While there are plenty of challenging foes in Elden Ring, ranging from Starscourge Radahn to Godfrey, none can compare to Malenia. As such, anyone who can beat Malenia deserves to be proud, though one Elden Ring player has clearly mastered the battle.
To be fair, Malenia can be taken down consistently with enough practice. For instance, one Elden Ring fan recently beat Malenia as a level one wretch without taking any damage. Others have used mods to get revenge on the Queen of Rot, though for most gamers, beating her will take hours of struggling and some possible build changes. Others will resort to spirit ashes or summoning another player, with the latter option being used by Redditor sazed813. As it turns out, this was a brilliant decision, as it led to a truly memorable encounter.
While there is no video attached like with most memorable co-op moments in Elden Ring, sazed813 tells their story perfectly, providing a good amount of detail to keep things entertaining. The Redditor shares that they were tired of dying to Malenia after 20-30 tries, especially since they had gotten her close to defeat on several occasions. While they expected to grab a few partners and beat her down, they instead found a sign with the message “let me solo her.” Interested, sazed813 wanted to see what would happen of this player was summoned, so they called them into their game.
According to the Redditor, the summoned player dual wielded katanas and wore nothing but a jar on their head. In the comments, Redditor x_v_b pointed out that this is common for FromSoftware games, as the best players will usually wear a goofy outfit that provides minimal protection. Sure enough, sazed813’s co-op partner decimated Malenia, cutting through her health and taking nearly no damage. Only being hurt slightly by her Scarlet Rot attacks in the second phase, the mysterious co-op partner did exactly what their message promised.
An edit to this post saw sazed813 letting everybody know that the co-op poster had made their own Reddit thread, going by the name KleinTsuboiOW. In the post, they confirmed all the details shared by the Elden Ring player. They then shared a video of them soloing the Blade of Miquella, allowing viewers to watch a master at work. With the simple, straightforward goal of helping “desperate Tarnished,” this Redditor could not be any more kindhearted, as they are allowing other gamers to finally get past Malenia.
While it remains to be seen if Elden Ring will get DLC that provides a greater challenge than Malenia, for now she is the toughest foe gamers can face. As such, players like KleinTsuboiOW are a massive help and deserve all the praise they are getting.
Elden Ring is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
