Merchant Kalé is one of the first NPCs you will encounter in Elden Ring and one that will be crucial in the opening hours of the game, as the first of many nomadic merchants you will encounter. But it seems like FromSoftware intended for Kalé to have a larger role in an earlier version of the game, complete with his very own questline that was cut from the final version of Elden Ring.

Thankfully, YouTuber Sekiro Dubi has done the Golden Order's work, restoring the questline through months of meticulous and painstaking data mining. You can see the entire thing in the video above, but beware, it contains pretty massive endgame spoilers, so you may want to beat the game before delving any further.

As anyone who has ever intentionally attacked Kalé or any of his mercantile kinsfolk will know, there were already some pretty interesting lore implications in the game that pointed to their true allegiance, simply through the combat tactics they would employ. It's really cool to see what could have been, and who knows what mysteries remain hidden deep in Elden Ring's source code...

For more on Elden Ring, check out our review, or our expansive series of guides.

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[source youtu.be, via eurogamer.net]