Their equipment states they were driven from the colosseum and became guardians of Erdtree Burial, which, in a manner of speaking, seems to be exactly what happened in terms of their development history too. For some other examples of how notable the "Large" suffix is in the "GladiatorLarge" AI name, there's also FeralRatLarge, ScarabLarge, and even ScarabExtraLarge and AlivePotExtraLarge. There are no enemies that have "Large" in their AI that don't have a smaller version except the Duelists, so it's almost certain there was an enemy that was just "Gladiator" at one point, based on this naming convention.

I'm still amazed at how hard this King's Field track slaps. It's a cymbal massacre.

I love how these guys toss off their cloaks, looks badass and gives off “oh you’re approaching me?” Vibes

I wish we had a PvP arena that started with throwing off a cloak like the Duelists

The fact that the Ulcerated Tree Spirits of the damaged Erdtrees also take the form of Serpentine Spirits makes it seem a little less odd that these Gladiators end up as Grave Wardens. The link between the Serpent God and the Erdtree is clearly one that goes a bit deeper into history that hasn't been covered directly yet.

I don't think the snake is INSIDE of him though.. I always thought the grab attack was them animating the snake on their wrist, similar to the Coil Shield. The skill for the Coil Shield reads "Give the shield a quick shake to temporarily bring the bronze viper to life, inciting it to lash out and bite foes." and the description says it was designed for gladiatorial combat so I think it can safely be linked to these guys.

I farmed the two blokes outside Leyndell Colosseum for hours, and I’ve done several playthroughs, these guys are some of my favourite enemies in the game, even did a gladiator character on my third game… And I had no idea they had a literal snake arm attack. Huh.

I love the thumbnail, like it’s down playing the craziness. Someone yells “He’s got a snake inside him!!” And someone just looks a bit sad replying “yea he’s been through a lot”

I love Elden ring so much but those Colosseums were definitely disappointing when you found out you cant go in them

I spent way too long trying to figure out how to get into the Colosseums during my first playthrough

You can tell they had to make a lot of cuts and schedule management decisions for the game and the more I learn about it the more impressed I am by how smart these tough decisions were.

I thought that the serpent that comes out of their arm was actually the armor coming to life, like the green serpent from the small shield wich ability is to awake her even though it's made out of bronze (if I remember correctly). But now looking closer, I think the color of the serpent of the arm indicates otherwise since she appears to be "organic" unlike the armor or the shield's serpent.

Hoping we see a dlc utilize the coliseums some more, seeing them fully decorated inside but then cut is really sad

Applause for this guy for a great video!))

woah this video really did jsut predict the biggest update in elden ring pvp lol

I believe in Lore, they might've Chosen to guard the erdtree burial Sites in an attempt to atone For their sins, so to say. Though, Why were they driven away from the colloseums in the First place? Also minor correction, while some Gladiators IRL were criminals, the Most prolific ones were paid well and highly regarded, in Part due to requiring alot of expensive Training. Criminals were, infact, few and far between Among the Gladiators, and while they still appeared plenty in the Arena, they rarely took the role of gladiator, more commonly being forced to Fight starving lions or other enraged and Dangerous, and usually exotic, Wildlife, and were During such Fights, typically totally underequipped, If at all.

Awesome soundtrack with the clashing percussion and cymbals!

I CAN NOT argue enough how the soundtrack of your videos make all the charm. I'm glued to these videos

I would most likely never even have known that the gladiators' grab attack even existed without this video! Thanks for doing what you do and bringing the interesting things about these games to the rest of us, Zullie.

When I saw them for the first time I immediately thought of For Honors Gladiator. Both designs look sick af

The fact that they made spawn points for a leo misbegotten and a gladiator inside a colosseum… god _damn_ that would’ve been amazing to stumble into

The Snake vs Erdtree thing is another example of Norse mythology, with the eternal serpent Nidhogg gnowing at the roots of the World Tree

I beat the game twice and never actually saw that grab animation. There really is just so much to this game that you have to look for and pay attention to

Zullie I love your cinematic shots of game models frozen in the middle of animations. You've gotten better and better at picking really good key frames and giving them splendid setting, framing, panning and zooming. All while still having perfect visual clarity where it counts, so you can showcase these beautiful models and animations to us alongside your research! For some reason they remind me of watching and making stop motion Lego videos in the 2000s, especially your action shots of Zullie vs the AI. Good nostalgia :D

The fact that serpents are referred to as "traitors" implies that they were once loyal. I wonder what that means for volcano manor. It could also mean that the gladiators who guard the erdtree aren't being controlled, but rather have simply gone back to serving the erdtree as they once did. After all it's not as if they're all of one mind, it's likely the relationships involved here are a little complicated.

The colosseums are one of the few times you can tell immediately that content was cut as a player. You don't need tools to see inside or look at spawnpoints to know that these buildings were clearly meant to be more important at some point. I'm glad for those tools, I just mean it's one of the few places in a From game where you can FEEL that something was cut as soon as you get there. Hopefully they get used in the future, it's be a shame for all that unique architecture to go unused.

Considering that they are heavily associated with serpents I like to think that Rykard, when he was an inquistor of the Golden Order, send heretics in the colosseums to be massacred by ferocius beast and enjoyed watching gladiators fight eachother

That grab attack reminds me a lot of Messemer"s in the DLC trailer

If the coliseums do ever open, fighting the rot variant of the gladiators while avoiding pools of rot would be a lot of fun

I love how your videos are always around dinner time hehe dinner with the witch

Considering the Erdtree as Ygdrasil and the Serpent as Nidhogrr who eats at it's roots, it makes sense that a serpent would be a symbol of treachery. What I feel is less obvious though is how Melina might play into this as a rather obscure reference: Ratatosk. The squirrel who communicates between the snake below and the eagle above. What in my eyes further strengthens this reference is how Melina is seemingly capable of transporting the player from the mountaintops of the giants (Jotunheim, the lowest realm aside from Hel itself), to Farum Azula (which, as a city in the sky, could be a reference to Asgard itself). This would be a symbolic journey from the lowest point of the tree you'd visit to the highest one. Speaking of Hel, it is actually the lowest realm at the root of the Erdtree in which resides the goddess of the same name who watches over the dead. This links directly to Fia and her champions, which locate themselves at a basin at the roots of the erdtree, watching over the corpse of Godwyn. When you connect the dots as such, Ratatosk was directly subservient to Odin. Which could mean Melina could've been the servant of the direct Odin parallel, which would be Marika. Godwyn then is the eagle, upon which the hawk Vedrfolnir is nested. Ratatosk's purpose was to spread slanderous gospel amongst the eagle and Nidhogg. Now, what else does Melina do if not spreading gossip? Guiding the tarnished, teaching him of the flame of the Fell God and the road to becoming Elden Lord. If Melina is a direct parallel to Ratatosk, a lot of things begin to make a lot of sense.

I have come to a truce with the snake in my boot, he now helps me grab-attack Tarnished

for sure related to messmer. confirms he was created with the base game

As far as I’m concerned, you are THE Elden Ring scholar, and in my humble opinion, canon in-universe. That’s how I will remember Zullie the Witch

I haven't played Elden Ring for many months but I still get giddy when I see a new video of yours on my feed.

"While the colosseums are currently inaccessible" Well.

Just want to say, I’ve been watching this channel for a while, and I’ve been loving it. Keep up the good work 😀

Now with the DLC announcement, we also have Messmer with the snake motif.

I don't care if I have to wait a year in between each video, but please don't ever stop. I love your videos. Cheers

I have to admit that I gasped, and loudly might I add, when I first saw one as a boss. The cape throw undid me 🥵💖 Such sense of drama and definitely the last thing I was expecting to witness.

Messmer connection?

My favorite enemies in the entire game!

among my first decrees as Elden lord I would have these Colosseums be open again. watching hot people in armor duke it out will be the main way of spending time in my kingdom

Legend says there is also a snake in his boot

I'd really love to see the Colosseums have some function similar to tombs in bloodborne (I just want to explore randomized places and get decent rewards)

The first time I played Elden Ring, the gladiator down in the burial site was actually the first proper boss I ever thought. I still think it was the best opening I could have gotten as someone who was basically a complete newbie to Soulslike, having tried DS3 shortly before and ended up shying away from it after repeated failed attempts in the same area. The Gladiator is difficult, but fair. He's got moves that hit hard, but they are all coreographed in a way that they can be learned quite well, without any sort of unfair move inbetween. Learning his moveset felt rewarding instead of frustratingly hitting my head into a wall over and over again, and I felt great when I ended up beating him. And then I decided to completely overlevel for Margit.

It's crazy having only started Elden Ring in July to see all these comments about the game before pvp arenas were even around. I'd love for the physical space to have more in it for PvE purposes, but still, it's an impressive and seemless free update.

I seriously love your videos Zullie. Short, simple, yet entertaining and informative 🥰

I was really let down when I finally got their full set and weapons only to discover that the cool chain moves are nonexistent to the players. I hope they go ham with the DLC cause there seems to be either some slight cutbacks/reworks like with this colosseum or maybe they've just decided to do some footwork for possible DLC areas? Idk but it really feels like this could have been a dope arena

My man wears The Abyssus, a true hero

I choose to believe the potential other duelists that may have been cut used a Spear, Flail, Crossbow and Staff... purely because my friend and I are old Runescape players and the duelists gave us major Barrows flashbacks when we first encountered them. We labeled the existing ones Torag and Dharok on sight, and never stopped.

I would love a gauntlet colosseum area, where you fight groups of enemies round after round with bosses every few rounds. You get a cerulean and crimson scarab after each boss but that's it. After each boss you can take your winnings and go or choose to continue. They could even do co-op!

i just wanna say, ur awesome zullie, anytime i see one of ur videos im compelled to either start playing any of these games again, or just sit there theorycrafting because of all these interesting subtle discoveries, i see so many channels discussing lore and stuff on such a grandiose scale, and sometimes i just want to see something interesting and subtle like this, that leads me on an hours long deep dive into my own speculation, and come to my own conclusions and values

man, i'm glad I finished elden ring cause now I can calmly watch as much elden ring content as I want. great job with the video as always!

Currently, the only way to get the armor of the duelists is to farm it from the two by the coliseum in Leyndel. This is noteworthy because once the player has progressed beyond Maliketh, these enemies despawn. The rotten armor variant can be found in another area, but if you want the helmet, armor, altered armor, and weapons, you'd best grab them when you first get to Leyndel.

these videos, the music ambient eldritch sounds, is spot on

i love that you use the kings field tracks in your videos, its such distinct and amazing music that not enough people have heard

*“There is a snake inside of him”* or maybe he’s just happy to see us

I assume the rotten variants were originally intended to be in the Caelid colosseum? Only reason I can think why they of all enemies would get a rotten variant. But the only Duelist in Caelid is a normal variant, and for some reason they got plopped in the Snowfield despite there not being a colosseum there. On another note, I wish their connection to Rykard, if any besides S N E K, would've been elaborated on a bit. I mean, you find their gauntlets in Abandoned Cave, almost certainly owned by Rykard at one point judging by all the Iron Virgins and the Serpent Bow also within, and the coil shield similar to their snake grab in Volcano Cave, in Mount Gelmir of course.

man i love chain weapons, im super bumd that the gladiator weapons dont have unique weapon arts with chain atacks.

0:14 the gladiators "taking up positions" as grave wardens is pretty funny to me, like imagine a job interview in limgrave

i interpreted the snake grab as their arm guards/piercings pulling a moses and turning into real snakes temporarily. like the coil shield.

These guys are some of my favorite recurring enemies, love their armor and always rock it on a strength character. I think gladiators in general are a super badass subject and these guys are no different, hope we get more content surrounding them

The more I learn about the coliseums and the Erdtree Burial sites, the more I wish development could've been pushed back for a bit longer. I know that it's impossible to keep working on a video game forever, but there's always a decent chunk of Souls games that ends up being scrapped, repurposed, or left empty/unfinished and it makes me sad.

Buzz, *There's a Snake in my Boot* ! And my body... Buzz: 😳

Snakes, Trees, what we have here is some very truncated biblical imagery

Zullie, could you take a look at the "touched by grace" mechanic? The one that makes an enemy's eyes glow, and grants 5× runes upon killing it? I have a few questions. - Can any enemy be touched by grace, or are some exempt? - How does the game know where to put the glowing effect, as well as the glowing redness of feral demi-humans at night, or soldiers stricken with madness? Are they all related? Are the eyes of every character model marked? - I know this effect can occur for things like Miranda flowers and basilisks, showing where their true eyes are. What other enemies have odd eye placements? - Do bosses have "eyes"? In other words, is it possible to grant a boss the same effect? If so, would that mean that, at some point during development, bosses were also effected by this mechanic.

Love this music, nice work

I work in Revit to model and design buildings for work, and you have me rethinking how I name / organize every 3D element - your attention to detail and file structure is impeccable.

My favorite armor set in the game! The different variation with the rotten version looks soooo dope. Love that shit!

In terms of opening up the Colosseum, I would love something similar to how Ashes from DS3 brought the Hollow Arena: Even though we didn't have PvE elements there, getting the chance for these spectacular battlegrounds, even for different events to happen to make PvP more interesting if people want it. You can still have fight clubs in the spaces outside Academy of Raya Lucaria, but the opportunity for enemies to spawn and complicate the dueling, or for environmental traps, or even if the most popular builds might occasionally have firebombs rained on them if they get too close to the edge of the spectators, who want to see something 'new' show up, would all be interesting ideas to make PvP fresh again.

*Two years later* 'The gladiators are returning to the colosseums. Nature is healing.'

I just love this. Knowing about game design by just looking at the game IDs is really cool. There is a lot of especulation of course, but that makes it cool too. I can't wait to see a DLC announced. Pls Mr. Doritos, show us more Elden Ring.

I just want to be able to wield their hammerchucks

I love seeing how calm the npcs are around zullie, like their actual people waiting for their cue, it's neat!

the colosseums actually have a use now :D

Really good video!

The retro ominous music is a nice touch

i have only watched 10sec yet, but i must say, you always nail the music choice!

Yo this might be related to mogh being able to ride those chariots and there are collesum warriors too, and abandoned colloseums all over the map. I think these were all once connnected

There are so many visible areas that are non-playable, showing what I think may be DLC right in front of us. Here's to The Coliseum and The Ship From Beyond DLC.

I love how they start with a cape and throw it off

Love the King's Field OST, must be one of the best From ever made

Seeing the model up close, the elements of the armor biting into the Gladiators' skin immediately made me think of how Serosh constantly gnaws at Godfrey.

man i really hope the colosseums make it back as pvp arenas in dlc, it seems to be what from always does (with the exception of ds2)

"Inside of you, there are two snakes..."

The existence of GladiatorLarge implies the existence of something greater. The fabled GladiatorChungus.

I love this series of the closer looks at different characters and enemies in elden ring. What a great way to make a steady stream of content without putting out sensationalist click bait speculating on upcoming DLC or something.

There's a snake in my boot!

There are 2 sneks inside of you: one wants you to play by the meta and the other desires you spam jump heavy.

yeah, id love to see more of these guys and more info on them in the dlc, whenever that shows up

So that's what that video I keep seeing on the internet is, that guy was a gladiator

Always wondered what their deal was!

There's so much potential ground for the DLCs to cover. - Miquella's dream, corrupted by Mohg/ the Formless Mother. The clashing interior of a world shaped by two different outer gods. - Something Godwyn related, could be like a world event where he rises from everywhere. - The Gloam Eyed Queen of the Godskins - The Colosseums opening - St Trina - The Death Rites and Ghostflame? - other, less known hidden demigods?

I hope the colosseums open soon 😔

A lot have been through them...

I never got grab attacked by them in all my playthroughs so I would’ve never known about the snake attack without this lol.

the previously closed colosseums are now open and are used for pvp! 😄👍

There's a snake in my boss.

Now them after poaying through the entirety of Kings Field 4 I have returned. Was a damn good game.