New Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree enemy revealed: a bloke with a basket for a head

Elden Ring is already home to a lot of rotten creatures. Serpent snails that spit at you, ulcerated spirits with bark for skin, a big pair of hands. Now we know of another rotten creature who's going to join the roster when the Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC drops next month: a bloke who's head would make for an excellent lottery draw.

All that's from a single but pithy Xweet. "The abandoned and tragic who forage beneath the umbra pray for the embrace of a new master", it says, besides a picture. A picture that depicts what looks like a hunched-over, sinewy guy who's dressed in frayed robes. But the highlight is his head, a large basket seemingly woven from his own root-like spinal cord? Inside, a bunch of orange orbs, or are they lesions? And these orbs even dangle off his beard, too.

I'm guessing those orbs are things Orb Guy has actually foraged, as the tweet explicitly says he's abandoned and tragic and spends his time foraging while praying for a hug - damn, poor guy. Also - I'm no lore expert - it seems like the tree in the DLC promo image is leaking some sort of golden sap. I bet lots of creatures, like Orb Guy, feast on it.

There's some chatter in the replies about how Orb Guy is similar in appearance to the frenzy-inducing Winter Lanterns in Bloodborne (eye-riddled brains for heads). I suppose so, but also… no? As Edwin points out in The Maw, he does seem relatively chill and unlikely to stare us to death. What's more likely is Orb Guy will pluck orbs from his head and chuck them at us in battle. There's almost certainly a guarantee that he'll explode on death, too.

Maybe we're getting it all mixed up. Maybe those orbs are tangerines and Orb Guy simply wants to get by in an otherwise bleak world. I suppose we'll find out when Elden Ring launches on the 21st June.