As the spiritual successor to FromSoftware’s Dark Souls series, Elden Ring had a lot to live up to upon release. For the most part it has satisfied returning Dark Souls players in providing all the things that series is famous for, such as its notoriously difficult boss fights and obscure secrets to find. Another way in which Elden Ring lived up to the hype surrounding the game is in its monster designs, as the game’s massive open world is populated with many striking creatures.
Elden Ring not only has a massive amount of creatures, but it also regionalizes some of their designs based on where they are found in the world and the lore of that location. This can be seen in the Erdtree Avatars, which are found protecting the game’s various Minor Erdtrees and are an example of Elden Ring’s many difficult world bosses.
However, there is also a regional variation of this boss found in areas associated with Scarlet Rot, namely the region of Elden Ring's map known as Caelid. This boss is named the Putrid Avatar, and it is a Scarlet Rot-infested version of an Erdtree Avatar. One of these Putrid Avatars can be found at a Minor Erdtree in western Caelid, near the entrance to the Minor Erdtree Catacombs, and a Reddit user named LyXIX has shared a clip of their recent fight against this particular Putrid Avatar boss fight which shows an exciting back and forth until a sudden heartbreaking end.
The Reddit user’s clip shows they are using the Sword of Night and Flame weapon found in Elden Ring, which is popular among players both for its unique magic beam attack and because it is known for melting bosses’ health bars. At the beginning of the clip the Reddit user already has the boss down to only a fraction of its health. Then, after some exciting back and forth and a devastating hit from the boss, both the player and the Putrid Avatar are down to only a single hit of life left each. However, just as it looks like the Reddit user is going to land the killing blow, they rather anti-climactically slide of the edge of a cliff.
The situation, although extremely location specific, is likely to feel familiar to fans. Many Elden Ring players probably remember a fight ending in disaster because they neglected to watch their surroundings and wound up falling off an edge. Although it is devastating to see such an anti-climactic end to a fight which otherwise would have been decided with one hit, it charm of Elden Ring that the outcome of a boss fight is sometimes left entirely to the player to either win or lose.
What adds to the heartbreak for this Reddit user is that they didn’t even walk off the cliff, it was the animation for their trusty Night and Flame magic attack which caused the player character to step backwards off the edge.
Elden Ring is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
