With the release of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC for ELDEN RING, developer FromSoftware really managed to up the difficulty of the game once more. Introducing new, hard-hitting bosses that really love to throw punches like Mike Tyson, a new NPC 'gank' fight for players to despise (hehe), the elegantly brutal fight with Bayle, likely the hardest fight with a dragon FromSoftware has created so far, a wide variety of new weapons, spells and items, a whole new map to explore and more!

But.. what if all of that wasn't even enough? What if the speedrun community just has to push things even further once again? Well Souls veteran and speedrunner @Distortion2 just had that exact idea...

Defeat All Remembrance Bosses at Rune Level 1 (aka RL1 DLC%)

Announcing the RL1 (Rune Level 1) DLC% competition, which requires runners to beat all the major bosses of the DLC, also known as Remembrance bosses as quickly as possible at Rune Level 1 which means no leveling up is allowed at all.

As if this wasn't big enough of a feat already, Distortion2 announced there would be even more restrictions added to make things even more interesting. To name a few (but not exclusive to):

ONE Scadutree Fragment upgrade PER defeated boss

Debuting in the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC: Scadutree Fragments are optional consumables that can be used to enhance simultaneously offensive and defensive capabilities at any Sites of Grace, acting like a permanent boost to your DLC damage dealt and damage negation.

Quite a few of these can be collected pretty early in the DLC through some clever routing, making some boss fights (a lot) easier because of the signifcant damage and defense increases that these Scadutree Fragments offer.

So to spice things up further for the competition, participants are only allowed to use one single Scadutree Fragment upgrade per defeated DLC boss which further increases this challenge's difficulty, forcing participants to really think about their equipment and routing.

DLC equipment and items ONLY

Apart from that, participants may only use equipment found in the DLC along with what is provided on the character through a pre-made savefile meaning no base game equipment that can be used to quickly become overpowered with. Wow!

.. and there are even more restrictions though you can look these up in the Discord server for the event below!

Such a huge challenge doesn't come easy at all.. and thus offers a huge reward for participants. The total prize pool for the competition is a whopping $10,000 divided between 1st to 10th places, plus a bonus prize pool from donations that Distortion2 graciously offers on top of this already huge prize pool, as per Distortion2's last message:

This is surely going to be one hell of a competition!

Interested in participating in the competition? Or to hunt for boss strategies or glitches? Or even simply to specatate the event? We would love to see you!

Join the ELDEN RING RL1 DLC% Discord Server to learn about the complete ruleset for the competition, prizepool information, boss strategies, routing, other participants and more!

Good luck to all the participants!