Description

This is a boss fight arena mod for Elden Ring. This mod was originally made for practicing boss fights and trying out different builds, without having to spend hours on getting to the boss and upgrading your character, as well as for players who mainly enjoy the boss fights for replayability. Killing a boss doesn't disable them, so that you can keep fighting them.

Note that this mod is meant as a standalone experience due to all the changes it makes. You should use a dedicated character slot for each mode, not use those characters in the vanilla game, and conversely, not use vanilla characters with the mod.

NOTE: I am not the original creator of this mod. Both the original mod and its creator RepO98 disappeared from Nexus in early 2024  (and the creator seems to have removed their online presence entirely), so I took it upon myself to update the mod for the current patch and add the DLC content as it was my favorite Elden Ring mod. Since then, I have managed to expand it with the addition of Progression Mode and many QoL features, so I hope you enjoy it.
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Features: Sandbox Mode

- Includes every boss (defined as any enemy with a named HP bar at the bottom) in the base game and the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.

- Fight any boss as many times as you want (killing them doesn't matter)

- After creating a new character, you get teleported to Roundtable Hold. Talk to Gideon and select the "Initialize Boss Arena" option to get started.

- The NPCs at the Roundtable have everything you need to get your build going quickly:

    - Kalé sells basically every item in the game for free, including fully upgraded weapons as an option. You can buy items individually or obtain all items in a category at once.
    
    - Rennala allows you to reallocate your stats and change your appearance at no cost.
    
    - Hewg and Roderika will upgrade your weapons and Spirit Ashes respectively without the need for materials or runes. All weapon affinities are also available immediately.
    
    - Interacting with Morgott's corpse will let you trigger NG+ cycles at will. Note that there is no way to go back to a lower cycle without tools like Cheat Engine or starting a new character.
    
    - Jar-Bairn allows you to toggle infinite HP/FP/stamina cheats on and off.
    
    - You can also level up for free.

- You can fight bosses by talking to Gideon. Selecting a boss teleports you close to the boss.

- You can choose whether dying to a boss should respawn you at the fog gate, or back at the Roundtable.

- There are multiple boss selection modes available:

    - Single boss selection.

    - Random selection from a set of pre-defined pools, including a "sequential mode" option which warps you from one random boss to another after defeating them, without repeats.

    - Boss Rush, which puts you up against a series of bosses in a sequence. You can also create your own sequences by following this tutorial.

- NG+ cycles have been rebalanced to make early to mid-game bosses more challenging.

- DLC bosses have been rebalanced to remove the need for Scadutree Fragments/Revered Spirit Ash. The vanilla mechanics and stats can be restored with an optional modifier.
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Features: Progression Mode

- Uses the same basic framework as Sandbox, but you start with almost nothing and must obtain items and upgrades from defeating bosses.

- Bosses are structured in tiers of increasing difficulty. You must defeat the ones tagged as [Main] in order to unlock the next tier.

- Every boss has multiple item drops, many of which include multiple items bundled together. Boss drops can be classified into the following types:

    - A fixed set of upgrade materials for your weapons, summons, flasks...
    
    - A random set of crafting materials
    
    - A guaranteed unique drop the first time you defeat a boss
    
    - A number of bonus unique drops, ranging from 2 to 6 depending on the boss (generally, major bosses hold more items than minibosses). These are rolled at random within the pool for each boss, with higher game cycles increasing the number of rolls.

- The mod includes an option you can enable to fully randomize the guaranteed and bonus drops, meaning any boss can drop any item. Upgrade materials remain fixed to still provide a balanced experience.

- You can also completely disable randomization, in which case you'll get all items from a boss the first time you defeat them.

- Once you defeat a boss, you cannot select it again until New Game+. This prevents grinding/farming the same bosses until you reach that point, so spend your resources wisely.

- Cheats are included to unlock replaying bosses in NG as well as unlocking all bosses from the start.
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Installation

1. I recommend backing up your saves before using this mod. While I have designed the mod to avoid making any permanent changes to your character until you choose the option to initialize Boss Arena, some changes are unavoidable and could affect an existing character if loaded accidentally. Go here to find the save location for your system.

A good option is using the Alt Saves mod to keep your modded saves separate from your vanilla saves.

2. You need Mod Engine 2 to use this mod. It has been extensively tested with version 2.1 of Mod Engine, so that's the one I recommend at the moment. Remember to extract the downloaded .zip file first (right click > Extract All). Note that Mod Engine auto-detects your Elden Ring install location (as long as it's a legitimate Steam copy), so you don't need to put it in the game installation folder.

3. Once you have Mod Engine 2 set up, extract the Boss Arena .zip file, open the resulting folder, and then copy the CONTENTS of the Boss Arena "mod" folder (NOT the folder itself) to inside Mod Engine 2's own "mod" folder. If you end up with a "mod" folder inside another "mod" folder, you've done it wrong.



4. Make sure Steam is running in the background, and then click the "launchmod_eldenring.bat" file to launch the game with the mod. If nothing happens, you may have a non-standard installation of Elden Ring, file permission issues with the game install folder or eldenring.exe, antivirus software blocking Mod Engine, or other unknown issues. I recommend following this troubleshooting document to try and solve the problem.

5. Verify that the title screen has changed to the Boss Arena one, and then start a new character.
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Uninstallation

If you used Mod Engine 2 as suggested, you don't need to do anything special. Simply launch the game directly through Steam to play the normal game. Do NOT load any characters which were used with the mod while playing vanilla, or you risk getting banned.
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Important notes

- You should create a new character after installing the mod for the first time. Using characters created outside the mod can make some bosses unplayable, make the game and the mod work in weird ways, and it might screw up the progression of the old save.

- Compatibility with other mods is not guaranteed. This mod makes changes to many aspects of the game such as map data, events, talk scripts, text, and more. Any mod that modifies any of these aspects will require manual merging, which I can't help you with. All I can do is point you to this resource.

- The only mod that is officially supported is thefifthmatt's Enemy Randomizer. Note that the Item Randomizer portion is NOT compatible and should be disabled. You can use the two mods together by using the Merge other mod option in the randomizer to select Boss Arena's "mod" folder. Then randomize enemies, and when that finishes successfully, use the Launch Elden Ring button.



- Switching between Sandbox and Progression versions on the same character may result in bugs and is not supported. You should use a different character slot for each version of Boss Arena.

- This mod has been tested with version 1.16 of Elden Ring, the latest patch as of writing this. Older versions of the game will not work properly and I cannot provide support for them.

- Using the modded character save when playing online may get you banned.

- I advise against exploring the game world outside the Roundtable Hold and fighting bosses. This mod was designed to be a very focused, standalone experience, only to be played through fighting the bosses and using the tools in Roundtable Hold. Playing the game outside the intended areas might cause bugs in the game and in how the mod works.

- There are probably some bugs that I have missed. From my own testing and playing the mod, I haven't had any major issues, but don't hesitate to report any bugs you find to the Bugs section here. The more information you include, the better.
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Credits

- RepO98 - original creator up to version 1.4 of Sandbox Mode.

- PositronCannon (myself) - current maintainer since version 1.5 of Sandbox Mode; creator of Progression Mode.

- KaruMiraiii - French translation.
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Special Thanks

- All the creators of modding tools for FromSoft games. Particularly Smithbox/DSMapStudio, UXM, Mod Engine, DarkScript3, ESDStudio/ESDLang, WitchyBND, and the Elden Ring Debug Tool.

- All the contributors to the Souls modding wiki for the invaluable information they have compiled. Shoutout in particular to thefifthmatt for his excellent tutorial on EMEVD scripts in Elden Ring (invaluable to help me reverse engineer this mod in order to update it) on top of his many contribution to the tools above (and for the countless hours of fun I've had with his randomizer mods).

- Grimrukh and LobosJr for their "Learning to Mod FROMSOFT Games" series on YouTube, which served as an excellent introduction to modding when I was starting out.
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Donations

If you enjoyed the mod and feel like supporting my work, you can tip me on Ko-fi.
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My other mods

- Dark Souls 3: Boss Arena

- Dark Souls Remastered: Boss Arena

- Elden Ring: Dungeon Crawler