Whether it’s sharing tasteless edgy memes, referencing Eminem in court or, really, any number of other childish actions, Elon Musk has regularly come off as an old man desperately trying to act young.
Now, the Tesla CEO has done so once again by proudly — but misguidedly — sharing his character’s build in FromSoftware’s Elden Ring.
It all started on May 22nd when Musk tweeted his adoration of the critically acclaimed open-world action-RPG. “Elden Ring, experienced in its entirety, is the most beautiful art I have ever seen,” he said.
Naturally, he quickly got questions about what character build he was running. Musk, without a shred of self-awareness, later responded with the following image:
Quickly, Twitter users noticed that something was… off.
For the uninitiated, a common mechanic in FromSoftware’s games, Elden Ring included, is your Equip Load. Basically, put on too many items and your character will run and roll quite slowly. This is known as a “Heavy Load,” and Musk’s build, with an Equip Load over 67.2/68.8, is a prime example of it.
Of course, deciding whether to prioritize power and defense over speed and agility is part of what a challenging game like Elden Ring is all about. You have to weigh the trade-offs and gear up accordingly. At first, Musk does actually seem to acknowledge this in his tweet through the caption “Equipped load will be lower if fast roll is needed.”
The problem, though, is that there’s no apparent rhyme or reason to the gear Musk had equipped. Many people rather humourously pointed this out to him. That’s because he seemingly misunderstands how equipment actually works in Elden Ring.
If you look at his build, he has two shields and a sword equipped. Cool… except for the fact that your character only actively benefits from whatever swords and/or shields that you’re currently holding. Therefore, Musk has effectively put on a second shield for no reason. It’s not even as if he was dual-wielding shields to create some sort of ultra-defensive “tank” character. He simply gains nothing from this particular build, and is just adding extra weight and encumbering his character instead.
Given that managing Equip Load is such a core principle of Elden Ring (and other FromSoftware games), it’s amusing to see Musk self-own himself by sharing such a wonky build.
While Musk didn’t respond to any of the replies — or multiple news stories that have since been written — pointing any of this out, he did most recently share an updated image of his character’s stats.
Musk probably thinks that the image, which shows a Level 121 character, is “proof” of his gamer cred. Anything to try to distract everyone from the recent sexual harassment allegations made against him or his Twitter takeover drama, right?
Elden Ring is now available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
Image credit: Bandai Namco
