Elden Ring player beats the game without running, rolling, or jumping

Elden Ring is a pretty tough game. Even with the best sorceries, summons, and helpful companions, it can be a real battle getting through to the endgame. But even that isn’t quite tough enough for some people, who have been reliably creating new challenges for themselves in Elden Ring since the game’s launch. The latest exploit sees a player cutting themselves off from many of the core mechanics of the game by equipping themselves far beyond their maximum weight limit.

If this style of self-imposed masochism sounds familiar, it’s because the player in question, YouTuber Iron Pineapple, recently gained notoriety for completing a pacifist run of Elden Ring. While this challenge run isn’t quite as bloodless, Iron Pineapple is still rendered unable to jump, run, or roll. In fact, as an added challenge, they prohibited themselves from riding their horse, Torrent, as well.

In Iron Pineapple’s own words, if you don’t have the patience for it, attempting this kind of run would be “a nightmare.” So why do it? Well, first of all, they figured it would be funny. But beyond that, they were interested to see how such a run could fundamentally change overworld encounters: “Every small victory felt that much bigger, like I was defying Miyazaki himself in some meaningless way.” Perhaps it’s not such a bad idea to take your time plodding through The Lands Between, smelling the poison roses along the way.