It's a Colosseum that would make a great PvP arena.
The Elden Ring map has countless points of interest, most of which reward players with an item, a boss fight, or something more surprising. But there's one large structure in the north-east of the game's starting area, Limgrave, that seems completely inaccessible. If you've seen it, you've probably spent about half-hour unsuccessfully trying to get inside.
The building in question is huge, and Colosseum-like, with a ghostly fellow moping around out front. "All I wanted was to fight," the ghostly fellow says when you interact with him. "To fight, as a warrior, at last. So why? Why, O guidance of grace, will this door not open?"
Well, here's a theory: it's a Colosseum for a forthcoming PvP-oriented DLC. Thanks to famed Soulsborne dataminer Lance McDonald, we now have footage of the inside of the building as it is in the current build of Elden Ring. While it's clearly unfinished, there's enough there to pretty much confirm it's a fighting arena. The aforementioned NPC's dialogue also strengthens that theory.
Here's the footage:
It wouldn't be unprecedented for this to be a post-launch PvP arena. All three Dark Souls games got purpose-built areas for online scraps in the months after launch.
Elden Ring had a huge launch week: it neared a million concurrent players on Steam, and the thirst for runes became so popular that there's now a burgeoning trade for them on eBay. It has also spawned countless funny deaths.
