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<\/figure>\n Elden Ring<\/em><\/span> throws all manner of fiendish monstrosities at you, but few will make your hair stand on edge the way a Runebear does after it catches your scent. I\u2019ve only ever barely killed a few Runebears in the hundreds of hours I\u2019ve put into FromSoftware\u2019s open-world game; I\u2019d literally rather fight Malenia or, more realistically, run away screaming. The Runebears\u2019 outrageous difficulty might have seemed like a weird, hilarious discrepancy at launch<\/span>, but months later, we\u2019re finding out that there might be a really good reason as to why they have such a knack for bringing us closer to Marika.<\/p>\n As dataminer Zullie the Witch<\/span> points out in a thought-provoking video, back when Elden Ring<\/em> was disseminated as a \u201cnetwork test\u201d beta, players discovered an out-of-bounds Runebear<\/span>. Curiously, when the Runebear was killed, it would drop a dragon heart. After Elden Ring <\/em>was released, no in-game Runebear appeared to work this way, so most people kinda forgot about the heart thing. But upon further inspection, it seems like Runebears might actually have a specific connection to dragons after all.<\/p>\n