Someone Is Already Beating Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Bosses at Level 1

ign.com:

Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree has been out for less than a week, and we already have absolute sickos beating the new content's bosses at level 1. Just because they can!

A content creator known as LastDarkHope has been quietly plugging away on their YouTube channel for the last few months, defeating Elden Ring boss after Elden Ring boss with absolutely no rune levels gained, and no equipment leveled up. That's impressive enough on its own, but when the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC dropped last week, this incredible player simply started beating those bosses too. Again, this is without using runes to level up at all, and without using any smithing stones to upgrade equipment.

Critically, LastDarkHope does seem to be using Scadutree Fragments. These fragments only impact the DLC content, but they do give damage negation and damage output increases that are far from negligible. As we've mentioned elsewhere on site, the Elden Ring community has been really struggling with the difficulty of some of Shadow of the Erdtree's bosses. Scadutree Fragments are the DLC's way of countering its heinous difficulty, and you're very much encouraged to seek them out if you're having trouble. But it seems that even these buffs weren't enough for many, pushing FromSoftware to drop a patch today that increases the benefits from earlier Scadutree Fragments before leveling out their buffs later on.

That said, what LastDarkHope is doing is still a wildly impressive feat. Most people who are struggling with these bosses and stocking up on Scadutree Fragments are doing so at levels well beyond 100, while LastDarkHope is still stuck at 1. No 60 Vigor, no wildly high Intellect or Strength, and no ability to wield certain weapons with specific stat criteria. What's more, they don't even seem to be going that hard on Scadutree Fragments despite collecting a few. Checking out their most recent stream, it looks like LastDarkHope was barreling around Castle Ensis with just three Scadutree levels.