Shadow Of The Erdtree’s Dancing Lion boss is genuinely just two dudes in a lion suit

Image credit: Bandai Namco

Among Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree’s more fearsome bosses is the Dancing Lion, a festive prancing terror inspired by Chinese Lion dances. Looking at it, you might expect this costumed nuisance to be another grafted abomination, its layers of papier-mache, binbags and repurposed carpets hiding a rippling quilt of flesh and bone, perhaps a real lion that has been shaved and stitched to its theatrical double. The truth is more appalling still: it’s just two guys in a lion suit. They aren’t even sewn together mouth to backside, like in the Human Centipede. Way to bait-and-switch, From!

The news comes from Youtuber BonfireVN via PCGamer, who has posted a video showing the model with the costume removed and, what’s more, in combat, which inevitably makes the whole fight look rather funny. The front half of the lion might be the source of all those eye-catching AOE attacks but the back half of the lion is doing all the heavy lifting, to the point of defying the laws of physics. Feel free to point a finger and laugh uproariously like a school bully at a pantomime rehearsal. I’m sure it’ll make you feel better when you take a lightning bolt to the chops for the 30th time running.

Divine Beast Dancing Lion – Closer Look

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Generally speaking, I both love it and feel quite anxious when developers take the time to depict things which you’ll technically never see: landscapes that can’t be visited, proper skeletons for characters that, that kind of thing. I also wonder whether they could have gone a bit meta with this.

The Dancing Lion has its place in Erdtree’s lore, as you’d expect, but perhaps they could have done an Icon Of Sin and put From Software president Hidetaka Miyazaki inside it. He’d be the front half of the lion, naturally, but who would be the other half? Whomst at From Software has the clout, the talent, the sheer stage presence to be the back half of Elden Ring’s dancing lion? In other news, Shadow Of The Erdtree has launched to a mixed reception on Steam, with a significant portion of the negative response owing to players finding it too difficult.