Elden Ring player Dodgenator91 defeated the boss Malenia with no armor, shield, summons, and minimum health. Dodgenator captured the feat via an in-game video recording and admits it was a difficult challenge, but one that he's not unfamiliar with. Elden Ring is famous for its challenging gameplay and mysterious narrative.
Game Rant spoke to Dodgenator to learn more. He started playing Souls-style games in 2020, after getting the Dark Souls trilogy and Sekiro on sale. He became instantly hooked, obsessed with the game's steep and unforgiving learning curve. Immediately he started doing challenge runs just to see how far he could go with minimal resources. He played through the entire Dark Souls series, starting with a level 1 character and using no armor, shield, and fighting with only a club. While it took him 10 months, Dodgenator defeated 128 bosses across the Dark Souls trilogy and Sekiro. When asked why he is so dedicated to difficult challenges within Elden Ring, Dodgenator said there is a lot to love about FromSoftware games.
Not long ago, an Elden Ring player beat Melania with only a dance pad at level 1, and as more gamers took up Elden Ring challenges, Dodgenator decided to see if his past success would translate over to the new game. Playing on the Xbox One, Dodgenator spent 3 hours tackling Malenia to no avail, when suddenly all of his hard work paid off. In the past, Dodgenator relied on spirit summons, and Baldachin's blessing, but for Malenia, he wanted a clean win with nothing but his staff and no summons or buffs. After 218 hours of gameplay, he's beaten a variety of Elden Ring's bosses using a similar strategy and unlocked all the game's endings. He currently has a naked mage with 334 HP, who takes a minimalist approach to fighting the game's diverse bosses to a new level.
Other Elden Ring players have tackled similar challenges, with one player killing Morgott with only a bow, and other players taking even more difficult approaches. Dodgenator said that Souls-style games lend themselves to unique challenges, and anything a player wants to attempt can be tried within the game's intensely difficult combat system. Since defeating Malenia naked, Dodgenator has defeated all Elden Ring's demigod enemies naked as well.
One Elden Ring player spent over 1,800 tries beating Melania, proving that Dodgenator's feat with a naked mage is nothing for gamers to scoff at. Given the difficulty of the game's combat when players utilize everything available to them, taking on a boss with the bare minimum certainly isn't for the faint of heart.
Elden Ring is available for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.