Data from the game's files recently published by Sekiro Dubi, a FromSoft data miner who previously looked into Elden Ring's removed quests and coliseums, suggests planned DLC. The datamined evidence of prospective DLC locations discovered by Lance McDonald and Zullie the Witch that we previously reported on appears to have been buried in Elden Ring for less time than this information.
The basis of Sekiro Dubi's idea is the numerical value attributed to the items that bosses' dead bodies drop as loot. The names of large bosses, some of which are not connected to remembrances, are listed in the screenshot that was included with their initial article. However, after boss ID number 9180, you can find item drops for smaller bosses like Loretta's Greatbow or the Marais Executioner's Sword.
Sekiro Dubi claims that the 30 unused codes (9140-9169) are set aside for DLC bosses. It appears that these boss IDs have been reserved in this manner since release, as opposed to the blank map IDs discovered by Lance and Zullie, which were added in the 1.07 update, even though Sekiro Dubi made these posts on Halloween, following Elden Ring's 1.07 upgrade.
The 30 allotted slots do not ensure how many bosses will show up in a hypothetical DLC, warns Sekiro Dubi. The data miner said, "It's not a hard cap, they can simply place similar flags like these wherever they choose. They just set aside 30 flag IDs for DLC boss content; alternative bosses could be added.
It's difficult to draw any firm conclusions from this evidence, other than the fact that it provides more proof that a future expansion or DLC will be released. Every other Soulsborne game before Sekiro had already received some type of DLC, such as Ashes of Ariandel for Dark Souls 3 or The Old Hunters for Bloodborne, by this point in their development cycles.
This timescale appears to have been prolonged by the challenges of pandemic development as well as Elden Ring's very demanding development schedule, though I wouldn't anticipate having to wait as long as we did for Cyberpunk 2077 Fantom Liberty. I'm a perpetual optimist, so hopefully we'll hear something soon about an Elden Ring extension. Back to the event flag ID numbers' tea leaves until then.
