As someone who struggled to beat Elden Ring on its standard difficulty, I’m constantly amazed by the streaming community’s ability to wrestle FromSoftware’s RPG to the ground with a reality-defying number of limbs tied behind its back. Whether that’s MissMikkaa beating the game all the way through to NG+7 with a level 1 character, or Ainrun smashing through Shadows of the Erdtree with just one health, faith, and stamina point.
Yet, as reported by GamesRadar, streamer and Elden Ring maestro Skumnut has recently taken the collective embarrassment of FromSoftware‘s RPG to a whole new level. Earlier this week, Skumnut beat Elden Ring without taking a single hit, which wouldn’t normally be much to shout about in the world of high-level Elden Ringing, save for the fact Skumnut was playing at NG+1000.
If you’re sat there thinking, “I didn’t know Elden Ring could be played at NG+1000”, that’s because it can’t. Normally, new-game plus runs of Elden Ring are capped at the +7 mark. Skumnut, however, was playing a modified version of the game that unshackles it from this limitation, beefing-up its difficulty to the equivalent of NG+1000.
This means every boss in the game has over 500,000 HP, with similarly scaled damage and resistances. To give you an idea of how absurd that is, Elden Ring’s final boss, the Elden Beast, has 22,127 HP on a standard run of the game. Consequently, Skumnut had to whittle down every one of those monstrously inflated health bars without being hit once. If he got so much as his toes tickled by an AOE attack, he’d have to restart the run.
Needless to say, this took a few attempts—115, to be precise. Yet even that was constrained to a three-week period, less time than it took me to beat Elden Ring on the first go. Skumnut’s strategy involved using abilities like Black Flame Tornado, which deals percentage damage to enemy health rather than a fixed number. You can see an example of this in the video below, showing the final moments of Skumnut’s run when he felled the Elden Beast.
ELDEN RING NG+1000 with UNCAPPED NG+ scaling NO HIT has been achieved. Every boss 500k+ HP. First in the world, probably the last. Attempt 115 was always the chosen one. Only took 3 weeks. GG.Thats why they call me the Elden Ring sicko. pic.twitter.com/X0gh5igNDsJanuary 19, 2025
“That’s why they call me the Elden Ring sicko”, boasted Skumnut of his run, which he also stated is the “first in the world” and “probably the last.” While it certainly seems the former is true—nobody has arisen to challenge Skumnut’s claim—I’ve learned never to doubt the Elden Ring community’s ability to exceed itself, and I’m sure there are numerous Beast-bashing whizzkids gazing upon Skumnut’s achievement with envious eyes.
