Elden Ring yapper beats Shadow of the Erdtree DLC using voice controls, taking down the final boss in a flurry of "wow," "panic," and "shrimp"
No controller, no problem
![Elden Ring key art of DLC Leda, a blonde woman holding a sword in front of her face](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/2WeJ7jd75BPtmgode86ziD-320-80.jpg)
Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is no joke, but that's not stopped talented Soulslike masochists everywhere from taking on brutal challenge runs to turn things up another notch. One streamer has now managed to beat the expansion using only voice commands, and it looks unbelievably stressful. Be warned, there are spoilers ahead for the DLC's final boss.
Twitch streamer Larxa has been tearing through Shadow of the Erdtree this past week with no physical controller in sight thanks to a unique setup that allows her to control absolutely everything with spoken phrases, allowing her to destroy the likes of Messmer the Impaler, Romina Saint of the Bud, and now Promised Consort Radahn. Anyone who's fought the DLC's souped-up version of Radahn will know that he hits like a truck and has some ridiculously fast attacks, making him hard to dodge at the best of times. So, how on earth are you expected to deal with that when you have to say everything you want to do out loud?
The answer is with great difficulty, and with a lot of talking. As you might imagine, Larxa's fight was full of "dodge" commands, as well as the aptly named "panic" to dodge-roll backwards when things were getting dicey. Amusingly, while most of these voice instructions match their actions, some phrases were seemingly totally unrelated to the game, which sound very funny in a fast-paced, stressful situation. While Larxa was fighting for her life, she started spouting words like "shrimp" to use a consumable, as well as "morb" and "wow" to use her two Ash of War skills, which all sound rather silly. But those short words helped her remain in control even when things were getting dangerous.
OMG I DID IT!!!!!!! I BEAT THE ELDEN RING DLC WITH ONLY VOICE CONTROLS 🥹🥹🥹 I can't believe its finally over 😭 pic.twitter.com/RwQMIsIWrIJuly 18, 2024
Speaking of Ashes of War, Larxa was using two that ended up being key to her victory. The first was Prayerful Strike, an attack which heals you significantly when you land the move on an enemy. By using this, she was able to boost her survivability while still landing heavy hits. This was helped further by her other Ash of War, Endure, which temporarily boosts your Poise and reduces the amount of damage you take from attacks.
In the end, Larxa was able to beat the final boss in around five hours of attempts, which is seriously impressive when you consider the circumstances – many players would struggle to beat him in that time using a regular ol' controller. If you're still stuck on him though, don't worry - you can check out our guide to beating Shadow of the Erdtree final boss Radahn for some tips.
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I'm one of GamesRadar+'s news writers, who works alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.
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