Update: Kai Cenat hasn't just beaten Malenia - now he's beaten the whole game.
Original story: Twitch's biggest streamer is currently taking on Elden Ring, but it's proving a significant challenge for him - as marked out by 432 deaths across 24 hours of gameplay.
Kai Cenat, who has the platform's second highest sub count and by far the largest total viewership over the past 30 days, has spent 148 of the 200-ish hours he's spent streaming this month playing Elden Ring. It's safe to say that it's not been going all that well - 148 hours is a pretty long time for an Elden Ring playthrough, and I'd suggest that the 1,600 deaths Cenat racked up during that time is above average, too.
None of that has been helped, however, by a significant roadblock in any Elden Ring run - Malenia. By far the game's most notorious boss, the Goddess of Rot is a major late-game challenge. Cenat found that out for himself, spending a full 24-hour day of streaming time trying to defeat her, and tallying up a full 25% of those 1,600 deaths in the attempt.
All that ended last night, however, as Cenat finally defeated Malenia on his 433rd attempt. Before that, however, it had been looking pretty rough - around the halfway mark (that's 200+ deaths over 12 hours), Cenat's mental resolve seemed to be slipping.
Malenia got Kai Cenat acting like Yuji at the end of the Shibuya Arc Mind you he been trying go beat this boss for 10+ hours & 200+ deaths pic.twitter.com/lDiuBG1l4zMay 16, 2024
Eventually, however, all that practice paid off, and with a nudge from the community, Cenat was eventually able to defeat Malenia. Understandably, there was some substantial euphoria when that finally happened - I'm somewhat surprised that Cenat's elaborate stream backdrop survived the celebrations so unscathed.
After 24+ hours and over 400 deaths, Kai Cenat has defeated Malenia in Elden Ring pic.twitter.com/fjqPiLznQuMay 17, 2024
At this rate, Cenat might have completed the game just in time for Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.
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I'm GamesRadar's news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.
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