As we hurtle towards the inevitable Elden Ring DLC announcement, the internet’s become a hotbed for suspicious ‘leaks’ – at least more so than usual. The latest example is a rather tasty Elden Ring controller that was supposedly spotted on Playasia, and has since done the rounds across socials. However, it turns out there’s some possible rodentry at work here.
Originally shared to 4chan by an anonymous poster, before being picked up tentatively on Reddit and Twitter, the “Elden Ring Shadow of The Erdtree Special Edition” controller is a rather lovely bit of kit. From its golden thumbsticks to the Ancient Erdtree crest imprinted on the controller’s face, we’d absolutely snap it up in a heartbeat. The controller is apparently set to launch on February 25 – the same day as the leaked Thrustmaster collaboration.
We weren’t convinced by the post, though, and after doing some light research we came across the original controller design. Turns out, the pad concept had been created by Spanish designer ‘Caye’ in the lead-up to the release of one of the best open world games two years ago. The caption, translated from Spanish to English via Google, reads: “In the Elden Ring Discord they asked me for the design on Xbox and well… don’t ask me twice.” Caye’s also mocked one up for the PS5’s DualSense controller which is equally delightful, so be sure to show their work some love.
So there are three possible ways to interpret this. The first and most likely is that someone with a little bit of Photoshop knowledge has pulled Caye’s design to farm a few internet points. The second is that this is just a crudely produced placeholder image for the actual product, which will still launch on the 25th. Finally, and we’re really covering all bases here, Caye’s work got snapped up by Microsoft. We know which option we’re going with, even though we wish it was the latter of the three.
If there’s any site in the world where leaks need to be taken with a truckload of salt, it’s 4chan. While the evidence is piling up for a February Shadow of the Erdtree release date, and there are plenty of third-party goodies reportedly on the way, let this serve as a reminder to criticize everything that looks remotely suspicious. For more Elden Ring news, check out our recent report on Bandai Namco’s YouTube channel being updated – it won’t be long before FromSoftware finally breaks its silence.