The YouTube algorithm is a truly wretched piece of tech, but just as a broken clock is right twice a day, sometimes YouTube will cough up an absolute gold mine. I would confidently describe the hundreds of Elden Ring videos on veganiele's channel, which I randomly found earlier this week, as one such gold mine. This brave Tarnished has been beating Malenia, renowned as the RPG's hardest boss, with every melee weapon in the game, without taking a single hit and often fighting at level one, for over a year straight.
Scroll through veganiele's backlog, where many videos have under 50 views apiece, and witness the endurance of the human spirit. Their channel summary doesn't do it justice: "Beating Malenia in Elden Ring with every melee weapon of the game. From January 26th, hitless only - every day. Wish me good luck!"
Folks, they've been doing this since August 17, 2022. At least, that's when they uploaded their first defined Malenia hitless solo, wielding double Great Star maces to kick things off. They've killed several other bosses in a similar fashion in the year-and-a-half since, but a cursory scan of their upload schedule shows it's almost wall-to-wall Malenia bullying. And I mean bullying.
- After 48 hours and 729 deaths, Elden Ring sicko takes on the RPG's hardest challenge so far by beating the base game and DLC on NG+ 1,000 without getting hit once
- Elden Ring player becomes the first to beat every New Game+ difficulty back to back without getting hit, in an 8-playthrough run that somehow took under 12 hours
Veganiele's most recent video features the humble Vulgar Militia Saw, which makes quick work of Malenia even on a level one character with no buffs. Another video from today features a more typical level 140 character with a three-weapon combo that absolutely decimates Malenia in under two minutes. Both fights are, of course, totally hitless.
Think of any melee weapon in Elden Ring. Odds are good veganiele's used it to kill Malenia without getting a scratch on them. They're still working through the game's full arsenal, but they've already crossed off many of the weirder weapons, including my beloved Dark Moon Greatsword and Helphen's Steeple combo, be still my heart. There are hundreds of videos to pick through here, with dozens of the most recent runs being level-one clears. Today's triple-weapon combo is one of my favorites, but this hitless level-one Zweihander run is also something to see.
You've just got to admire the tenacity. In every video, veganiele includes a brief little description. "Ok, this was really fun," they say after perfecting a boss that once drove me to profanities that cannot be printed here. I'd wish them good luck, but I really don't think they need it.
In other feats of masochism, a streamer played Elden Ring, Sekiro, and the Dark Souls games all at the same time, randomly switching between them.
