Elden Ring Fan Completes Shadow of the Erdtree the Hard Way

FromSoftware fans’ love of difficulty has been demonstrated once again. A player who completed Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC without using any upgrades spent 423 hours and died 15,522 times in the process. Streamer Dan Gheesling even rejected the basic facilitators the game offered to complete this challenge, and struggled to defeat the DLC’s toughest enemies. In particular, his 3,469 defeats against Promised Consort Radahn alone demonstrate the magnitude of this achievement.

Elden Ring Victory Without Upgrades

FromSoftware introduced new upgrades called Scadutree Fragments to players for the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, emphasizing that these were critical to survival in the game. However, Dan Gheesling refused to use these upgrades entirely and aimed to complete the DLC. Not content with that, Gheesling did not increase his character’s health bar or use any buffs (resin). This meant that he would one-hit-die with almost all attacks while dealing very low damage to enemies.

Gheesling took to Twitter after completing his grueling challenge, writing: “423 hours. 15,522 deaths. 3,469 deaths to Radahn. No health upgrades. No Scadu. No resin. Done. Never give up.”

The final battle against Promised Consort Radahn took around 15 minutes, during which Gheesling fought flawlessly. The slightest mistake would cause him to restart the entire process. After his victory, Gheesling gave a speech to his audience about perseverance and patience. However, it’s worth taking the actor’s words “don’t stop headbutting walls” metaphorically.

Once again, the creativity and resilience of Elden Ring players are pushing the boundaries. These types of challenges show how the depth and difficulty of the game are handled differently by players.

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