Elden Ring Fan Theory: The Player's Horse Is Named 'Torrent' To Troll Pirates

The rabid, masochistic world of FromSoft players is still discovering the secrets of Elden Ring, the latest, largest, most open world game from developer FromSoftware and publisher Bandai Namco. Fans and critics are singing its praise and relishing its potential to sweep Game of the Year awards. It’s the most accessible FromSoft game ever and part of that is thanks to a little dainty horse goat called Torrent. But, some fans think that there’s a devious reason behind the steed’s name.

Torrent is unlocked early in the game, allowing players to summon them at will when not in multiplayer. (If you are in PvP or multiplayer, then good luck.) And Torrent is objectively a pretty great name for a swift lil’ jumper like Torrent. The dictionary definition of torrent is “a violent or forceful flow of fluid. Especially: a rushing stream of water.” But it’s also means when a piece of digital information is being shared from the torrenting network. Torrenting is when a file is uploaded or downloaded via a BitTorrent network. It’s peer to peer file sharing and it allows torrent users to share files to multiple users at once, or download from multiple locations simultaneously.

It’s great for file sharing and unburdening a single server, but it’s also great for piracy. Not high seas piracy, just run of the mill IP theft and illegal file sharing. So the theory is this: someone wants to download Elden Ring for free, so they go to their favorite browser and search “Elden Ring torrent”, all the search results are about the horse! Pirates vanquished. 

Obviously with a few more keywords and a can-do attitude, the pirates will be back to their swashbuckling (swashdownloading?) ways. But this isn’t the first time FromSoft has had a search word character conspiracy. There’s similar tin-foil hat conspiracies about the character Patches from Demon’s Souls and Rom from Bloodborne. While these may be mere coincidences, it’s equally as likely that director Hidetaka Miyazaki included these names as a cheeky nod to tech minded players.

Next time we see him, we’ll have to ask him. And we’ll also ask him why the heck he designed all these unfair ways to die in the Souls series.