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In December 2024, the Elden Ring Reddit community gave a 19,000-upvote welcome to user vuduthmb, who claimed the title of "oldest gamer to complete Elden Ring and [Shadow of the Erdtree] on NG+7" at 72 years old. It's a hard claim to confirm, but I certainly haven't heard of anyone older managing a NG+7 run. (If it's you, speak up!) Some called him Elden Ring Grandpa, mirroring Skyrim Grandma Shirley Curry. Others theorized it might be Sir Ansbach's alt account. Another nickname came up when I spoke to vuduthmb – better known as Mike Williams – over the phone, and I think it's my favorite: The Elder Lord.
This will surely change as generations age up, but gaming is comparatively uncommon among seniors aged 65+, which is why stories of people like Skyrim Grandma and now the Elder Lord can be fun in a surprising way. (Williams does know of Skyrim Grandma, by the way. "That's encouraging, huh? What a great story," he says.) It's a shame, not just because gaming is such a great hobby for retirement – finally, time and money for games – but also because this is often a fascinating perspective. 72 years is a lot of life to live. We can all only hope we're still beating games like Elden Ring at that age.
I wanted to talk to Williams to hear his thoughts on Elden Ring and gaming, as well as the response to his post. I got the impression that he's a nice old guy who enjoys gushing about games, just like the rest of us.
The RPG arc
"I'm more interested in RPGs now," Williams says of his gaming habits. "I still play online, and I still love playing online. The only difference I've seen is that, being older, I think it takes me a little longer to learn how to play a game, especially in an online game. My typical approach is I'll play it solo for a while, until I feel comfortable with it, and then I'll jump into the multiplayer aspects. But I'm not shy about playing online." In retirement, he finds playing online is also "great for maintaining contact with younger people and younger culture."
"I feel like my reflexes are pretty good, and I'm fortunate enough to be in pretty good health for a 72-year-old, and I really don't feel very limited," he continues. "You know, you make up for a lot with experience, it helps a lot, and again, just having time and being willing to be persistent."
If you, too, hope to be gaming in your 70s and beyond, Williams' advice is to take care of yourself now. "You need to get rest, you need to get exercise, you need to have a healthy diet," he says, and I need some hardcore Twitch streamers to take notes (admittedly, I only got into exercise a few years ago). "I don't drink, I don't smoke. You just have to take care of yourself and then the games will take care of you. But you have to put the controller down, you have to get out and enjoy the area, that kind of thing." In so many words: touch grass, folks.
Williams has been gaming "since I first saw Pong in a beer joint late one night. Shocked me so much I almost dropped my beer. Shortly after that they brought in Missile Command. Vector graphics in four different colors!" Skip ahead just a couple of years and Williams has a PS5 Pro and an Xbox Series X. He initially tried Elden Ring, the first FromSoftware game he's really played since the King's Field series that began in the 1990s, on Xbox. But he dropped it around level 68 when he "got distracted by other games."
He's a big fan of shooters – Doom, Helldivers 2, Call of Duty – but has also played RPGs like Morrowind and the Mana JRPGs, and is now fully "moving into my RPG period." Other favorite games include Street Fighter and Super Metroid. "Ask me tomorrow and I might have a different answer," he says of his top picks. It was only four or five months ago that he truly got into Elden Ring on PlayStation, where he's since racked up just under 700 hours. At some point it just clicked.
"By the time I was getting to Radagon and Elden Beast, I knew this is the game I've been waiting for," Williams recalls. "I felt comfortable enough with it, and I knew this is what I want to do for a while. Once I beat the Elden Beast and Radagon, I felt like anything was possible. The thing that impressed me the most about Elden Ring was the way you'd encounter this boss and it feels absolutely impossible. This is impossible. There's no way you can do this. And then eventually you do it. There's something about that formula that just got me all the way. It was impossible, but I did it anyway."
The Elder Lord
With his Elden Ring character around level 378 at this point, Williams has the stats and gear to play any build. He reckons "everything is fun," but he does find himself going back to old reliable: Strength and Faith. "That's when I really need to get something done," he says. "I really need to get a boss down, you know? Or I'm exploring through a new, dangerous area, I really like to approach it as a Strength-Faith build." His favorites will sound familiar to any seasoned Elden Ring player: Blasphemous Blade, the Sacred Relic Sword, Flame Grant Me Strength, Golden Vow, and the stalwart brass shield.
If you can beat bosses like Malenia and Consort Radahn on NG+7, you can probably handle just about anything a modern game would throw at you. Williams says age hasn't dulled his love for games, and Elden Ring has become especially meaningful to him. "One of the things I've been saying for a long time, for decades now, is that video games are an evolving art form, and I've been laughed at, ridiculed and, you know, it's just wonderful to see a game like Elden Ring come down the line and prove that that's not craziness," he says. "If you think that's craziness, look at this. I think Elden Ring may be a once in a generation game."
"It was so bad when I got into gaming, when I started bringing home Super Nintendos and stuff, you know, people told me I was childish and video games were for kids," he adds. "It was awful at first. It's improved a lot now."
It's endlessly amusing to me that Williams' journey with Elden Ring, from overcoming bosses to assembling a build, matches the critical and community experience so closely. The Blasphemous Blade! The brass shield! It's also more proof that games are for everyone and can be a lifelong hobby. I asked Williams if he has any sort of message to share with the Elden Ring and gaming community that was so pleased with his post. I need some people to take notes here as well.
"I would say don't try to control other people," Williams responded. "Don't try to control other gamers, be tolerant and accepting of everyone. You know, there's room for everybody in games."
