Shadow of the Erdtree's unmasked NPC faces prove once again FromSoftware is the king of completely unnecessary details
Not many of us had the time to study the face of Logur the Beast Claw as he took swipes at us in the beginning of Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree, but if you were to get a good look at his face, you'd see that he is indeed a reference to X-Men's Wolverine: He's shirtless, fights with claw weapons, and seems to come at you in a rage. It's too specific, and FromSoft is already prone to putting popular references in NPC invaders.
Zullie the Witch, a regular FromSoft dataminer, recently dropped a video with a number of Shadow of the Erdtree NPCs unmasked—as she did previously with the original game. Logur's scruffy face isn't the only surprise from the video; we also get a peek under the hoods (and helmets) of Lady Leda, Freyja, Hornsent, Ansbach, Thiollier, and Moore—members of the crew who recruit you at the start of the DLC.
Hornsent, for example, wears a mask with horns protruding out of it, but just looks like a guy who hasn't showered in months underneath, which you'll find is accurate if you finish his quest. As Zullie points out, his model was created with the same tools as the character creator, so he can't actually have horns sprouting out of his head. The glum look on his face matches the kind of character he is though. Freyja, the woman wearing a full set of golden armor, has a scar across her nose to reflect the same gash in her helmet. Neither of these characters ever take their helmets off, but it's neat to see the attention to detail, however unnecessary it is.
The Dancer of Ranah boss, who we saw in the original trailer fighting in a field of blue flowers, uses almost the same exact face data as Tanith, a character in the main campaign who is wearing a mask with an item description that talks about her history "working as a dancer in a foreign land." FromSoft will never tell us directly if Tanith is from the Land of Shadow, but, given some of the other base game items that refer to the DLC's setting as a foreign land, it seems likely.
Zullie's video is pretty thorough, but you should also check out another video by Garden of Eyes that has unmasked characters alongside photos of their English voice actors. It's uncanny how much the sorcerer Ymir looks like Matthew Gravelle, the Welsh actor who voices him, and I'd go so far as to say it's intentional.
I'd prepare for more reveals over the next few weeks, like yesterday's news about the secret of the Dancing Lion boss, as dataminers dig into Shadow of the Erdtree. There are plenty of things in the DLC worth scrutinizing like the original game. You never know, maybe someone will find another dog harboring the strength of 11 bosses.