A real-life goldfish just beat Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree's final boss, and this one did it without committing credit card fraud
We love you, Tortellini
The goldfish who previously defeated the first phase of Elden Ring's Malenia fight has made a triumphant return, making Shadow of the Erdtree's final boss look easy with a fin-tastic display of skill.
Our hero is Tortellini, a noble goldfish who belongs to content creator Eric 'PointCrow' Morino. PointCrow has already proved just how good his fish is at Elden Ring when given access to the right tools – with a unique setup, Tortellini is able to input controller commands simply by swimming around in his tank. Depending on where he swims to, he's able to 'press' different buttons, and he's now been able to defeat Promised Consort Radahn this way, too.
The whole effort was streamed on Twitch yesterday – PointCrow helps out his aquatic buddy a little by applying a few buffs from his Wondrous Physick and incantations like Golden Vow before heading into the arena, but then he hands over the reins. As you might expect, it still wasn't an easy win – in fact, the stream had been going for well over eight hours by the time he emerged victorious. But, thanks to a chain of excellent hits from dual-wielded, Hemorrhage-inducing Great Stars, as well as some nicely timed heals, Tortellini did it. "That's my goldfish! Let's go!" PointCrow shouts.
It's genuinely incredible to watch, and even though Tortellini might never grasp the true greatness of his achievement, I think it's safe to say that he's definitely the best aquatic Elden Ring player out there. Perhaps the biggest win of all is that he didn't commit credit card fraud during the process – something which, bafflingly, has happened in this niche subgenre of 'fish playing games for content' before.
The fraudster fish struck last year when YouTube content creator Mutekimaru Channel was using a very similar setup to allow their fish to play Pokemon Violet. After the RPG crashed, the fish was able to navigate its way over to the Nintendo Switch eShop, where it nonchalantly revealed some of its owner's credit card information before buying 500 Yen worth of eShop funds. Whoops. So, yeah, shoutout to Tortellini for not doing that.
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I'm one of 12DOVE's news writers, who works alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.