There are completionist projects, there are endurance runs, and then there is whatever category contains attempting to clear Elden Ring 726 separate times for the sake of documenting how every attack style handles every boss. Streamer Bushy is firmly planting a flag in that last category.
Having already spent roughly 4,000 hours with FromSoftware’s massive action RPG, Bushy has begun a project intended to create a broad video archive of boss encounters across the game’s enormous array of player options. The plan began on August 3 as a 447-run challenge: beat the game using every weapon and shield. On August 26, its scope grew considerably, adding every Ash of War, staff, seal, and spell. The revised tally is 726 runs.
That is an intimidating number even before considering what a normal Elden Ring playthrough entails. The Lands Between is designed around exploration, detours, upgrades, side areas, and a sizeable checklist of objects that reward curiosity. It is an excellent recipe for a first journey and a potentially soul-evaporating to-do list when repeated hundreds of times. Bushy’s answer is a commissioned custom mod that removes much of the repeat housekeeping without changing the central test: defeating the bosses.
A library of ways to fight the Lands Between
The goal is not simply to add another huge number to a profile’s playtime. Bushy’s stated purpose is to show how the game’s possible attack styles perform against its bosses. That distinction matters. A colossal weapon, a shield-focused setup, Black Flame incantations, a particular Ash of War, and a staff-based spellcasting build can make a familiar battle feel radically different.
For a viewer deciding whether an overlooked tool is viable, this format has obvious appeal. Instead of treating a build as an abstract list of stats and equipment, the series puts it in the place where the game’s systems are most visible: a boss arena. It also makes room for the oddities that conventional “best build” guides tend to overlook. A heavy crossbow may not dominate recommendation lists, but it still has an answer to every enemy standing between a Tarnished and the ending credits.
There is an archival impulse behind the challenge, too. Elden Ring has an enormous toolkit, and even committed players often settle into a few familiar approaches. A 726-run collection cannot make every choice equally powerful, but it can demonstrate the practical differences between them across the game’s full boss roster. The premise turns repetition into comparison.
The mod cuts chores, not boss encounters
In a video centered on the Black Flame spell, Bushy explained that the mod was commissioned to make the series larger and more manageable. Its role is straightforward: compress the repeated exploration and progression steps that are necessary to prepare a character, while leaving boss combat as the focus.
Rather than requiring the same scavenger hunt during every fresh run, the mod provides a special menu for items normally found lying in the world. It can also award certain progression-related items after story bosses open access to new regions. The systems affected include flask upgrades, merchant-related upgrades, collectible talismans, and the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion’s Scadutree Fragments.
Related coverage includes Elden Ring Streamer Takes on 726-Run Challenge With Custom Progression Mod.
That is a meaningful line to draw. The project is built around fighting with a given weapon, spell, or ability against bosses—not proving that its user can pick up the same Golden Seeds hundreds of times. Any long-form challenge needs rules, but rules are useful only when they reinforce the question being asked. Here, the question is combat performance. Repeating the exact same errand route 726 times does not add much evidence to that answer.
There is also a practical production lesson lurking beneath the bizarre scale of the idea. Big creative undertakings routinely need ways to eliminate low-value repetition, whether that means templates, automation, or specialized tools. That is a theme also appearing in gaming-adjacent discussions around new productivity playbooks built around streamlined workflows. Bushy’s mod is a much more specific solution: a custom utility for one person facing a very specific mountain of virtual chores.
Several hours times 726 is still a lot of Elden Ring
Streamlining does not transform the challenge into a quick series of clips. Each run still takes several hours. If Bushy sees the entire plan through, the total time spent in Elden Ring could approach 7,000 hours. At the time this project was outlined, roughly 20 of the planned runs appeared to be complete.
That gap between 20 and 726 is the whole story. Even a modest average length becomes astonishing when multiplied by hundreds. It is also why the mod is less a shortcut around the challenge than a way of making its actual objective possible. The boss attempts remain; the build execution remains; the route knowledge remains. What gets trimmed is repeated collection and setup that would otherwise overwhelm the part viewers are there to see.
There is no promise that a project of this size will be completed on a neat timetable. A new FromSoftware release could arrive before the last run is done. Real life could intervene. The game itself may find fresh ways to turn an allegedly routine attempt into a prolonged disaster. But the existing scale of Bushy’s work makes the ambition easier to take seriously than it would be coming from a newcomer with a spreadsheet and an alarming amount of confidence.
A natural escalation for Elden Ring’s challenge culture
Bushy has a history of taking FromSoftware games into unusual territory, with prior efforts including randomizer runs, deathless New Game Plus 7 attempts, and challenges involving an extraordinary number of Malenia encounters. In that context, commissioning a mod to support an exhaustive all-options boss catalogue is not a sudden break from character. It is an escalation.
Elden Ring is particularly suited to these projects because it supports so many distinct ways to play. Its open structure can accommodate focused melee builds, distance-oriented bow use, incantation-heavy characters, sorcery specialists, shield strategies, status effects, summoned help, and combinations that can barely be described without opening a wiki in another tab. The enormous variety also means that an all-options challenge can expose unexpected strengths and weaknesses in equipment people may have ignored.
For all its comic excess, the project is also a reminder that game communities often create their own reasons to revisit old worlds. One person’s 100% completion is another’s speedrun route; one player’s role-playing character is another’s no-hit boss marathon. Bushy’s version is a cataloguing expedition conducted at the point of a sword, staff, seal, shield, and apparently a heavy crossbow.
The custom mod acknowledges the only sustainable way to treat a 726-run plan: respect the parts of the game worth repeating and stop pretending every repeated pickup is sacred ritual. The boss battles are the experiment. Everything else is administrative paperwork, and there is a limit to how many times anyone should be asked to file it.
