Elden Ring - 10 Secret Or Optional Areas You Probably Missed
The Eldren Ring is absolutely massive and filled with tons of secrets in optional dungeons, areas, and more, so we're going to talk about them here. We've got 10 of our favorites, so let's get started with number 10. Near the carrion, the study hall The only way to survive the fall down here is by landing on these gravestones.
They're sticking out on the side of the cliff, but if you find those, then it's not too hard to make your way down. What you'll find at the bottom is Jarburg. Yeah, a little town where the jars live in peace. They all mind their own business as long as you don't provoke them or go into their houses and steal their stuff.
There is something uncanny about going to a place where all your enemies are just hanging out, but you get over it pretty quickly. Other than a few jar crafting items you can pick up, there really isn't much to do in this place. It's just a strange little secret area that's one of the few places where anyone is living in peace in this screwed up Elder Ring world, so you might as well enjoy it for a minute.
Ah, hello How nice it is to see a friendly face. Over at number nine, let's talk about the upside-down carrion study hall connected to the Lyria divine tower. A lot of people are probably going to head to the carrion study hall after beating the shard-bearer of the area, thinking that it's the place where you can activate Ronald's great rune, but instead of a useful upgrade, all you find is one incredibly annoying mage and a big old dead end.
There's an altar at the start of this place that requires an item, but getting it is no easy feat. The item you need is this thing called the carrion inverted statue, which can only be obtained by giving Ronnie the witch the secret treasure of Nakron. That's a whole complicated thing that we're not going to get into right now, but basically you have to find Ronnie in the Carrion Manor in Leonia, and then find the treasure she wants.
Then she'll give you this item that can be placed on the pedestal, which causes the entire tower to flip upside down. Instead of going up, you go down. You're not walking on the floor anymore. Now you have to carefully make your way across the ceiling. It's one of the strangest places in any soul game and eventually allows you to access an elevator that takes you up to the divine tower where Ronnie's real body is.
This is the only way to get to this place, as far as we know, making it one of the few locations that you can only get to by completing a quest rather than just through exploration alone. At number eight, the eternal city of Nakron, is a place that a lot of NPCs talk about, but it seems like there's no way to get there.
If you manage to get to the underground headquarters for a river area, then you can look up and see this city anytime you want, but there's nothing down here that connects to the place. It seems like there's no way there because, well, there isn't. It actually requires a certain amount of progress to open this place up.
Specifically, fighting and defeating the Charvara and Rado. Technically, you can take this guy on at any point, but he's so damn strong that for most people, you're probably going to want to have at least two other characters dealt with before you'll be able to take him down. When you finally do manage to take him down, there's a cut scene showing a meteor crashing into the ground somewhere.
That cutscene isn't just to show that a meteor actually did land someplace. You can find the massive impact site to the south of Limgrave, under the mist woods, and if you carefully make your way down the massive hole, you can find the mysterious, eternal city of Nakron. This is one of the most beautiful and mysterious places in the game, and it's well worth exploring.
This isn't the only underground secret area in the game, but it's definitely one of the most satisfying to finally get to. At number seven, Michaela's halag tree, now when you first get to the mountaintop of the giants, we noticed that there was this massive chunk of land that you just couldn't get to at all.
The entire western part of the area was locked down. The only way to get out of here is to find both halves of the halag tree secret medallion. One you get from completing Castle Sal, which isn't too hard to get, but the other one is just ridiculous. It can only be found by attacking this random big pot to reveal a guy who's actually in disguise, in the village of Albanorex, all the way back in Lyarnia.
That's where this other medallion is. We spent a ton of hours trying to find this thing and only ended up finding it by mistake a few days later. From there you can take the giant elevator down to the consecrated snow field, then to this village where you have to solve a puzzle, and then finally you'll arrive at the hallog tree.
This place is nuts. An entire town and castle were built into the side of a dead and rotting tree. This place is exceptionally dangerous but is one of the coolest environments in the entire game. Next, over at number six, the secret of the volcano manor, now at the top of Mount Gelmere, you can find this place called the volcano manor.
From the outside, it looks like a massive dungeon, but when you go in you can't actually attack anyone and all the doors appear locked. Instead of being a place you can just immediately explore, you instead have to work with Lady Tanith and talk with the various people in the manor before you can start to uncover any secrets.
That means hunting and killing the targets she assigns you, but before long, Tana's daughter will start complaining about weird sounds and tell you that she saw something disappear into a room. If you look around, you can actually find a false wall that leads you into the innards of the castle and eventually the lava-filled prison town hidden beneath the manor walls.
This is a dangerous place filled with snake men and crazed prisoners, and actually exploring can be a challenge considering you know all the lava and the fact that you can't actually get here without first doing some investigating. This is pretty unique for this type of game. There's actually a really cool boss fight at the end too that we won't spoil, but it's definitely something that you're going to want to do.
At number five, Moguin Palace, now back in the sea of a river area, there are two major landmarks that you can see but seemingly never reach. One was Narkon, but the other was this massive palace you can see in the distance. At first, that's what we thought was Knot Round, but it wasn't. This place is actually an ancient palace where the so-called lord of blood resides, and you can only get there through an unassuming portal that can be found in the consecrated snow field.
