4 Years Later, Elden Ring Player Uncovers Trick To Skip Game's Final Boss

It didn’t take long for Elden Ring to reach Skyrim-level fame. Just months after the game was released, I knew at least 100 people who were replaying it, which is rare even for open-world titles. You could just see the game’s grassroots popularity grow organically as folks discovered more and more secrets and hidden quests.

Then came Elden Ring Nightreign, which carried on the legacy of the series while offering up unique takes of its own. It kept the series in the zeitgeist, and the feature film will do the same down the line. This is one of those forever franchises that we’ll be seeing for a long time.

Case in point: a fan has figured out how to skip the final boss of Elden Ring after four years, and shared it with the world on Reddit.

In the final moments of Elden Ring, you’ll ascend through the Erdtree, and take on Radagon of the Golden Order, before tangoing with the Elden Beast: the final boss of Elden Ring. While Radagon is easy enough to learn and behaves similarly to some humanoid opponents throughout the game, the Elden Beast is extremely irregular in its movements. It gave a lot of players trouble back when the game launched, before proper tech was created and boss-specific builds were widespread.

Creator RichAd5226 managed to sidestep this entire endeavor. They start in Leyndell, Ashen Capital, right near the room that initiates the final boss fight. Using some clever weapon arts-based platforming, they approach a pit off to the side and fall off.

After roughly a full minute of falling, the Radagon boss fight will start. RichAd5226 quits the game during the fight, then reloads to find the arena empty. That’s it! Radagon is vanquished, and you can interact with the final Fractured Marika, which ends the game.

If you’re wondering: “Wouldn’t it be faster to just fight the final boss?” Sure, but the video’s creator even notes that in their post. This is a skip showcase for the game to show off something neat, not a strategy guide.

As RichAd5226 notes: “If you would rather just fight the boss, fine. This is a skip showcase. If you can beat the boss in less time than the skip, cool, so can I. This is a skip showcase. I don’t care if you think I’m playing the game wrong. This is a skip showcase. I have ~3000 Hrs in the game and have beaten every boss multiple times. I am not wasting my purchase. This is a skip showcase.”

For Elden Ring fans, this skip is a real treat to watch. Even if you don’t try it for yourself, and your current character is kitted out to destroy the final boss in seconds, it’s great to see people still coming up with tech all these years later.