Twitch plays Elden Ring during Bruce Greene’s subathon

Twitch streamer Bruce Greene set up a system for his 40-plus hour subathon wherein his Twitch chat could play Elden Ring while he slept. While his community was not able to progress very far in the game, it certainly was fun to watch.

Greene began his stream on Monday, Feb. 28, endeavoring to increase his stream time after every single donation. Half the funds raised during the streamer’s marathon stream were donated to UNICEF and the Red Cross to support relief efforts in Ukraine. By the time the stream ended, Bruce Greene had streamed for nearly 40 hours straight.

Naturally, Greene could not stay up for all 40 hours and occasionally needed breaks to eat, sleep, and, in his case, work out. So the Twitch partner set up a system where Twitch chat could continue the stream themselves by collectively playing Elden Ring.

Hundreds of viewers computing in different commands made for a mess of a stream but an entertaining one. The Tarnished could be seen running into walls, aimlessly riding around, or, most often, dying to random mobs.

For several hours every night, Twitch chat roamed around the Lands Between, both continuing the long-standing “Twitch Plays” tradition and giving Greene some valuable sleep time. This is far from the first game that Twitch chats across the platform have collectively played. The most famous and notable example of this social experiment came from Twitch Plays Pokémon in 2014.

Elden Ring has exploded in popularity across Twitch, maintaining a steady presence as one of the platform’s most-streamed games. Other streamers such as Ludwig have taken up massive, day-spanning Elden Ring marathons. But so far, only Bruce Greene has given control up to his chat.