Inspired by Kai Cenat, Disabled Elden Ring Player Uses Finger and Voice to Beat Malenia After 700 Attempts Without Summoning: 'I Wanted to Show It's Possible'

Spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic disease that affects your nervous system and muscle control, forced Szymon, a 20-year-old, or Deadly PG on Twitch, to get creative with his setup. He’s now comfortable with voice commands using a program called Vocal attackand after being inspired by the streamer Kai Cenat’s Legendary Elden Ring Marathonhe used it to defeat one of the most difficult bosses developer FromSoftware has ever imagined: Malenia, the Blade of Miquella. And it only took 700 tries.

“The reason I decided to try to finish the game and reach Malenia and beat her was because I watched Kai Cenat do his marathon recently,” Szymon explains in an interview with GamesRadar+. “Seeing that he’s not a very good player, no offense to anyone, and he did it, really motivated me and made me want to do it. I guess I just thought, I can do it.”

Szymon isn’t technically paralyzed, he explains, but his muscles are so atrophied that, for example, he can only move one finger in-game. But he speaks very well, as you’ll see on his Twitch streams and as I hear him on Discord, so his voice has become his weapon of choice. He plays with a regular PC and a microphone, and VoiceAttack converts what he says into assigned inputs in-game. Say left to hold A, say dodge to dodge, and so on. Each game gets a different command profile, with Fortnite being the most complex at about 100 words.

Szymon uses 46 commands for Elden Ring, and some had to be customized for Malenia. The command “ninety,” for example, will make his character turn around and run away from Malenia’s famous waterfowl dance combo. Other commands more closely mirror the actions in the game: “Juice” is used to drink an Estus Flask, “Charge” for a charge attack, and so on. Sometimes VoiceAttack has trouble registering certain words, so Szymon finds a workaround, like replacing “Skill” with “Still.”

“Once I create a new command, it might take me a few days to learn it,” Szymon says. “Most of the time, I have them memorized. Some of the commands I use most often in Elden Ring are, of course, dodging, the whole game is based on dodging… I try to make them as short as possible. Even then, there’s usually a delay of about a second, so it’s quite difficult, especially in a game like Elden Ring where precise timing is really important.”

What a way to start

I DID IT! I beat Malenia using voice commands! No magic, no summoning, no cheese! Took me over 700 attempts in 2 weeks! DLC is coming, here we go! pic.twitter.com/mP4I6Qi9ZUJune 24, 2024

Szymon had never tried a FromSoftware game before Elden Ring, and he says it’s the most reflex-intensive game he’s ever played. “But I love it,” he adds. “Once I finish Elden Ring, I’ll have to go back and try other games like Dark Souls.”

“When I first started playing Elden Ring, I was really bad at it,” he recalls. “It took me about 20 hours to figure out how to sprint. I was terrible. I had issues with voice commands, where my interact button would be held down for a second, and I didn’t realize it was making it do something else. I couldn’t open a door, so I was stuck in the starting area of the first door for 45 minutes, and I thought I had to reset the game because it wasn’t working.” I ask him if he’s ever tried to parry, and he tells me he has, but it “went really badly” because of the input delays.

Malenia, widely considered the hardest boss in Elden Ring (though the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC has something to say about that), presented a tall order, but Szymon wanted an even bigger one.

“I think I was very lucky,” he says. “Honestly, Malenia was really hard. There were so many times I was so close to the goal that I died and I was so sad. I still can’t believe I did it. I tried my best not to make it too easy, which in hindsight might have been stupid. I decided not to use summons, magic spells, or level up. I decided to challenge myself because I wanted to show that it was possible. If I can do it with my voice, anyone can beat it.”

Boss Fight Malenia Elden Ring, Blade, Goddess Miquella, Rotten Cheese

(Image credit: FromSoftware)

“The main attack I struggled with was Waterfowl Dance,” he says of the battle against Malenia. “That attack gave me a lot of trouble. After about 100 attempts, I figured out that I could just run away from her, which is why I created that command. But when you’re right under her when she does it, it’s really hard to dodge. I found out, watching another stream, that I could use (the Ash of War) Bloodhound Step, so that’s what I used on a dagger. I would switch to that and dodge everything. After about 500 kills, maybe 600, I finally figured out the timing to dodge it without anything else, just precisely dodging it. I was still taking a lot of damage, but I was surviving.”

“To be honest, by the end of the fight, the hardest part wasn’t even the waterfowl’s dance, but the fact that she moves really fast. Sometimes she jumps at me and with the delay of the voice commands, I can’t dodge fast enough and I get stuck.”

Compared to other games he’s played with this setup, Szymon says that once he got the hang of it, he felt like he was dying more because of his own mistakes than the limitations of voice commands. “With this game, I feel like I have more control,” he says. “It’s just learning the timing and the enemy animations that lead up to certain attacks. I feel like I can predict them better.”

On the shadow of the Erdtree

I DID IT! I beat Malenia using voice commands! No magic, no summoning, no cheese! Took me over 700 attempts in 2 weeks! DLC is coming, here we go! pic.twitter.com/mP4I6Qi9ZUJune 24, 2024

With Elden Ring being his first FromSoftware game and having played it with an unconventional setup, Szymon has a unique perspective on the brutal reputation these action RPGs have cultivated.

“Honestly, I beat Malenia and I felt really happy for 15 minutes, and then I wanted to fight her again,” he says. “It’s weirdly addictive even though it’s really painful. I love this game. It’s one of the best games I’ve ever played. It’s so satisfying. It’s something that you fight for hours and hours and hours, trying to come up with different strategies, and then finally beating it is so satisfying.”

As he heads into Shadow of the Erdtree, Szymon feels more confident after defeating a few key bosses, but he’s “scared of some of the later bosses,” which could give Malenia a hard time. “The DLC is on a whole other level,” he says, echoing much of the Souls community. “Everything feels like a one-shot. I’m getting to the point where I really have to learn my timing. But it’s really fun.”

Elden Ring

(Image credit: FromSoftware, PCGamer)

I asked Szymon if he had any advice for people with disabilities or similar limitations who want to get into video games, which are, on the whole, much more welcoming and accessible than Elden Ring. He believes that you should “accept that it’s going to be harder. That doesn’t mean it’s not going to be fun and enjoyable and doable. I think as long as you take the time to focus on your challenges, you can then think of a way to help yourself.”

“For example, I didn’t know voice commands existed. If I had never heard of them, I might never have figured out how to play a game. I found something that works for me, and I’m sure it won’t work for everyone, but I’m sure there’s something that works for everyone. Just try. Keep trying. What’s the worst that can happen? It’s fun.”

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