Gaming

The wildest Elden Ring runs, ranked

Elden Ring players are pushing against the barriers of what's possible to beat the game, and the results are often hysterical.

There's a rich history of players beating FromSoftware games in the most ridiculous ways possible, and Elden Ring is no different. Now, two months after launch, here are five of the wildest challenge runs we've seen yet.

u/fluentinsarcasm

5. Elden Rigged

Speedrunner Distortion2 is arguably the king of wild Elden Ring runs, at least so far. He currently holds the record for the second-fastest speedrun of the game in the "any-percent unrestricted" category. It took him all of seven minutes. Obviously, this time relies heavily on glitches, such as "wrong-warps." Check out his channel here.

Distortion2

4. Hip Drop to the Top

Distortion2 didn't stop there, though. He beat every major boss in the game with only Mario-style butt stomps. Though the attack is slow and cumbersome, it deals significant damage. The later bosses were still pretty hard, though.

Distortion2

Distortion2

More recently, Distortion2 has taken it even further by beating every major boss in the game with a lightning roll attack. This skill deals a lot of damage if you manage to roll into a target multiple times, but it also leaves you very vulnerable. That said, Distortion2 was able to stun-lock a surprising number of bosses with it.

Distortion2

Distortion2

3.)Shields only

YouTuber Plateau Peak managed to beat all the major bosses in the game by using only shields — both to attack and defend. Yes, though the game lets you attack with shields, they do absolutely piddling damage, which means that every boss takes forever to beat. Check out his channel here.

Plateau Peak

Using shields that deal bleed damage (as well as chunky ones that allow for jump attacks) makes the whole endeavor much more manageable, however.

PlateauPeak

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2. Cheesing it up

OG FromSoftware YouTuber LobosJr completed a run of the game where he "cheesed" as many of the bosses as possible. Check out his channel here.

The cheap strategies that he utilized include: deactivating a boss's AI, luring bosses to jump off of cliffs, and simply pelting a boss with ranged attacks from afar. All made possible by glitches and design oversights.

LobosJr

1. Pacifism unleashed

Popular Souls YouTuber Iron Pineapple managed to battle his way to the Elden Throne without attacking once — a true "pacifist run." Check out his channel here.

He managed this through a combination of careful play, smart routing, and a heavy reliance on the game's Spirit Ash companions, especially the Mimic Tear.

As a bonus, here are a couple of the wackiest ways players have beaten other Souls games recently...

Bandai Namco

No left stick

No less than three YouTubers — Yui Chan, ymfah, and Plateau Peak — have managed to beat Dark Souls 3 without using the left stick.

Instead, they use a combination of traversal abilities like Quickstep and the forward momentum from attacking to navigate themselves. It's wild stuff.

ymfah

YouTuber ymfah also managed to beat Dark Souls 2 without talking to a single NPC. While that might not sound impressive, that means no leveling up, no upgrading or repairing gear, and no buying anything.

ymfah

ymfah

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