Elden Ring‘s massive 1.03 update features more confirmed changes and additional content than many people were expecting to find in the patch notes, but it’s actually the update’s hidden (or “secret”) changes that have a lot of fans buzzing at the moment.
While it’s not unusual for a major update to feature a few changes that aren’t detailed in the official patch notes, it’s always interesting to try to figure out whether or not those changes are actually intended or merely the result of something that went wrong. More often than not, there’s a healthy mix of both.
So, while it remains to be seen how many of these changes were meant to be added to the game in the first place, here is every hidden change in Elden Ring‘s 1.03 update that we’ve found so far.
Elden Ring‘s update 1.03 patch notes mention that it’s now easier to find Smithing Stones on early enemies and even purchase them from select early game merchants. Well, it turns out both those things are true. Limited quantities of Smithing Stones have been added to the inventories of most of the Nomadic Merchants you meet early on, and it’s way easier to acquire Smithing Stones as drops from early enemies. I’m not sure what the new drop rate is, but the difference is certainly noticeable.