An Elden Ring fan has shared a video of their team meeting an untimely end outside Malenia’s lair after being jumped by an invading player. Widely regarded as one of the hardest bosses in FromSoftware’s action-RPG, Elden Ring’s Malenia never even got a chance to unleash her wraith, as all three players were felled seconds before stepping through the mist to meet her.
Released in 2022 after years of eager anticipation from fans, FromSoftware’s Elden Ring takes the developer’s trademark punishing-but-fair combat and transfers it to an open-world setting for the first time. Expanding on the formula established in previous titles like Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne, Elden Ring lets players explore the world in whatever order they choose while taking on hordes of enemies and some truly memorable bosses. The boss fights in Elden Ring have actually proven to be such a hit with gamers that makers of the Nightfall mod for Dark Souls are currently working to bring some of the boss fight mechanics to that 2011 title.
In a post on r/Eldenring, Reddit user aska33j shared a video of his team’s unfortunate run-in with an invader as they prepared to walk through a mist gate into one of Elden Ring’s boss fight rooms. Bearing the humorous, Souls-influenced title “I guess its time for us to die,” the video shows aska33j and their two teammates getting ready to take on Malenia when the screen suddenly flashes red, indicating they were under attack. Both teammates are killed almost instantly, with aska33j rolling towards the invader in an attempt to counterattack before being struck down as well.
Comments on the post were filled with a mix of people jokingly quoting lines from Elden Ring or sharing their own stories of ending up on the wrong side of an invader’s weapon. Other responses chided the group for standing around for so long outside the gate, noting that they could have walked through the mist to escape the invader if they’d acted more quickly. One Redditor responding to the post claimed that they were the one who had jumped aska33j’s party, though other responses quickly called that claim into question.
Many fans of Elden Ring have developed a certain level of acceptance when it comes to being brutally dispatched by one of the game’s punishing bosses, but being struck down by another player right before the big battle can make for a remarkably unsatisfying end. Now that this team has seen the dangers of dawdling in the Lands Between, they might have more spring in their step when preparing to take on the new bosses in Elden Ring’s rumored DLC.
Elden Ring is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.