Players are blasting through Elden Ring with level 1 characters

Some Elden Ring players are avoiding levelling up, making the Lands Between an even more punishing place.

FromSoftware games are notoriously difficult, and Elden Ring is no exception. Despite its brutal nature, fans are seeking new and interesting ways to make the experience even harder. So far, we've seen a speedrunner conquer the Lands Between in less than 30 minutes and a hard mode mod that buffs enemies up to New Game Plus level. 

Another way that fans are adding an extra challenge to Elden Ring is by playing through the whole game with a starting level character. Normally, you'd expect to finish the game with a character in excess of level 100, but these brave players are choosing to keep their Tarnished squarely at 'soul level one'.

YouTube channel Ongbal has uploaded videos of their incredible battles with the game's bosses using a level one Wretch. You can see them defeat Starscourge Radahn in the video below. Given that Radahn is one of the game's fiercest opponents, Ongbal displays some superhuman reflexes to take him down with limited defence and damage output.

The equally talented LobosJr is also tackling FromSoftware's latest with a level one Tarnished. They're streaming their entire playthrough over on their Twitch channel. No stranger to making Souls games considerably more challenging, they've also played through Dark Souls using an electric guitar.

We're excited to see what weird and wonderful ways fans choose to take on Elden Ring next.

Elden ring is more than just a difficult game, it's also an impressively well-designed one. It's so detailed that its NPCs accurately play their instruments.

With FromSoftware's newest proving phenomenally popular, we wonder whether any other 2022 release will be as dominant as Elden Ring.