Elden Ring magician uses nothing but a saxophone to beat all 7 Great Rune bosses - including Malenia - without taking a hit

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No hits, only doots

Elden Ring hitless doot run
(Image credit: FromSoftware/Dr DeComposing)

One Elden Ring player has been practicing hitless runs using nothing but an electric saxophone for a controller, and it seems he's now achieved ultimate victory by achieving a perfect victory against all seven Great Rune bosses using the power of the doot.

Dr. DeComposing first beat Elden Ring in his no-hit, all-doot way back in August 2023, setting the world record for the first hitless run of FromSoftware's RPG using a non-traditional controller. As he explained in the YouTube VOD of the victorious run, "each note I play is mapped to a button press on the gamepad, while I use a pitch bend/mod wheel on the back of the instrument as a control stick for movement. That means everything else in game (including the camera) is controlled one doot at a time!"

Yet Dr. DeComposing has not stopped dooting through the RPG, and set off on an even greater challenge - a hitless doot run that includes all seven Elden Ring Great Rune bosses. Yes, that means Malenia, too. He actually managed a hitless Malenia fight back in October, proving the run could be viable, but the months since that initial victory have been filled with heartbreakingly close attempts to string it all together. 

Now, at last, final victory has been achieved. Dr. DeComposing posted the final moment of the run in a Twitter clip, and it's tough to imagine a more thrilling win. Now, of course, I have to imagine he's just preparing for Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.

The legendary difficulty of FromSoftware's RPGs has attracted all sorts of weird challenge runs over the years, and Elden Ring is no exception. We've seen players achieve victories with a dance pad, a steering wheel, a Bop It, a goldfish, and even the raw power of thought. But doing it with a saxophone - hitless, no less - is still a damned impressive accomplishment.

Elden Ring's DLC can only be reached from a very specific late game location – 13 years later, is this signature FromSoftware access method still practical?

Dustin Bailey
Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.