An Elden Ring player has discovered that one of the game’s special sword art abilities allows users to travel across large gaps without dying from fall damage. The latest action-RPG game from the creators of Dark Souls and Bloodborne has broken multiple sales records and continues to be immensely popular with both Twitch and YouTube content creators. This year has already seen the release of many successful titles like Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Horizon Forbidden West, but Elden Ring is the best-selling game of 2022 only weeks after its release. Unlike many newer games that lose popularity soon after release, Elden Ring continues to surprise players after dozens of hours of playtime.
Many speedrunners have already found ways to beat Elden Ring in less than an hour, with one managing the feat in only thirty-seven minutes. Most players have been taking their time enjoying the vast open-world that rewards players for exploration. Players can find new armor, spells, weapons, and abilities by finding chests hidden all over the game’s world. They can also earn some of the game’s best loot by defeating its challenging bosses. Unlike previous Soulsborne games, Elden Ring’s bosses can be fought in almost any order a player chooses. One player has discovered a specific ability that, if used a certain way, can be used to defeat a foe that has claimed more lives than any other Elden Ring enemy: fall damage.
Elden Ring’s fall damage receives a considerable loss against Redditor Brauchwirn3t, who manages to use the Sword Dance weapon art to travel huge gaps without fear of dying. The ability is tied to the Hand of Malenia katana, an item players cannot obtain until later in the game. As reported by Game Rant, the clip below shows the ability in action as Brauchwirn3t jumps off one of the game’s cliffs and uses expert timing and precision to cross a considerable gap. They then land in one of the Elden Ring’s later areas that would have taken much longer to reach if they had used more conventional methods of travel. The new discovery is one of the many amazing tricks players have found in Elden Ring.
Fans are finding a lot to love in the massive variation of abilities and playstyles Elden Ring offers. Some players are discovering new tactics like the Sword Dance art gap traversal trick to find new ways to speedrun the game. There are a lot of variables that make it difficult to determine how many hours it may take players to complete a playthrough. Other players are taking their time to enjoy the game, and some have even found a way to make Elden Ring’s combat more aggressive like Bloodborne‘s. Players are finding ways to get hundreds of hours of entertainment from Elden Ring.
Previous games developed by FromSoftware have gained a reputation for challenging players. Long-time fans of Soulsborne games will also say that the series is packed with exploits that are used to easily defeat certain bosses and skip large portions of the game. Some exploits are also widely used and acceptable in the speedrunning community, which has always had a soft spot for many of the games made by Elden Ring‘s developer. It’s safe to say that players are bound to find many more ways to use the game’s weapons and abilities in ways the developers did not intend.
Elden Ring is available on PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
Sources: Brauchwirn3t/Reddit, Game Rant