Elden Ring Player Uses Their Head (And Butt) To Achieve Victory
Developer FromSoftware is known for publishing notoriously difficult RPGs, and "Elden Ring" is no exception. Critics applauded it with rave reviews for its build diversity, subtle storytelling style, and challenging enemies — even if some boss fights arguably went too far. Many have a hard time beating the game with just their normal gear (or even recommended ones), let alone a major restriction. However, one "Elden Ring" speedrunner managed to beat the game with just his butt.
Distortion2, a popular Souls streamer and speedrunner, successfully completed a run of "Elden Ring" using only Ground Slam skills. While it's called "ground slam," it's actually an attack where the character jumps into the air, folds their legs, and slams into the ground with their bottom to deal damage. Ground Slam isn't an OP move by any means, but it deals a reasonable enough amount of damage where it's possible to beat the game using it. But still, not just anyone can beat the game using their butt.
While Distortion2 is a known "Elden Ring" speedrunner, his playthrough using only Ground Slams isn't actually a speedrun. The streamer edited together multiple sessions into a two-hour video of how he managed to accomplish his mission. He started by using the Ashes of War: Ground Slam and later transitioned to stronger Ground Slam moves, eventually acquiring the strongest one, the Erdtree Slam. From there, the video is basically a montage of how he manages to defeat even the grizzliest of bosses using his cheeks of steel.
Here's how Distortion2 managed to make it work.
Ground Slam is harder to pull off than you would think
Ground Slams work best at close range and don't deal significant damage unless they successfully land on the enemy. It's an aggressively close-range fighting style that's basically a death wish for most players. Instead of keeping your distance from the brutal bosses like Starscrouge Radahn, you're forced to get within easily killable distance to Ground Slam.
It doesn't help that the recovery is inconveniently long. "Erdtree Slam is good, but the recovery time is killer," Distortion2 commented on stream. From the video, it appears that there are little to no invincibility frames during the startup and recovery. That means that the enemy has a free hit on you for those few frames before and especially after the attack. There isn't even an attack cancel like there is for some moves in fighting games.
"The butt slam was looking really good early on, but it's starting to look grimmer and grimmer as we go on," Distortion2 admitted. You can watch him downing flasks to restore his lost health and struggling to counter after bosses punish him for the missed slams. That being said, he's done something most of us can't come close to accomplishing.
"Elden Ring" is available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like it's coming to Nintendo Switch anytime soon.