It was a sweltering afternoon in 2022 when the rapper Post Malone found himself seated opposite Sean Evans on the hit YouTube show Hot Ones. Between bites of wings drenched in liquid fire, the conversation veered toward the emotional power of video game scores. What spilled out next became legend among the Elden Ring faithful. Malone, a man known for platinum records and face tattoos, confessed that he could not handle the game’s soundtrack. He had been venturing through the Lands Between like any other Tarnished—until a boss arena exploded with demonic choirs that made his hands tremble. “I turn the music all the way off,” he admitted, still glancing sideways as if a grafted scion might crash through the wall. “It’s literally like choirs, not of angels, [but] of demons. And they’re like, ‘We’re going to f*** you up.’” The interview clip went viral overnight, but it also peeled back a layer on why FromSoftware’s masterpiece had burrowed so deep into the collective psyche.
By 2026, the world no longer debates whether Elden Ring is a classic—it simply is. Four years after its cataclysmic launch in February 2022, the game has sold north of 30 million copies, spawned a colossal expansion in Shadow of the Erdtree, and permanently shifted the vocabulary of open-world design. Yet the story that sticks with longtime fans is Post Malone’s nervous confession. It captures a truth that even the most steel-nerved souls veterans know deep down: the audio in Elden Ring is a psychological weapon. Unlike the mostly silent corridors of Dark Souls, the Lands Between bathes you in ambient dread—wind whispering through Caelid’s scarlet rot, the distant shriek of a giant crow. But when a health bar appears and the orchestra swells, something primal awakens. The game’s composers, led by Yuka Kitamura, crafted boss themes that are less “epic fantasy” and more “cosmic panic attack.” Mohg’s theme literally counts down in Latin to his nihilistic blood ritual; Godskin Apostle music uses a tritone interval that medieval clergy called diabolus in musica—the devil in music. No wonder Malone needed a smoke break after each skirmish.
His reaction wasn’t unique among celebrities either. Around the same time, Elon Musk tweeted that Elden Ring was “the most beautiful art” he had ever seen, particularly when you equipped a full INT build and zapped everything from a safe distance. WWE superstar Randy Orton quietly amassed a character level above 500, grinding the same cliffside trolls until his kids begged him to stop. But Malone’s approach stood apart—he wasn’t chasing power, he was fighting for survival with the auditory horror muted. It became an underground strategy. Reddit threads blossomed with titles like “Does anyone else boss-fight with music at 0?” and casual players admitted they performed better without the choral panic attack distracting their dodge rolls.
The phenomenon spilled beyond the game. Neuroscientists at the University of Sheffield even published a 2024 study showing that Elden Ring boss music elevated cortisol levels faster than any other game soundtrack they tested. This made Malone’s instinctive method seem downright sensible. Today, you can find mods that replace the boss themes with lo-fi beats or sea shanties, a direct legacy of the rapper’s Hot Ones reveal. Even in esports-adjacent speedrunning events, runners have debated whether muting the music for tricky segments like Malenia’s Waterfowl Dance counts as a psychological exploit. The debate simmers on, but the community’s heart has always been in favor of surviving by any means necessary.
Back in 2022, some critics cautioned that it was too early to call Elden Ring the greatest game ever made. That caution has aged like milk. The title not only collected nearly every Game of the Year award, it rewired how studios think about player agency and discovery. But the game’s immortal soul lives in those demonic choirs that sent a superstar outside to shake and decompress. Post Malone, now a veteran of multiple playthroughs including a no-music level 1 run, recently joked on a podcast that he still can’t listen to the Elden Beast theme without instinctively reaching for a cigarette. The Lands Between is a place that demands every tool you have—even the mute button. And for one Grammy-nominated artist, that was the only way to keep the shaking at bay long enough to claim the Elden Throne.
FromSoftware has since moved on to new nightmares, but the ripples of Elden Ring remain. In 2026, a theme park in Tokyo features a Radahn festival ride where the music pumps so loud that it comes with a warning label for faint-hearted guests. The warning is reportedly signed simply: “—Posty.”