A recent video by dataminer Doneda showcases some of Dark Souls 2's cut content, reintegrated for exploration in Elden Ring Nightreign. As one might expect, this cut content doesn't constitute entirely new, playable areas or anything of that sort, but they do highlight Dark Souls 2's incredible potential.

Regularly viewed as the black sheep of FromSoftware's well-received contemporary ouvre, Dark Souls 2 is an entry that a lot of souls fans like to ignore. Clunky level design, strange progression systems, and miscellaneous mechanical oddities are usually the key pieces of evidence in favor of this game's mediocrity. The fact that it's the only entry in the Dark Souls trilogy not directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki makes it even easier to cast aside as inessential. But buried within Dark Souls 2 is a wealth of unexpected ambition and value which dataminers like Doneda have unconvered.

A first-person Demon's Souls build surfaces, showing a version of FromSoftware's RPG that looks dramatically different from the final game.

In an October 2026 YouTube video , Doneda details some new discoveries from the Dark Souls 2 asset files. These assets are essentially "leftovers" from cut content. An asset can be anything from an in-game texture or character model to an audio file or animation, and the assets Doneda covers are simply not "linked" or compiled for any sort of final in-game purpose.

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