Apparently There’s A Lore Reason Behind Elden Ring Runebears Being Such A Pain In The Butt

Elden Ring throws all manner of fiendish monstrosities at you, but few will make your hair stand on edge the way a Runebear does after it catches your scent. I’ve only ever barely killed a few Runebears in the hundreds of hours I’ve put into FromSoftware’s open-world game; I’d literally rather fight Malenia or, more realistically, run away screaming. The Runebears’ outrageous difficulty might have seemed like a weird, hilarious discrepancy at launch, but months later, we’re finding out that there might be a really good reason as to why they have such a knack for bringing us closer to Marika.

As dataminer Zullie the Witch points out in a thought-provoking video, back when Elden Ring was disseminated as a “network test” beta, players discovered an out-of-bounds Runebear. Curiously, when the Runebear was killed, it would drop a dragon heart. After Elden Ring was released, no in-game Runebear appeared to work this way, so most people kinda forgot about the heart thing. But upon further inspection, it seems like Runebears might actually have a specific connection to dragons after all.