Twitch streamer plays Elden Ring using a real-life acoustic guitar as a controller

For most, one playthrough of Elden Ring – the sprawling role-playing epic by FromSoftware – is enough. But for one Twitch streamer, she’s made it her life’s mission to beat the game in as many ways as humanly possible.

MissMikkaa’s pursuits, so far, have seen her defeat every Elden Ring boss with one hand, and do the same another time keeping her character at level one throughout. Then, because playing the game with a controller is just too mainstream, she beat the title using a dance pad controller.

And now, she’s upped the ante even further by playing the game using an actual acoustic guitar. ‘How on earth does this work?’ you ask. Well, fortunately she’s explained to Eurogamer exactly how.

“I'm using a program called Abject Audio Inputs which can keybind mouse and keyboard inputs from audio frequencies,” she says. “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.”

She continues: “Originally my idea was to only use chords to play the game so it would be pleasant to listen to for the viewers, but I realised quickly that chords were complicated to play as it would detect multiple frequencies at once.

“Using single notes however was much more consistent. Therefore I isolated several chords which did not have overlapping frequencies and mixed them with single notes as actions in the game. I ended up with around seven chords and six notes, but this may change with time.”

MissMikkaa says she is a guitar player, but rarely plays or shows her collection to her Twitch fans.

“I have played guitar for most of my life!” she says. “It's always been a very casual hobby of mine that I don't share with too many. I've only ever showed my guitar a few times on my stream.”

Despite the ambitiousness of her previous Elden Ring playthroughs, MissMikkaa says playing the game using an acoustic guitar has been “the most inconsistent and hardest run so far”. We’re just amazed she’s even able to do it.

Check out more of MissMikkaa’s content over on her official Twitch channel.