Hero modder restores the coolest bit of Elden Ring cut content: The heartbreaking tragedy of the second guy you meet that actually kinda justifies the game's most evil ending

Modder Transquility on the Elden Ring Nexus has restored Merchant Kalé's NPC quest in our 2022 game of the year. There was originally a lot more to the early game vendor's character, and I think it could have been a standout part of the game. Spoilers for Elden Ring and the cut quest ahead.

Kalé doesn't have much to do in the release version of Elden Ring: He's memorable, being the second NPC you run into, and he offers an intro of sorts to wolf knight Blaidd and Ranni's sprawling questline. But as dataminer Sekiro Dubi revealed shortly after Elden Ring's launch, Kalé was, at one point, meant to be the driving force behind the hidden Frenzied Flame ending⁠—the one where you commit omnicide⁠—taking up the role occupied by "Shabriri Grapes" Hyetta in the final game.

The upshot is that actor Nabil Elouahabi delivers one hell of a performance, starting out as the affable merchant we know but devolving into despair and rage as he discovers how his people were wronged by Marika and her Golden Order, ultimately urging you to take up the Frenzied Flame to avenge them.

This quest more explicitly contextualizes the people you find buried alive under Leyndell⁠—context that's buried in item descriptions in the final game, classic FromSoft⁠—and it offers a reason to pursue the Frenzied Flame ending beyond just "being evil" or completionist gamer curiosity. Melina's pleading with you not to meet the Three Fingers takes on a different cast in conversation with Kalé, whose rage and indignation over the fate of his people undercuts Melina's optimistic humanism.

It's great stuff, but the only way to experience it until now has been Sekiro Dubi's 20-minute video featuring Elouahabi's datamined voice lines. Transquility has reimplemented the quest, so it's now fully playable. Elden Ring mods are pretty simple to install and use, too: The Mod Engine 2 utility required here runs a separate executable offline and has modded saves separate from normal ones, keeping everything kosher with Easy Anticheat.

Writing this just now, I felt a stirring of hope that FromSoft might reimplement Kalé's quest in some form in the upcoming Tarnished Edition update to Elden Ring. Remember how that free GOTY update was supposed to come out last year? I don't care how booboo the Switch 2 port of Elden Ring runs, I've been putting off a replay with those new weapons and starting classes for too long!