Valheim speedrunner NickRawcliffe managed to beat all five core bosses in reverse order over a grueling 45-hour challenge.
As PC Gamer spotted, NickRawcliffe posted his world-first reverse-order boss rush just a few days ago, complete with a separate playlist chronicling the enormous endeavor in full. The condensed highlight reel explains how this bizarre playthrough was even possible, and the sheer inventiveness is amazing.
It all starts with a pickaxe. You won't get much of anywhere in Valheim without a pickaxe, but to get one without killing the beginner boss Eikthyr and making an antler pickaxe, NickRawcliffe had to enlist the help of a troll – specifically, a troll with a club that can break ore when baited into attacking it. With enough troll-smashed copper and tin, our hero's able to craft a bronze pick and assemble a set of bronze gear.
To fell the final boss Yalguth with nothing but bronze-tier equipment, NickRawcliffe leveraged a classic AI exploit that involves luring the boss over a deep, covered hole and whacking his exposed belly while repeatedly repairing his weapons, which broke dozens of times over the extended fight. A similar strategy was applied to the boss Moder, which can be safely sniped by firing arrows through the gaps in a roof.
Bonemass, the middle boss of the run, was the real time killer though. To get the withered bones needed to summon Bonemass without properly opening swamp crypts (or sneakily glitching into them), NickRawcliffe had to spend 27 hours scouring 30 different swamps in the hopes of finding withered bones as rare spawns in overworld chests. Once that was done, he could fight the boss normally using fairly beefy end-game gear.
With those three out of the way, The Elder and Eikthyr were obviously a cakewalk, making the speedrun's finale more of an extra-satisfying victory lap.
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