Meet Elden Ring's newest hero: the Lore Accurate Knight, a sword-and-board legend who crushes bosses with a simple, Dark Souls-inspired loadout

A few days ago, YouTuber Sax slave Gael asked the Elden Ring Reddit community a simple question: “Anyone here having fun with Basic Sword and Board Knight builds?“It turns out a lot of people do. Gael’s clip of a knightly Consort Radahn battle generated a lot of buzz among the community, so he soon returned with another duel pitting the knight against fan favorite boss Bayle the Dread, which started quickly almost 10,000 votes.

For the actual creation of the Lore Accurate Knight, one of my new favorite original Elden Ring characters, we have to go back to Gael’s video from March”How to make an authentic knight build“I focused on blocking and countering through guards. But it was the Knight’s fight with Bayle that put his story on my radar, and Gael tells me his fight isn’t over after this unexpected spike in popularity.

Gael is far from the first person to play an archetypal knight built in Elden Ring, but the cinematography of Lore Accurate Knight’s Bayle fight gives the character real personality and ultimately won me over. As someone who really learned to love guard countering in the Elden Ring DLC, and who still has a fondness for that unmistakable knight in fluted armor going back to the original Demon’s Souls trailer, the Lore Accurate Knight hits the right note. It is the purest distillation of FromSoftware‘s Debunking Fantasy: You’re just a guy with a sword in a world of gods and monsters. Okay, you’re also a guy with the Sekiro quality Deflecting Hard Tear, but still.

Lore Accurate Knight – Killing Bayle the Dread | A cinematic – YouTube
Lore Accurate Knight - Killing Bayle the Dread | A cinematic - YouTube

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“My headcanon for this character is that he is a lone Round Table Knight who doesn’t fight because he necessarily wants to, but is told to do so by those he meets on his journey,” says Gael. “He has no desire to become an Elden Lord, but he has been told that is his destiny, so he remains loyal to that cause as part of his Knight’s Honor.”

Gael has been creating Elden Ring content for years and has spent over 3,000 combined hours playing hundreds of builds. Something about the sword and the board still hits. “I generally prefer the more basic stuff in Elden Ring, like the Iron Greatsword, Great Mace etc., but I especially enjoy the sword and board style of play, as there is something very satisfying about overcoming a difficult feat with the bare minimum.”

“The creation was definitely influenced by the OG Knights featured in From’s previous Souls games,” he continues. “The Elite Knight Set from the Dark Souls series is one of my personal favorite sets in the series. The inspiration was certainly a throwback to those earlier games, but my overall inspiration was to show that despite only using the core principles, a simple knight can still overcome some of the game’s most challenging and intimidating bosses.

“I think this is the idea of how in a world like Elden Ring, where we have all these powerful demigods, powerful dragons with special powers, it’s so momentous that only a simple knight with a shield and sword can surpass them,” he says. say. “Imagine how they must feel when they lose with all their might to an ordinary knight. I think the classic Yhorm the Giant meme captures that feeling perfectly.”

After the overwhelming response to the Knight’s Bayle fight – “one user even paid me to do it again with the UI/HUD disabled for a more cinematic effect, which I was happy to do” – Gael is now planning another entry and a longer video explaining the knight’s journey. His current build is a level 150 Vagabond with 60 Strength, 40 Stamina, and 80 Strength – the only stats a knight really needs.

“It’s great to see so many players appreciate the simple things in such a complex game with so many play options,” Gael added. “It certainly helped reinvigorate my creative thinking and inspire me to create more knight-themed characters, as there are many like me who are passionate and interested in this style of play.”

Dark Souls owner and Elden Ring developer FromSoftware confirms that his studios have twenty console games in development, and we can only hope that one of them is a Bloodborne remaster.