A group of Elden Ring's most devoted players have slain the same Souls bosses nearly 800 times while waiting for the DLC to release

13.10.2023 - 22:15 / pcgamer.com

Dark Souls 3's hardest bosses are routinely getting punished by Elden Ring's most devoted players as they wait for the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC to finally release.

Three YouTubers, Lellollo, Kyoufo, and YSh0T, carry the torch that JPNB left behind when they retired from fighting Malenia, Elden Ring's most brutal boss, every day until the DLC announcement. Back then, Lellolo was only around 134 days into dueling Gael on the ashy outskirts of Dark Souls 3's Ringed City DLC. Today, they're on day 399, and Shadow of the Erdtree doesn't even have a specific release date yet.

Gael isn't quite as tough as Malenia, but when you're wearing almost nothing like Lellollo, a single hit could be the end. Their latest video echoes what it was like watching Let Me Solo Her's 1,000th attempt on Elden Ring's Goddess of Rot with a full five minutes of graceful dodging and precision strikes. Every fight is clean, whether they're sporting dual Uchigatanas or cosplaying as Melina gripping a Morion Blade. This is what spending over a year fighting a single boss does to you.

Earlier this year, Kyoufo ran a rival daily challenge where they fought one of the hardest dragon bosses in the Souls series, Midir, every day until Lellollo stopped bullying Gael, a kind of funky, fractal challenge parodying the very idea of these boss fight marathons. As you now know, Lellollo still hasn't had reason to stop, and Kyoufo decided to end their own challenge after 49 days with a Swiss Army Knife build of crossbows and magic as an ode to Boba Fett. A few days later, however, they moved on to running what might be the hardest fight in all of FromSoftware's games, with the intent of keeping it up until Shadow of the Erdtree's release.

Sister Friede is a three—yes, three—part fight against a Scythe-wielding nun and her angry giant friend. It's a brutal, taxing fight that nobody should spend 135 days repeating, but here we are. Today, poor Sister Friede got torched by the Immolation Tinder, one of Dark Souls 3's strangest weapons that is both a staff and a halberd.

Meanwhile, YSh0T has kept Ringed City superboss, Darkeater Midir busy for 262 days while they too wait for the DLC to come out. They crushed the beast in under a minute with a Greataxe yesterday, but they have hundreds of other videos using various other weapons and builds, too.

All three of these incredibly vigilant players might not have to wait too much longer. Ziostorm, A known Elden Ring rumormonger who has an admittedly inconsistent reputation with reporting leaks claims sources told them Shadow of the Erdtree will have a February 5th release date announced at The Game Awards in December. FromSoftware hasn't said a word since it dropped the original mega hi-res announcement