For better or worse, Elden Ring is a merging of all that is Soulsborne to have been released under the FromSoftware umbrella, like some sort of game designer-authored “Best of” death omnibus. Half of the game has you turning a corner, shouting an expletive at whatever nightmare fuel is blocking something cool, and attempting to cheese it. You often have to pick and choose who and what to fight, and Twitch streamer “LilyAggy” is one Tarnished whose demonstrable skill in this arena has earned him an impressive accolade — he is the first speedrunner to have beaten Elden Ring in under one hour.
LilAggy is both “the best” and “the worst” at Souls, according to his profile. “You guys know the intro to the Powerpuff Girls? Where it’s ‘sugar, spice, and everything nice?’ Then he adds ‘Chemical X’ on accident?” he asked the chat during his Elden Ring livestream. “That’s every, single boss in this game.” This sentiment does ring true as you hit an eventual point where seemingly every boss just has a huge nuke they can spam while you pray to the holy ‘RNGesus’ they won’t use it in succession.
For those of you who get absolutely no enjoyment out of watching other people play games, speedrunning is when someone will attempt to play and complete a video game as quickly as possible. The people who speedrun are an impressive bunch, to be clear. The routing, planning, and execution required to reach the end of a game whose average lifespan is worth at least one week of non-stop agony must be immense. They exploit everything a game has to offer and pull off some crazy stuff. Kudos!
