Respawn design director Jason de Heras, previously lead combat designer on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and senior combat designer on God of War 3, has joined the ranks of Elden Ring's challenge runners with an impressive flawless kill of Margit the Fell Omen – without leveling up.
De Heras posted a video of his Margit run earlier this week. On Twitter, he explained that "in my spare time, I still like to scratch the itch and do No Damage runs.
"Interestingly, you can play Elden Ring a bit like Sekiro with the parry shield. Even the sound effect for posture break/deathblow is similar to Sekiro."
Using only the base stats and equipment of the scimitar-wielding Warrior class, de Heras makes a mockery of Margit in a few minutes without receiving a single hit. The riveted wooden shield that the class starts with has low defensive stats, but like other small shields such as the buckler, it has a faster and more generous parry window, making it the perfect choice for consistently repelling attacks and opening enemies or bosses up to critical hits.
If you've ever fought Margit, I don't know, 17 times – you know, just to pull a number out of the air – you may be surprised that de Heras doesn't really punish his leaping hammer attack. In a reply to a YouTube comment, he explained that he purposely played more passively while recording this run – presumably to avoid Margit's follow-up dagger attack which can actually punish you for attacking right after his slam – but has a more aggressive run in the works. In any case, it's clear de Heras hasn't lost his touch after many years on the other side of video game combat.
Earlier this year, de Heras and several other combat design veterans broke down some of the best combat systems in gaming.
