Starscourge Radahn

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Starscourge Radahn
Starscourge Radahn concept art.png
Radahn, mindless and impaled with numerous spears. He is riding Leonard (bottom center)
First appearance Elden Ring (2022)
In-universe information
Race Demigod

Starscourge Radahn (also called General Radahn) is a fictional character from the 2022 action role-playing video game Elden Ring developed by FromSoftware. A demigod, he functions as both a prominent figure in the history of the game's fictional universe, the Lands Between, and one of its main bosses. Radahn is encountered in Caelid, a once-verdant area that has been reduced to a red, highly-toxic wasteland by a fellow demigod, Malenia the Severed, in a last-ditch effort to defeat him.

Contents

Known by the epithet "Conqueror of the Stars", Radahn was formerly one of the most powerful warriors in the game's universe, able to halt the stars themselves in place using gravitational magic. During the Shattering, an immense conflict for control of the shards of the Elden Ring, Radahn battled Malenia to a standstill in the Caelid wilds. While the battle was ultimately a draw, with Malenia incapacitated, Radahn was rendered mindless after he was infected with Scarlet Rot, both a crippling toxin and an Outer God contained within Malenia. Contemporaneous to the game's events, Radahn has been reduced to a wandering, cannibalistic husk, with warriors attempting to defeat him and preserve his honor through the regular Radahn Festival.

Defeating Radahn, while optional, is required for the player to obtain one of the game's Great Runes, shards of the Elden Ring necessary to proceed the storyline. It is also needed for the optional quest of Ranni the Witch, who requires the stars to begin moving again in order to fulfill her destiny.

Radahn's lore and boss fight were praised by critics, who were impressed by the scale of the fight and Radahn's tragic backstory, calling him one of the game's best bosses and characters, and the Radahn Festival one of the game's most memorable events. Hidetaka Miyazaki also revealed Radahn as his favourite boss battle.

Appearances

Starscourge Radahn was the child of Radagon - a red-haired champion of the game's Golden Order faction, who worship the Outer God known as the Greater Will - and Rennala, queen of the Carians, a group of moon-worshiping nobles and astrologers predating the Elden Ring who draw power from the stars. Due to this, he is the brother of the demigods Lunar Princess Ranni - later called Ranni the Witch - and Praetor Rykard. Radagon and Rennala's marriage cemented an alliance between the Golden Order and Carian nobles, who had previously been deadlocked in battle. [1]

While Radagon resented his red hair as being similar to that of the Giants and their Fell God, who had once posed the greatest threat to the Golden Order, Radahn viewed it as a positive, believing it indicative of heroic qualities. Despite following in Radagon's footsteps as a powerful general, Radahn also studied in Sellia, a town of sorcery located in Caelid. After realizing he was growing to a giant size and would be forced to abandon his beloved steed, Leonard, he chose to study gravitational magic under the tutelage of the Alabaster Lords, a race of humanoid, extraterrestrial beings. This ultimately allowed him to lower his weight to almost nothing, and continue to ride Leonard despite dwarfing the horse in size. [1]

Due to the constant threat of meteors bringing monsters to the Lands Between such as the Fallingstar Beasts, Radahn used his gravity magic to "challenge the stars", succeeding in a "crushing victory" and halting their movement entirely. This remains the case even when Radahn has long since lost his mind, and his death is required to restore their normal movement. Upon the advent of the Shattering, a war following the attempted destruction of the Elden Ring, Radahn may have lost control of the capital of Leyndell to the demigod Morgott and retreated to Caelid. Malenia marched from the Mountaintops of the Giants and into Caelid to confront Radahn, a major potential threat. The two of them fought to a draw, causing Malenia to resort to unleashing her curse of Scarlet Rot. Radahn was poisoned by Scarlet Rot so deeply that he lost his mind, and Caelid itself became a wasteland. [1]

Radahn can be slain by the Tarnished player character during the Radahn Festival with the potential assistance of various other NPCs, and his Great Rune claimed by the player. This immediately causes the stars to snap back into position, allowing fate to resume for Ranni the Witch, and results in a large meteor impact that unlocks an underground city.

Development

During Radahn's second-phase meteor attack, Radahn pushes his horse Leonard underground as a protective measure. However, datamining revealed that Leonard also continues to track the player while underground, allowing Radahn to precisely target his meteor attack to hit the player. [2] An easy trick discovered by players allowed them to instantly kill Radahn by standing adjacent to a cliff, causing Radahn to undershoot them and fall off the side of the arena when performing his meteor strike. [3]

An update released in 2022 lowered the power of Radahn to make his fight less challenging. However, the sheer degree of difficulty lowering was unintended, and a subsequent updates balanced it, but not all of his former power. [4]

The game's director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, stated that Radahn was his favorite boss, citing both Radahn as a person and the festive feeling of defeating him. He noted that he came up with the idea of the Radahn Festival, but the other developers did not take him seriously. [5]

Reception

Ian Walker of Kotaku called Radahn the game's best character, and potentially one of the greatest Souls characters of all time, citing both Radahn's "touching" and "awe-inspiring" backstory, as well as the way his battle changes the game's world. Saying that his current form is "a pale facsimile" of the brilliant general he formerly was, he called Radahn's reasoning for learning gravity magic - to continue riding his prized horse, Leonard - "adorable". While calling the normal Radahn fight "incredibly challenging", Walker suggested that players make use of the other characters available to be summoned for the fight, saying that it is not only thematically appropriate but makes the fight a "cakewalk". He also praised the fact that Radahn's defeat added a "permanent geological feature" to the game's map, allowing the player passage to the city of Nokron. [6]

Describing Radahn as "everything I look for in a Souls boss", with "weird and heartbreaking" lore and a "unique experience" with a challenge that can be scaled by the player's choices, he called it "incredible that, 13 years after Demon’s Souls first released, FromSoftware can still create characters that have this much of an impact". [6]

James Troughton of TheGamer also praised the Radahn fight, saying that few games had captured the excitement of adventurers banding together in a similar way as the Radahn Festival. Describing it as the game's "Dunharrow moment" in reference to The Lord of the Rings , he was surprised that the battle with Radahn was not the endgame, but rather only the game's midpoint. He called the fight "the sum of your journey up until this point", and the culmination of the player's journey through the "treacherous, inhospitable wasteland" of Caelid. [7]

Similarly, Robert Zak of DualShockers noted that the Radahn battle broke the rules of Souls fights to that point, saying that it was the moment he most wished his non-Elden Ring-playing friends got to experience. Citing the Radahn Festival's buildup to facing him in battle, he called it "the only time I recall in a Soulsborne game that everything feels almost normal", also noting that the pre-fight cutscene took the player out of their own perspective to depict Radahn. Continuing to the fight itself, Zak said that it "indulges in spectacle like no other Souls fight", even at the expense of challenge, starting with "immense arrow volleys" that were nonetheless easy to avoid, and continuing with "the total headfuck where he jumps into the sky (taking the music with him), then crashes down on you in the form of a giant meteor", elevating the battle to a "cosmic scale". Zak called the act of "summoning your pals in as you’re initially charging across the battlefield" a "transcendent" moment. While noting the boss was not the hardest in the game, he criticized fans who would call Radahn a poor boss due to a lack of difficulty, saying that "everyone’s free to set their own criteria for what a good boss fight is". [8]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Klein, Dave (2022-05-20). "Elden Ring Lore - Starscourge Radahn". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 2024-03-21. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  2. ↑ Saed, Sherif (2022-06-29). "Radahn's scrawny horse is the key to how this boss lands on your ass every time in Elden Ring". VG247. Archived from the original on 2024-03-21. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  3. ↑ Kennedy, Victoria (2022-04-11). "Elden Ring boss can be easily defeated thanks to this amusing cheese". Eurogamer.net. Archived from the original on 2024-03-21. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  4. ↑ O'Connor, Alice (2022-04-05). "Elden Ring has buffed the big boy with the little horse again". Rock Paper Shotgun . Archived from the original on 2024-03-21. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  5. ↑ Stanton, Rich (2022-05-26). "Miyazaki's favourite Elden Ring boss is Radahn". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on 2024-03-21. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  6. 1 2 Walker, Ian (2022-03-11). "Excuse Me While I Gush About Starscourge Radahn, Elden Ring's Best Character". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 2024-03-21. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  7. ↑ Troughton, James (2022-03-16). "Radahn Is Elden Ring's Dunharrow Moment". TheGamer. Archived from the original on 2022-08-17. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  8. ↑ Zak, Robert (2023-07-22). "Why Starscourge Radahn Is Among The Best Boss Battles In Gaming". DualShockers. Archived from the original on 2023-08-22. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
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