Yes, a goldfish can beat the hardest boss in Elden Ring

I didn’t think I’d wake up today writing about how a goldfish can in fact beat the first phase of the hardest boss in Elden Ring, but that’s exactly what I’m doing.

Let’s jump back a bit, first. Earlier this year, YouTuber and streamer PointCrow decided to boldly ask what no one has ever asked before: is it possible for a goldfish to play Elden Ring? Now I know what you’re thinking, an electric appliance like a controller in a tank full of water sounds like a fish dinner, but that’s thankfully not what went down. As PointCrow explains in his video below, the way that this incredibly odd run works is through some complicated tracking technology.

The technology used in the video is the exact kind of thing that is used by the police and military to track people, but if you ask me using it to track a goldfish is a much better thing to do (and a whole lot less ethically nightmarish). In turn, different sections of the screen responded to different button inputs, which would be pressed, so to speak, whenever the goldfish (called Tortellini) would move across that portion of the screen. As you can see in the video, the various buttons used to play the game appear multiple times across the screen, giving Tortellini ample opportunity to hit the right one.

Then, of course, it came to actually playing the game. Unsurprisingly, PointCrow did give a slight helping hand with things like menus and getting to the bosses themselves. But you know what? Tortellini did great. If you can believe it, he actually managed to beat Margit, the Fell Omen, the game’s first boss. Even more surprisingly, he took down the game’s first big boss Godrick the Grafted. Most impressively of all? He managed to beat none other than Malenia, Blade of Miquella.

As mentioned earlier though, it was the first phase that Tortellini managed to beat quite specifically. I think we can probably cut him some slack that he didn’t beat the second phase considering, you know, he’s a fish.

The full video is worth a watch, if just for the sheer absurdity of it. Plus it kills just the smallest bit of time while you wait for the DLC.