Elden Ring’s ‘super’ illusory wall may be the biggest troll of all

Elden Ring fans intimately know the displeasure of being trolled by their fellow players with messages that read “hidden path ahead” or “try attacking,” hinting at one of FromSoftware’s infamous illusory walls — the mirage walls that hide secret rooms in castles or hidden pathways in dungeons. Surely, you’ve clanged a sword on a wall expecting a fun secret after reading one of these messages, only to be rebuffed and verify that the “liar ahead” message you also saw nearby is legit.

But one player’s discovery in Elden Ring may have just rewritten the rules about illusory walls in FromSoftware’s new game. A member of the Elden Ring subreddit, teristam, posted Friday that they’d discovered a secret wall in the game that requires dozens of strikes — 50 hits!! — in order for it to disappear.

Here’s a look at that super illusory wall in action:

That wall — you may have already struck it yourself, because it stands out — is located in Volcano Manor, and it only offers access to a room you can otherwise easily get to. In fact, it’s likely you’ve already been in this room, which is home to Rya and Knight Bernahl.

Elden Ring players on the subreddit quickly went from “oh, cool” to “oh, no” after witnessing teristam’s discovery.

“You know we have to go back through the entire game and check every wall now right,” said RexLongbone.

Turns out there’s at least one other super illusory wall like this, also in Volcano Manor.

But this particular Volcano Manor wall seems like an anomaly, rather than a portent. Having defeated this strange new wall in armed combat myself, I can confirm it doesn’t behave like other illusory walls. First, breaking the wall does not cue the traditional illusory wall breaking sound — it simply disappears. Second, these walls will respawn should you rest at a site of grace. It’s possible that this stone wall is a special, perhaps even unique instance in the game — it may have been inserted as an object to separate Rya and Knight Bernahl’s room, where fighting is not allowed, from the hallway filled with poison snail monsters.

Or maybe there are dozens of walls like this in Elden Ring, with fun secrets and powerful weapons behind each. There’s only one way to find out ...