The director of the upcoming A24 live-action Elden Ring film, Alex Garland, has proven just how big a fan of the game he truly is, revealing that he is on his seventh playthrough of the soul-crushingly difficult FromSoftware RPG.
Speaking with IGN during an interview for 28 Years Later, to which he returned to write after working on the original 2002 film 28 Days Later, Garland spoke on his time with Elden Ring in preparation for its movie adaptation, and revealed the one boss he struggled with the most: Malenia, Blade of Miquella.
“It’s Malenia who’s the tough one”, Garland explained. “I’m now on my seventh playthrough of that game. I’ve levelled up, I’ve got lots of juice, and a cool sword, and stuff like that, and I just throw myself at them again, and again, and again, and again.”
“That was the technique I learned with Dark Souls,” he added. “It’s not that you get better, it’s more like monkeys and typewriters. You just keep doing it, and eventually, one day they’re dead.”
Garland also offered his tips on defeating Starscourge Radahn, the demigod boss that many others struggle with. To him, Radahn was actually much easier, with the director stating that he made use of the game’s summon system to help beat the boss with ease.
“Radahn’s really easy”, he explained, “I thought Radahn was quite easy, because as long as you sort of activated the people who can assist you in that fight, they get on with fighting him, and they take off whatever it is, half his energy, and you finish him off. It’s all about activating those little summon signs dotted around.”
What about the movie, though? Unsurprisingly, Garland refused to give any further details on the upcoming adaptation, firmly stating that he was “not going to say anything about it”. For now, all that’s known about the elusive project is that it will be written and directed by Garland, produced by A24 and Bandai Namco, with Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin attached as a producer. At least now it’s clear that Garland is quite a big fan of the game, which is always a good sign for any game-to-screen adaptation.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
Si Jia
