Why would FromSoftware spend time modelling the faces of characters whose helmets will never come off in a million playthroughs? It is the kind of question only a dataminer would think to ask — and only Zullie the Witch would think to answer. Days after the Elden Ring Tarnished Edition DLC landed on all platforms, one of the game’s most trusted sleuths has already unmasked its two new NPC invaders, and the results are exactly as quietly remarkable as you would expect from the studio behind Elden Ring.
Zullie the Witch Cracks the Tarnished Edition DLC
Zullie the Witch has spent years as FromSoftware’s unofficial face-finder, producing detailed video breakdowns of what hides beneath the masks, helms, and hoods of the studio’s most enigmatic characters. When the Tarnished Edition launched on 28 August 2026 — bringing the full package to Nintendo Switch 2 and releasing the Tarnished Pack DLC for existing owners on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC — it was only a matter of days before Zullie got to work.
The Tarnished Edition introduced two new NPC invaders: Knight Leontiel and Noble Broken Mask. Both are built to be encountered rather than studied, ambushing players in the familiar FromSoftware fashion. Their armour and masks obscure any facial detail in normal gameplay. Zullie’s video changes that.
Knight Leontiel and Noble Broken Mask, Revealed
The two characters are, as Zullie’s footage confirms, fully realised beneath their coverings. Knight Leontiel’s face reflects the aesthetic of a hardened warrior — weathered, stern, clearly not someone who has had an easy existence in the Lands Between. Noble Broken Mask lives up to the more unsettling quality implied by its name, with physical details that quietly reinforce the lore surrounding the character’s corrupted status.
Neither face will ever appear in standard gameplay. Players have no mechanism for unmasking NPC invaders mid-fight, and the encounters themselves are brief and often brutal. The effort that went into these faces is, by any conventional measure, invisible.
About the Tarnished Pack DLC: Available on all platforms for £3.99 / $4.99 / €4.99, it includes two new starting classes (Heavy Knight and Noble), new armour sets, and new Torrent cosmetic skins.
A Long-Standing Pattern of Hidden Craft
This is not the first time Zullie has found exactly this kind of invisible detail inside a FromSoftware game. During Shadow of the Erdtree, the same approach uncovered the Blackgaol Knight’s face — complete with a horizontal scar across the nose that Zullie described as “From’s most Guts-like guy in a long list of Guts-like guys,” a nod to the Berserk manga that has long been an acknowledged influence on the Souls series.
The pattern reveals something consistent about how FromSoftware builds its worlds. These hidden faces are not accidents or placeholder geometry left over from development. They are deliberate, detailed additions that exist without any expectation of being seen by a general audience. The studio appears to put them in for the modders, the lore hunters, and the community researchers — people like Zullie — who will eventually find them.
It is a form of world-building that requires no spotlight. The faces exist whether anyone finds them or not, and that, perhaps more than any lore document, says something particular about the kind of game FromSoftware believes it is making.
What Else the Tarnished Edition Brought to Every Platform
Alongside the new NPC invaders, the Tarnished Edition — and the Tarnished Pack DLC for existing owners — introduced a range of new content across all platforms. Two new starting classes, the Heavy Knight and the Noble, each come with their own armour sets and opening stats. New Torrent cosmetic skins also arrived, giving players more ways to customise their spectral steed.
The Tarnished Edition on Switch 2 bundles both Shadow of the Erdtree and the Tarnished Pack into a single package, making it the most complete version of the game available. For players on other platforms, the Tarnished Pack is a separate purchase — but the update that enabled the new gaming content landed for all owners at the same time, meaning Knight Leontiel and Noble Broken Mask are now invading Elden Ring sessions across every platform simultaneously.
For the community side of things, Zullie’s video is already making the rounds — and the conversation it has sparked is familiar in the best way. Elden Ring players have long known that FromSoftware hides details nobody asked for, in places nobody was supposed to look. It is one of the quieter reasons the game’s community remains as active as it does, years after launch. There is always something else to find.
