This article will cover the major elements from the Shadow of the Erdtree trailer, including new attacks, bosses, and some speculation about the presence of Gloam-eyed Queen and Messmer the Impaler’s true identity.
New Abilities, Weapons, and Fighting Styles
The trailer flashed between some brand-new attack animations. They are most likely all Ashes of War or abilities that take up a Memory Slot, like a Sorcery or an Incantation.
Explosive Jar Throw
You can now chuck explosive jars at groups of enemies, just like those obnoxious trolls up on the cliffs!
It seems to have a blast radius that’s comparable to what you can do with the Cannon of Haima Sorcery.
Butterfly Blast Incantation
This Incantation summons primrose butterflies that trigger explosions over a massive area, much larger than any other player ability I can think of. It is definitely an Incantation. In the first shot, you can see her hand glowing with a Seal.
The butterflies are associated with Malenia and the Scarlet Rot, but the overall color of the effect is more pink and purple, not red and orange. The visual effect is an explosion that’s more reminiscent of the Nebula ability used by the Astels, so it’s possible that this has to do with the Outer God of Scarlet Rot in the Lake of Rot instead of Malenia.
Machine Crossbow
There is a fancy metal crossbow that can fire a bunch of bolts in quick succession.
I imagine they chose to show off the Perfumer Crossbow here because it looks quite like a flamethrower…
Omen-Cursed Runebear Roar
This appears to be a non-dragon-based roar attack. I think the beast shown here is a cursed Runebear of Radagon, which sounds like it will be absolutely delightful to fight, assuming they continue with the whole communion thing for roar Incantations.
Martial Arts
It’s unclear if this is just a fancy attack sequence on a weapon art or if they’re full-on adding a way to fight with martial arts instead of weapons.
Dual-Wielding
Dual-Wielding was featured prominently in the trailer. It’s already a thing, though the attack sequences they showed off seemed significantly more intricate and agile than what’s available now outside of specific Weapon Arts.
Knife Throwing
It seems that slinging knives might be turning into a proper method of attack instead of just a weak weapon and interruption, given the attack sequence we see here, or it could just be a Weapon Art. We’ll have to wait and see.
Aspects of the Crucible: Wings
It seems that we’re finally getting feature parity with the Crucible Knights, where you will be able to sprout wings, fly into the sky, and then charge at your opponent.
Bosses
Multi-Phase Pigupine Knight
This boss fight involves fighting a knight with a greatsword imbued with the power of gravity riding what I will be calling a pigupine, that is, a cross between a porcupine and a pig.
I believe it is a multi-phased boss where the first part is dedicated to defeating the rider.
Once you defeat the rider, the pigupine breaks off its armor and you fight it directly.
This is why I call it a pigupine.
Skeleton Man. Boomerang Enthusiast. Animal Abuser.
This skeleton man with his head on his chest seems to have gotten a hold of Radahn’s poor horse and forced it back into servitude to walk through the muck in an underground cave. If that wasn’t enough, the boss will throw is bone at you like a boomerang.
They only showed this boss on the screen for a brief moment, though I think he comes from the same location seen earlier in the trailer.
Even though we don’t know much more about the boss than that, Nelly already seems fed up with him.
Cursed and Grafted (Gloam-eyed?) Guardian Lion
I believe this boss to have gloam eyes, like those of the Gloam-eyed Queen you might be familiar with.
While it has a head and overall silhouette that are reminiscent of a Chinese Guardian Lion or Fu Dog as they appear in parades, the boss itself is clearly grafted together from many creatures, including humans. It also wears a blanket to conceal the grafting, just like the Godrick, the Scions, and the Revenants.
It moves like the creature it’s inspired by moves in parades and is shown attacking by trying to bite or tackle you, as well as by unleashing yellow lightning.
It also spits out the death gas, though I couldn’t get a good picture from the trailer. It’s possible that is the link to the omen horns, though we only see omen-horned enemies spit out the bronze and black fire, not actual death blight. Perhaps this boss will get some VFX tweaks before it is released to address this.
Gloam-eyed Queen
Similar fabrics from the grafted enemies, including those draped over the Guardian Lion can be found adorning the walls in the Dragon Temple at Farum Azula where you fight the Godskin Duo. The Godskin Apostles and their black flame Incantations are known to worship the Gloam-eyed Queen.
Here, in this shot, we see that same black flame burst from an enemy slain by knives in a city with the entire building blanketed with grafting fabric.
I believe that this photo shows the same city, but from the exterior, and that it will be a dungeon in the new area. It does seem like there are a lot more domed roofs in the shot of the interior, but the spires are present in both. It also seems like the city is falling apart as you go higher, but time has been slowed down, also like Farum Azula.
The trailer also shows a more dilapidated throne room with glowing purple crystals that have a similar color to the ones on the medallions worn by the Godskin Apostles.
We don’t get a good shot of her eyes, but I think there’s a decent chance that the woman sitting atop the throne is the Gloam-eyed Queen.
Messmer the Impaler
The main villain of SotE appears to be Messmer the Impaler, a younger, spindly man with scarlet hair, ghostly pale skin, dragon eyes, and a lil’ snek buddy. I believe he is Miquella, but he reminds me a lot of Voldemort, even though he still has his nose and isn’t bald.
The color of Messmer’s hair and fire are the biggest clues about who he is and where he comes from. The hair has the same brilliant scarlet color we see on Radagon’s head, and matches the color of his wolves’ fur. Hair color in general is used to represent lineage and origin throughout the game.
Fire is used in a similar way, as the fire wielded by each faction looks different. Messmer’s appears to be a purer version of Bloodflame, the same used by Mohg, Lord of Blood. The only hang-up is that the blood is missing, but it also seems to be missing from Messmer’s body.
I suspect that while Mohg was trying to make room for himself inside Miquella’s warm and cozy cocoon resting atop the pelvic bone throne, all that blood flooded right into Messmer’s snake. No, not the one in the gutter where your mind clearly resides; I mean the winged serpent, possibly an Amphiptere, that remains loosely coiled around Messmer.
This whole chain of events begins with Mohg kidnapping Miquella from the Haligtree in an attempt to turn him into a god using some sort of ritual with Mohg as Miquella’s king consort, just as the player character can be to Ranni. It’s possible such a ritual was just consummation, as this whole ordeal is already gushing with gay undertones. I think there’s more to it, but let’s examine Messmer’s spear first.
The Impaler’s spear bears a striking resemblance to Mohg’s trident, strangely referred to as a spear in-game. Names aside, the cross on Messmer’s spear is so wide that it looks like it could easily support the weight of a trident and shares similar detailing compared to Mohgwin’s Sacred Spear.
In Messmer’s fight with the player character, we also see he’s able to summon numerous spears to pierce up from the ground, just like the Sacred Phalanx of the Cleanrot Knights, except they have lost the luster of unalloyed gold.
Messmer’s actual name is another clue. It sounds just like the word mesmerize, which means to hold the attention of someone else, almost like hypnosis. And then, his epithet is just icing on what could very well be his gay wedding cake. It’s just way too easy to imagine somebody like Kenneth Haight issuing a proclamation like “It is the opinion of many, including myself, The Great Kenneth Haight, that Sir Messmer is the top spear-thruster in all the Lands Between. Henceforth, he shall be known as Messmer the Impaler!“
Putting it all together, there is significant evidence to support that Messmer the Impaler is an alter ego of Miquella the Unalloyed and likely has the exact same relationship to Messmer and the Haligtree as Marika has to Radagon and the Erdtree.
Mohg probably used the winged serpent to drain Miquella’s Empyrean blood, turning the serpent red and Miquella’s skin white. It’s less clear what he planned to do with the blood. He could offer it to the Formless Mother in an attempt to gain her favor and supplant the Greater Will or perhaps transfuse himself with it (ew!).
However, I think it’s most likely that he drained the blood to weaken Miquella, so he would be more susceptible to becoming mesmerized by Mohg.
Stay tuned for future coverage of Shadow of the Erdtree. In the meantime, check out our other article covering the price, release date, and editions of Shadow of the Erdtree and our coverage of the Elden Ring base game.
