After "a month of grinding" and 123 deaths, Resident Evil 4 master completes what should be an impossible challenge

Resident Evil 4 Remake Leon
(Image credit: Capcom)

Twitch streamer Elajjaz has just completed an unsparing Resident Evil 4 remake challenge: beat the game on the highest difficulty with permadeath and a randomizer. 

"After a month of grinding, I finally finished Resident Evil 4 remake permadeath with randomizer on Professional difficulty!" Elajjaz celebrated on Twitter. "The whole journey took 123 deaths (37 deaths on the latest patch) and the final run took 10 hours and 46 minutes!

"Finally out of the village…" he continued.

Let's really soak in how extreme this RE4 challenge is. Elajjaz (who is no stranger to permadeath runs) used 7rayD's Balanced Combat Randomizer for the Professional, or maximum, difficulty. This mod can substantially increase enemy spawns, as evidenced by Elajjaz's tragic 116th death. Himbo protagonist Leon Kennedy has no idea he's about to be chopped up by about 30 zombified Spaniards. 

"Move you fucking cow!" Elajjaz pleads as a stairway becomes congested by several bloodstained Brutes holding sledgehammers, Chainsaw Man, and more enemies that sort of form a dirty, squirming mass from all the clipping. Finally, a Brute puts Leon out of his misery and inserts a pitchfork into his neck. 

"Nice, nice," Elajjaz says with pain in his voice. 

So It's been a long road for him. During his winning attempt, Elajjaz stares wide-eyed at his screen while guiding Leon through Resident Evil 4's final challenge — navigating a speedy boat around flying debris and collapsing caves. For one horrifying second, Leon crashes into a rock and takes damage. It seems like everything could go wrong, but then Elajjaz makes it to safety, and the end of the game. 

"I lost half my health there," he says breathlessly. Perseverance is key. 

Now relax and peruse the 10 best Resident Evil games of all-time.

Ashley Bardhan
Contributor

Ashley Bardhan is a critic from New York who covers gaming, culture, and other things people like. She previously wrote Inverse’s award-winning Inverse Daily newsletter. Then, as a Kotaku staff writer and Destructoid columnist, she covered horror and women in video games. Her arts writing has appeared in a myriad of other publications, including Pitchfork, Gawker, and Vulture.