A player discovered an interesting bug in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. Thanks to it, the final boss of the DLC dies without a fight.
FromSoftware's games are known for their high level of difficulty, which can be discouraging to start the Souls series. While the original Elden Ring is generally seen as a good option for those unfamiliar with the genre, the recently launched expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, is labeled as highly challenging by many fans of the series. Many players argue that this is because of clashes with challenging bosses.
If you have played the expansion for Elden Ring yourself, you probably have a similar opinion. You may have also encountered significant difficulties in a clash with the final boss of the expansion, or perhaps you were hesitant to confront him, scouring the Land of the Shadow in search of all available upgrades. In this scenario, you might find a particular glitch interesting, as it enables you to entirely bypass the battle with the final boss of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.
NOTE: SPOILERS
The further part of the text contains spoilers from the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion of the Elden Ring.
A YouTube user named seishinrosu published a short video in which he presented an unusual bug in Shadow of the Erdtree. The player admitted that he came across it by accident while playing with friends, so he decided to recreate it and check if it would work the second time as well. It turns out that after meeting the appropriate requirements, the final main boss of the Elden Ring expansion, Promised Consort Radahn, will die before we enter his arena.
What exactly needs to be done to skip the boss? The author of the material recommends summoning 2 additional people to the same session (he isn't sure if it will work with a different number of players) and finishing Leda's storyline before the fight with Radahn (she introduces the player to the DLC, so you will certainly recognize her, even if you aren't familiar with the plot). At the end of Leda's questline, regardless of the decisions made earlier, you will fight with her (your choices only affect who will support her in this confrontation). Obviously defeating Leda with 2 other players triggers a bug related to Radahn.
It appears that each player must survive the battle with the NPC as an additional requirement. If this happens and you head towards the arena where you should face the Promised Consort, then when you climb the stairs leading to it, a notification will appear on the screen that the boss has already been defeated. The "fog" that serves as the entrance to the battlefield will disappear, and you will receive the loot that you normally get for killing him.
It should be mentioned that the player who published a video on YouTube presenting a way to skip the final fight in Shadow of the Erdtree was playing on Xbox (he didn't specify which one). It's possible that this method may simply not work on other platforms.
There is also the matter of FromSoftware studio fixing the bug.If the developers don't want this kind of feature to stay in the game, they will likely repair it soon, making it impossible to avoid the final boss battle. However, there is a possibility that developers will turn a blind eye to this - after all, Hidetaka Miyazaki himself (the studio's head) uses all available gaming resources and respects people who use external guides (although game glitches aren't among them).
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Author: Zuzanna Domeradzka
An introvert since birth, she has been interested in video games for as long as she can remember. She joined Gamepressure.com in 2022, first writing for the gaming newsroom and later helping with guides. She is an enthusiast of FPS and RPG games and a big fan of the Dragon Age, Five Nights at Freddy's, and Assassin's Creed series. She also enjoys watching movies, most often returning to Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean. She tries to spend her free time actively, riding a bike or skateboard (or platinuming the next installments of the Just Dance series).