerged months ago. It was supposed to be set in Aldrich's Age of the Deep, and the concept was SO awesome. I'm pretty sure it was fake but it's still a great read, whoever came up with that had a golden idea.
I so very much want this concept to materialise as a game...and please, oh please may there be an abundance of merfolk! Merfolk are severely underutilised in fantasy games :(
I KNEW there had to be something about those sinking ships! Ever since I took notice of the sunken ships out in the water, I told myself "There had to be something out there". In fact, I thought we'd get a situation like the underwater Headless fight in Sekiro where we'd fight a giant monster in or even beneath the waves of Elden Ring.
This might also explain my first ever death in Elden Ring being me having jumped into the water in an attempt to swim.
If Umibozu was in the game I would be terrified, since seeing a giant black humanoid with no facial features besides glowing white eyes and slowly walking out of the ocean towards you is pretty terrifying.🐱
it's pretty much the only mythical monster depiction that actually scares me
you should play nioh 1
Curiously enough, that's a scenario which has always terrified me, like, I have nightmares about it every now and then or just the thought of it makes me uneasy. Yet, a bunch of other stuff (say, seeing blood or getting on a plane) won't even bother me. It's not a phobia, but I guess it's as close as it gets to one 😅😅😅
@@jhasuatapia2962I think it's because of how uncanny Umibozu usually is depicted, a simple black giant humanoid creature emerging from water
Silly idea... but what if Godwyn becomes the Umibozu?
Considering how big he is and his aquatic features: his face (where his golden hair still hangs) looks like a oyster or clamshell and the merman- or fishtail he has.
I would also like to mention that Godwyn's merman tail reminds me of what the Greco-Roman mythological god of the sea Triton (the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite) looked like, if look at classical art depicting Triton.
Edit: Thank you for the likes dear readers 😊
Edit 2: Typo
I always have to (get to) watch your videos twice because I get so involved that I forget to hit like. 💙
So nice to have you back! Hope you are feeling much better! ❤️
If UmiBozu was fought in/near water, it may be connected to Those Who Live In Death, since undeath and aquatic life seem to be closely connected in Elden Ring, but another possibility is that since many modern depictions of UmiBozu tend to be amorphous blobs (e.x. Pikmin 3 and Nioh) that it could have been a really big version of a Silver or Mimic Tear.
I love these videos. So entertaining but so informative. I love the lore of elden ring
Hey no need for the but there :)
You are constantly making such amazing content.
Thank you for making these Zullie, I hope you are well and wish you the best!
Well, I feel like that's finally a decent explanation of the enormous human skulls we find across Caelid and the Mountaintops of the Giants. That could also mean we might not fight them off the coast somewhere, but perhaps on a cliff face with the Umibozu standing next to us.
Would be neat to have proper ocean travel with islands dotted out to explore, as well as ocean encounters like the umibozu.
Ok that thumbnail carved in my brain seeing it right before sleeping in dark.
I always love learning about unused bosses in games. Like stages, mechanics, common enemies, music, etc is cool and all. But bosses, no matter the game, always tend to send chills down my spine. Like they feel like elusive creatures. dangerous threats we narrowly avoided. myths told through the years that used to be true.
Like, looking through game files to find them always feel as though youre hiking through the mountains at night, and recording your journey, you get back to your cabin or house safe and sound, but going through the footage you discover the entire time you were being stalked by a mountain lion.
1:16 The half-island on the map is the dragon communion church in Limgrave, right? Given that the path in the released game is now a tunnel under the ocean, I have a suspicion: The umibozu guards the landpath by either sweeping you away with a wave or the path is submerged as long as the umibozu lives.
Imagine you just want to explore the island and suddenly you get ambushed by a giant boss. I would never trust any beach again.
That actually sounds really feasible!
People still don't trust chests despite there being no mimics in this game
@@misery1500 No mimics, but the transporter trap in lake agheel is scarring enough
@@misery1500 There is a chest that takes you to the middle of Caelid despite being near the start of the game, another that puts you deep in a mine with rot bugs everywhere. There is ample reason to not trust chests.
Imagine if you have to go on a horse section trying to get to that boss while he's hitting you from a far , then when you get to him you find out that he's actually an entire moving dungeons that you have to conquer
Sounds like a Shadow of the Colossus encounter.
Its so nice to have you back!
I love the songs you use for your videos
The Umibozu are super terrifying. I can't imagine how horrifying it would've been to have a From Software imagining of one, especially if it was fully out in the ocean
The oceans of Elden Ring always freaked me out for some reason, like both Liurnia and Weeping Peninsula are sinking into it, so this would be cool
Oh this is really fascinating. Excellent video.
I like these videos, they are so intriguing.
That beach close to the shack with the merchant who sells you the zweihander always felt so strange to me, the place is filled with those zombie dudes walking towards the water with ships sinking in the distance. The place always felt like it was the perfect arena for a giant boss to jump out of the water or a giant enemy crab to dig out of the sand. I'd guess there could've been a good spot where we'd fight whatever Umibozu was sopposed to be in game.
There is a common phenomena across all cultures of a "call of the void" in which people have the urge to walk into the sea and die. It's very possible that with Marika's removal of normal death, those "zombies" are hearing that call and doing their best to truly die. Combine that with the fact that bodies of water are associated with spirit and the border between life and death and things start to really vibe - Hell it makes Godwyn's slow decent into an aquatic form make more sense, he's the prince of death who lives on, he's stuck in that border realm of the ocean of spirit.
If you subscribe to the idea that Marika pulled death through into the world of the living to make them one (evidenced by those who Live in Death) and you could see why she would be so distraught and regretful upon the incomplete death of Godwyn - she was partly at fault for his suspended state of life within death.
Umibozo is a good one.
@@junichiroyamashita its Bozo the Clown's cousin
My roommate and I are 29 hours into a region-locked playthrough and just finished all of Weeping Peninsula last night, and it's crazy how few unique items are at that exact location when you use an interactive map. That entire southwestern portion is incredibly barren, in fact, so a unique boss fight and drop would have helped give it some replay value
Yeah I've always thought there was supposed to be more here too. Exactly what came to mind for me!
umibozu is cursed asf💀
I can imagine how the umibozu fight turned out to be, probably with you trying to lure it out while it trying to lure you in and make you fall into the ocean
This is incredible work
I find it interesting that this is in the files, since there's that one beach that feels like...super empty and pointless, the one with all the Hollow-like enemies just wandering around doing nothing, guarding nothing. It kind of stands to reason that that's where this thing would appear, maybe as a night-boss.
Seeing the ominous man shape standing in the ocean and then "Umibozu" pop up on screen made me scream since that nioh mission traumatized me lmao
Edit:
Also to have an actual thought, I wonder if it was meant to follow you on ALL shorelines if you got too close to the water.
In DkS2 main bosses were supposed to stalk and attack you throughout their zones, like if the Old Iron King could pop out of any lava zones to swing at you.
Maybe an attempt to revisit the concept?
That'd be a heck of a surprise for a player trying to see if they could swim for the first time lol
That'd make sense for them to do, considering Elden Ring is takes a lot from DS2
Yeah, I also immediately thought of umibozu from nioh, especially from nioh 2, because that version had more humanoid features, like face and more humanoid-looking form when he fights you on the platform
How delightful, a combination of several phobias wrapped into something you get to absolutely clown on when you figure it out. One of very many reasons to enjoy FromSoftware games ^_^
I’m really glad to see you back and making videos! I hope your hiatus was revitalizing!
Hot damn I missed when these were a regular thing, glad you're back (at least for the time being)
the way he just stares at the player like "dood.. what the flip" is sending me
i love that little drawing from the early map, so adorable lol
You have a unique style of creating these videos. I like it.
The moment I read Umibozu I started to get flashbacks to the old Pikmin theory videos. Truly the stuff of nightmares…
What do you mean by that?
@@rangedpluto1367 It’s been a long time theory that the planet Pikmin takes place on (post-apocalyptic Earth) is actually haunted/cursed by an Umibozu which is why everytime someone tries to land on the planet or pass it the ship either malfunctions or hits an asteroid causing it to crash into the planet leaving the pilots stranded.
@@thewealthypikachu1585 I was not aware of that theory. Thanks for a informing me.
So awesome to see this kind of stuff.
Good to see you back :)
when i say my eyes literally shot out of my head seeing a new upload from you, i am not kidding
Imagine just strolling along the shore with all those groups of slow moving undead grabbers and all of a sudden a black mist forms and goddamn smashes them to pieces, either staying mist like or into some kind of form, that would be quite an impression for quite an empty feeling area
Glad to see you back Zullie! Really love the stuff you find 😀
Thanks, any time these NPCs turn up where there's only a tiny bit of text for them, I get wistful hoping they'll get finished later. It took a while but we got a few bosses like that from Dark Souls III in Elden Ring.
Thanks for keeping this under 3 minutes instead of stretching it out over 10.
great content as always.
I would give so much money to have a dlc based entirely around the sea in Elden Ring
With the many giant shorelines around Limgrave with a huge number of zombies roaming them, I could see a situation where one of those shorelines would turn into a boss arena and that giant boss would rise out of the water. Maybe even have a Wolnir style fight where you attack the hands until it sinks back into the ocean once defeated.
Glad you're back!
glad to see you back zullie
Do you think Umibozu could have referred to Godwyn's corpse? Or perhaps one off the offshoots like the one found in Stormveil Castle?
The way that I choose to interpret The Umibōzu (if it is added in DLC or mentioned) is that The Tarnished most likely came to The Lands Between from across the sea, and it might have been The Umibōzu caused their ship to be wrecked upon entry. So, naturally, as umibōzu are prone to do, it stalks the tarnished from the sea, waiting to drag its quarry to the depths.
Im so glad i clicked on that bell many months maybe 1 or 2 years ago not sure ! I knew Zullie would be back, someday.... and i didnt want to miss it. Many content creators gave you credit and you deserve it Zullie.
Informative as always :)
Considering all the sunken ships in the background of the shores I wouldn’t be surprised if this was originally supposed to be the explanation for why, and I spent the whole game on the coasts of limgrave thinking “oh boy I sure do hope no unholy abomination comes and kills me from the water”
Besides just being a stylistic choice with medieval broken ships on the maps, you can see many ship wrecks on coasts in the southern areas of the game where you can actually stand on a beach. One of these is Redahns arena, where you previously theorized Astrels unused flying animation could have been. Maybe this was also a place you could’ve fought these enemies since there are multiple ship wrecks you can see?
Glad to see you back zullie
Hydra was first to come to my mind.
Love your work.
Man, that's some striking visual! As for how the player could fight it, maybe it'd be just like the Umibozu fight in Nioh, where the player's standing on a dock and the Umibozu sometimes gets within sword range. The hydra from Dark Souls 1 is a great example - the hydra from the original God of War would work, too.
Seeing as how many depictions of the Umibozu are large, pitch black humanoids, maybe it was planned to be a hidden / nighttime boss, similar to the Night’s Cavalry bosses that dot the lands between, but instead at the beach filled with the shambling corpses, seeing as how it looks like they’re there from a shipwreck or something similar