Think Elden Ring is tough? This streamer is trying to complete it using an acoustic guitar

Elden Ring on an acoustic guitar — (Image credit: YouTube/LiveClips/MissMikkaa)

It's no secret that metalheads love a good video game, stretching right back to the days of Doom and carried forward with ultra metal-friendly titles like Metal Hellsinger.

But although it's been a good while since the likes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band have helped to spread the love for rock and metal in the gaming world, that hasn't stopped gamers from tackling some of the most notoriously difficult titles using the 'instruments' those games provide.

But Twitch streamer MissMikkaa has found a way to increase the challenge even from that - by completing FromSoftware's brutally difficult Elden Ring... on an actual acoustic guitar.

Using a software programme, MissMikkaa has a set-up that means her playing now directly controls her character onscreen.

“I’m using a program called Abject Audio Inputs which can keybind mouse and keyboard inputs from audio frequencies," she told gaming website Eurogamer. "I have my guitar plugged directly into my goXLR [mixer] so that the software captures the audio from the guitar only. Then in the software itself I can see what frequency is being output from the guitar when I play it.”

Watch a video of MissMikkaa in action below:

We did it! Killed Margit today with an Acoustic Guitar! This might be the most inconsistent and hardest run so far hahaha, very fun! The plan is to beat Elden Ring by only using the guitar as a controller. pic.twitter.com/xF9FB8JeBqFebruary 2, 2023

Created by FromSoftware - the same developers who created the similarly gruelling Dark Souls, Demon Souls and Bloodborne - Elden Ring isn't exactly a cake walk at the best of times, but we must admit, MissMikkaa does make it look fairly effortless.

In one video she even beats one of the game's early bosses, Margit while the guitar twinkles away like some lost Led Zeppelin noodling.

Back in 2016, Canadian gamer Bearzly (real name Benjamin Gwin) earned a Guiness World Record for completing Dark Souls using a miscellany of gimmick controllers including a Rock Band guitar, drum kit, and piano, Donkey Kong bongo drum, microphone (using voice control only), dancemat and steering wheel.

No word yet if MissMikkaa plans to make her own submission to Guiness, but we'd say it's certainly worthy - especially consi dering she has already uploaded videos of certain sections of the game being beaten just using a dance pad.

News editor for Metal Hammer, Rich has never met a feature he didn't fancy, which is just as well when it comes to covering everything rock, punk and metal for both print and online. He's as happy digging up new bands from around the world and covering scenes in countries like Morocco and Estonia as he is covering world-conquering acts like Sleep Token, Black Sabbath and Deftones.