Elden Ring's Phantom Covenants Still Haunt the Code in 2026

I have been chasing the ghosts of the Lands Between for years now, and even in 2026 the datamined files of Elden Ring still feel like a phantom limb that occasionally twitches. A fresh look at unused text pop-ups first uncovered by dataminer StrayKurtis suggests that FromSoftware once planned to bring multiplayer covenants—a beloved staple of the Dark Souls trilogy—into its open-world epic. While Elden Ring lets Tarnished summon allies and invade hostile worlds with fingers and rings, the covenant ranking system that gave earlier games their social texture never made it into the final build. That missing feature remains a fossilized fingerprint in the code: visible enough to study, but not alive enough to touch.

In Dark Souls, joining a covenant was like signing a contract written in invisible ink. Your role in multiplayer shifted depending on which faction you pledged allegiance to. Warriors of Sunlight became golden co-op summons, while Darkwraiths haunted other players as red phantoms. Bloodborne had its own version of this through the Vilebloods and Executioners. Elden Ring, by comparison, streamlined the system into a more neutral set of tools: the Duelist's Furled Finger, the Bloody Finger, the Recusant Finger, and so on. There are no faction ranks, no covenant-specific rewards, and no grand political identity attached to your multiplayer behavior.

StrayKurtis' unused text changes the picture. The datamine shows hidden message pop-ups for ranking up as Recusants, Duelists, and other roles that already exist in Elden Ring as multiplayer items. In other words, FromSoftware may have built the skeleton of a covenant ladder but removed its flesh before launch. If you squint at the way Volcano Manor glorifies the Recusants or how the Roundtable Hold treats duelists, you can see the breadcrumb trail leading into a locked room.

What the Datamine Actually Shows

• Unused text pop-ups for covenant-style rank-ups.

• Rank-up messages tied to Recusant and Duelist roles.

• Evidence of a progression system that mirrors Dark Souls covenants.

• A strong sign that covenants were cut rather than never considered.

• StrayKurtis suggested the feature could return in a future update or DLC.

StrayKurtis' covenant text is not the only cut content that has left me staring at the game like a cartographer looking at an unfinished map. A removed dream-stealing questline would have sent players across the Lands Between with St. Trina's Crystal Ball, harvesting dreams from sleeping animals in exchange for a drink called Dreambrew. If that idea had shipped, it would have added a quiet, almost poetic layer to exploration—tiptoeing around slumbering beasts rather than swinging a sword. A datamined multiplayer coliseum also hinted at large-scale battles that never made the final cut. Like the dream-stealing mechanic, the covenant system could still be patched back in, though FromSoftware has not confirmed any such plan as of 2026.

From my perspective, the removal of covenants is one of those design choices that feels like trimming a sail to make a ship faster, but losing a little of its character in the process. Covenants gave multiplayer an unspoken language. When I saw a Warrior of Sunlight sign in Dark Souls, I knew the player intended to help. When I was invaded by a Darkwraith, I knew I was prey. In Elden Ring, the same actions exist, but they feel more like tools in a shed than allegiances in a war.

Should covenants ever return in a multiplayer-focused update, I expect the Lands Between to become a much more dangerous place. If FromSoftware adds a Darkwraith-style faction, red phantoms may once again treat invasions as a religion rather than a hobby. That could be thrilling or exhausting, depending on whether you are the invader or the invaded.

The datamined covenant text is a ghost limb that keeps me wondering what Elden Ring could have been. It supports the idea that FromSoftware originally imagined a more faction-driven multiplayer ecosystem. Until an official update arrives, I will keep treating every Recusant invasion as a loose thread in a tapestry that was never fully woven. Elden Ring is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.