Elden Ring mods have brought us a lot of joy. They’ve turned the open-world RPG into a gruelling survival game. They’ve given us Soldier of Godrick, the hapless boss from the tutorial, as a faithful – and surprisingly handy – companion. But the Outer Gods giveth and the Outer Gods taketh away. If you think you’re tough, try beating Elden Ring when every enemy, from the lowliest scarab to the mightiest man-serpent, is transformed into Malenia.
That’s the challenge recently surmounted by YouTuber and absolute hero Bushy, who, using an enemy randomiser downloaded from Nexus Mods, deliberately transformed the Lands Between into a nightmarish hellscape riddled with Malenias.
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The full run is available on Bushy’s YouTube channel, but if you want an immediate sense of what he’s up against, we recommend jumping to the moment we’ve shared below, when he enters the chasms beneath Summonwater Village to find not one, not two, but five Malenias waiting to ambush him, all in a room roughly the size of an airplane toilet. We’ve seen people die quickly in Elden Ring, but this might deserve its own speedrun category.
The problem with Malenia is that, essentially, she doesn’t have any weaknesses. If every enemy were the Fire Giant, or maybe even the Elden Beast, you’d have an easier time dodging around them and rolling through their attacks. But Malenia is fast, her attacks have massive range, and especially in the early game, she can kill you in a single hit.
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Nevertheless, after almost eight barbaric hours – and Formless Mother knows how many deaths – Bushy makes it to Elden Ring’s end credits. It’s a staggering achievement, and if your life is too happy at the moment, and you feel like you could use some unrelenting misery, we invite you to try it for yourself. As for us, we’ll stick to just one Malenia, which, frankly, is already too many.