What's The Max Level In Elden Ring?

Becoming the Elden Lord in "Elden Ring" has typically demanded overcoming a brutal learning curve steeped in navigating challenging mechanics, grinding for Runes, and fighting bosses bordering on the impossible. Players have known this from the beginning. At 13.4 million copies sold in the first month alone according to Bandai Namco (translation via IGN), many evidently felt the difficulty worth the gameplay experience. All games come to an end, however. Whether players completed New Game+, fought through the entire pantheon of bosses, or beat the game with all starting classes, they have found multiple challenging paths to finish "Elden Ring." Yet some brave Tarnished have taken a harder route still: reaching max level.

Countless players learned early on how easily they can lose Runes. If the protagonist can manage to not die over and over again to the Tree Sentinel, however, they can cash in said Runes to level up. "Elden Ring's" developers designed the game so it grows increasingly more difficult to level up, offering diminishing returns at later levels, as detailed by sites like Dot Esports, but tenacious players have persisted until they reached the game's level cap. As one Reddit user touted, it can take well over 500 hours of gameplay.

Cafen94 on Reddit posted a video of his character breaking a consumable Rune to reach level 713. As fans have discussed, the game's eight stats each cap at 99. All eight max out only once the player has reached level 713, making higher levels impossible. This requires a metric ton of Runes. Cafen94's character held over 10 million Runes on their person at level 713, a drop in the bucket compared to 1.6 billion plus Runes: the total cost calculated by another Redditor to reach level 713 from level 1. It took Cafen94 around 580 hours to achieve their goal.

Duplicating more Lord's Runes than the game contains as several on Reddit posited has diminished Cafen94's accomplishment to an extent, but it still made for a time-consuming endeavor. Any player can get to level 713 legitimately over time: enemies in "Elden Ring" respawning upon the protagonist dying death or resting at a Site of Grace has created opportunities for farming Runes. Or if the protagonist does not mind tarnishing a fair fight, they can pursue one of several game-changing glitches or exploits.

When "Elden Ring" writers Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R. R. Martin commanded the brave Tarnished to rise, they may not have expected the fervor with which some gamers answered the call. Perhaps Miyazaki and company will reward whichever player legitimately reaches max level the fastest, presenting them with another insanely cool reward.