It took more than 165 hours of struggling and 1,700 brutal, sometimes funny, deaths, but Kai Cenat—one of the biggest streamers on Twitch—has finally beaten Elden Ring.
I became aware of Cenat's Herculean effort last night, when a cryptic, single-line message appeared in my Twitter feed: "Kai Cenat has been fighting Melania for 10 hours straight."
What?
It was true. Not only that, he had been playing Elden Ring for nearly 130 hours by that point, and had died more than 1,400 times.
At one point during the epic battle, he thought he had her, only to find out that no, it wasn't going to be quite that easy.
Kai Cenat defeated Malenia nearly 120 hours into the stream without realizing there was a Phase 2 of the boss in Elden Ring 😭 pic.twitter.com/goQwi4ZcFtMay 15, 2024
By the time he finally felled Elden Ring's infamously difficult demigod, he was up to 148.5 hours and had died more than 200 times more. Bards used to sing about such heroics; men of old would write epic poems celebrating the mighty deeds. Given that, I would say the celebration was more than warranted.
Kai cenat finally beats melania after over 24 hours of attempts pic.twitter.com/8Aza1dhjKNMay 17, 2024
KAI CENAT DEFEATS MELANIA AFTER 24+ HOURS OF ATTEMPTS ON ELDEN RING! pic.twitter.com/sx1zC5U0qcMay 17, 2024
Melania is the big hoss in Elden Ring, but far from the only big problem, and for my money Cenat discovering that Starscourge Radahn is not quite the pushover he thought makes for an even funnier moment:
I've been watching Kai Cenat try to beat Radahn for over an hour now and this was the funniest fucking death pic.twitter.com/pmdMQWQiWOMay 12, 2024
Man, I know that feeling.
Much like me, Cenat is apparently not a soulslike player, which of course led to problems. According to Kotaku, for instance, he spent six hours dicking around with a Tree Sentinel mini-boss near the start of the game.
It's the kind of thing that wears a man down.
This 100+ hours Elden Ring marathon is taking a huge toll on Kai Cenat 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/Bqe7l8e5GqMay 14, 2024
His marathon eventually attracted the attention of Elden Ring publisher Bandai Namco, which urged him on:
He did indeed persevere, and in the end—also like me—he came out transformed by the experience. "This game is a masterpiece," Cenat said when his marathon was finally over. "I've never felt something in my soul like this. I don't know what game compares to this right now ... This is my favorite game that I've ever played for a marathon on stream, and that's fact.
"I've never felt this good about gaming since 2017, and I mean that. I used to look at Spider-Man like it was the best fucking game ever. Now every game I touch after this will be mentally easier for me. Do you understand that? This game broke me down mentally, and built me up mentally. So Elden Ring, you have my respect ... I used to play 2K, Call of Duty, and I just thought that was peak. This opened my eyes to what can be peak."
He's not wrong. And now, he is the Elden Lord.
