Elden Ring's Latest Patch Suggests DLC Maps and Even Ray Tracing Could Be Incoming

Last week, we brought you word that Elden Ring had received a massive update in the form of Patch 1.07, which, amongst other things, buffed magic, rebalanced PVP damage, and introduced a swathe of quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes. It looks like it may have also set the stage for additional maps to come to the game, along with the potential to implement ray tracing features in the future.

Data miner extraordinaire Lance McDonald delved deep into the update's files and found some intriguing menu string references, and was even able to implement ray tracing, albeit in a haphazard sort of way.

Elden Ring is a gorgeous game but was plagued by performance issues back at launch, and while these have mostly been ironed out, even on PS5, the implementation of ray tracing would have to come with a significant cost in terms of frame rate. FromSoftware confirmed that ray tracing would be coming to the game back around launch, so this probably shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

Perhaps more exciting, though, is the reference to two new additional maps, as pointed out by data miner Sekiro Dubi, who credits user Magical Shion with the initial find.

Since its launch and subsequent meteoric success, speculation regarding possible Elden Ring DLC has been rampant. It would make sense to follow up with additional content, but what form that might take remains to be seen.

It has been suggested that the unused arenas that litter The Lands Between could serve as some kind of gladiatorial PVP combat mode, but considering those maps already exist in-game, these two new maps appear to be something else entirely, with one, m20, having the same numbering as the game's Legacy Dungeons, implying a larger scale offering.

Would you like to see additional DLC implemented in Elden Ring? What form would you like to see it take? Become Elden Lord in the comments section below.