Randy Orton recently celebrated his 20th anniversary in the WWE on Monday Night Raw, marking a pretty legendary run for the stellar athlete. But after a night of RKO’s and congratulations from other stars in the company like Cody Rhodes, it was time for the real party to begin. After Orton settled down in his tour bus, the superstar celebrated in the same way that many folks around the world have been spending their time as of late, by playing the widely acclaimed video game Elden Ring. It turns out Orton is pretty good at the game, although that's probably an understatement
For anyone out of the loop, Elden Ring is a popular game at the moment with a notoriously high difficulty curve, as crafted by the team at From Software, the makers of punishingly difficult games like Dark Souls. Randy Orton doesn’t immediately strike me as the type of guy to be into the fantasy storylines and lore of the game — not that many WWE superstars scream "RPG exploration hounds" — and I’d imagine others were shocked to discover the game has been a major part of his downtime outside of the ring. Check out how he offhandedly revealed his Elden Ring mastery on Twitter, after a fan disputing the distance it takes to travel from Knoxville, Tennessee, to St. Louis, Missouri.
8hrs by bus. I’m playing Elden Ring and celebrating myself. I had to take a bathroom break, so I decided to check up on Elon, and first thing I saw was your comment. I felt inclined to respond, so I did. Now I’m going to go back to slaying Demi-gods and absorbing their runes. 🐍 https://t.co/9eLpDirf7mApril 26, 2022
While it might have felt more fitting to see Randy Orton tearing things up on WWE 2K22, it’s a bit surprising to see him owning up to being not just an Elden Ring fan, but an Elden Ring pro. It's not wholly surprising in general, since the game was released to rave reviews, with George R.R. Martin’s involvement in the story undoubtedly helping draw further hype among newcomers to From's franchises.
For anyone who might have assumed he just picked it up to putter around with for casual play here and there, that's certainly not the case. Another fan asked Orton his rank or current level in the game, and the number Orton gave was absolutely jaw-dropping.
527 lolApril 26, 2022
Reaching Level 527 in Elden Ring is wild. To beat the game on a first run, most recommendations suggest being at level 120, while Randy Orton’s rank suggests he’s progressed well beyond that point and has possibly restarted the game under “new game+” mode a couple of times to further escalate to that lofty number. I’ve personally played over 50 hours and am only around level 122, so I can’t imagine how long and often Orton has played Elden Ring. Assuming he wasn't kidding, that is.
And of course, there are probably a few WWE and gaming fans wondering if Randy Orton used extraneous exploits to achieve that high of a level in Elden Ring. Starting at level 319, a player can level up if they possess over one million “runes," which are collected after enemies are defeated, and maintaining those runes requires not dying in-game. And that number climbs higher with each successive level.
Assuming Randy Orton is accurate about his level, he’s spent around 551,076,409 runes leveling his character. There’s really no expressing to a non-gamer just how impressive that feat is, but I guess we should only expect perfection from someone like him. After all, Orton’s stayed at the top of WWE’s roster almost throughout the entirety of his career by consistently putting on some killer matches, is it any surprise he’d dominate and become an Elden Lord just as easily? Now, if only we could get From Software to add in an RKO finisher in the game to honor him, because this is something that really needs acknowledgment.
As awesome as that feat is, Randy Orton is no doubt even more proud and pumped to be acknowledged for his accolades in his 20 years in the WWE, which Peacock premium subscribers can revisit at their leisure. Those who haven’t kept up on his work might be a bit surprised to see his tag-team partner Riddle and their odd-couple pairing in RK-Bro. The tag team is easily one of the best things on WWE television right now (especially that camel story), and it seems like the two men really like each other. In short, if you’re an old wrestling fan but a current Elden Ring fan who just popped in to read about Orton’s achievements in the game, now might be the time to jump back into watching the WWE.
Monday Night Raw airs over on USA on Mondays at 8:00 p.m. ET. Catch The Viper Randy Orton and all sorts of other superstars there, though, probably not playing video games.
