The Saga of Reformed Orthodox Rabbi Bill Clinton

Edit of the Elden Ring box art

Contributed by Rubiyat Siddique (22201945)

On the 8th of December George R.R Martin and Hidetaka Miyazaki's critically acclaimed collaboration Elden Ring won the "Game of the Year" (GOTY) award at The Game Awards 2022 (TGA 2022). It was a momentous occasion. After much speculation from Souls-borne and Sony fans regarding which game is more deserving God of War: Ragnarok or Elden Ring, Miyazaki had scored another GOTY (1st being Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice) .

All the while unaware to anyone but a select few with great experience in such gaming industry events there was trouble brewing in their midst. In the background, the eagle eyed noticed a random kid walking up to the stage. He snuck up alongside the staff from FromSoftware (developers of Elden Ring), patting them a good job and remained in the background of the livestream feed.

To the Japanese developers, the kid was TGA staff while to the TGA staff, he was with FromSoftware. He had achieved ultimate stealth using a "looney-tunes"-esque trick and yet he remained. He stayed his mouth and waited for Miyazaki to finish his speech while quietly positioning himself to appear on the livestream feed in front of 103 MILLION PEOPLE. For a trickster, he had better manners than the presenter himself.

From there as soon as Miyazaki ended his speech, he made his way to the mic and introduced himself as "Matan" and proceeded to nominate his Reformed Orthodox Rabbi Bill Clinton only to be escorted out my 3 security guards.

This moment would go on to take the internet by storm. All across Reddit, Twitter and every other forum site his nomination was the only one to exist in anyone's mind to the point where Bill Clinton himself has been modded into Elden Ring. 

Many complained Matan's stunt took away from Elden Ring's win while others complained that TGA rigged the awards for Elden Ring. Others still were anxious over security at TGA being lax since many influential developers and actors were attending, pointing out that Matan could have snuck a small knife or other weapon. 

Later on Geoff Keighley  (the organizer of TGA) would go on to announce that the intruder had been arrested. Some days later the boy appeared on NeonSpiderPanda's twitch livestream and proceeded to shitpost effortlessly for the next hour and fourty minutes. 

At the same time Reformed Orthodox Rabbi Bill Clinton had become a viral meme, spawning image and video edits alike showing the ex-president as a cast member of Elden Ring. While sadly the man himself has remained silent, the cultural movement brewing around him waged on and solidified the moment as one of if not the definitive highlight of this year's TGA. 

In hindsight, it was the perfect event that could have occurred. Elden Ring won its due GOTY, God of War: Ragnarok won in 6 categories, I personally took part in helping the Genshin Impact player-base to rig the "Players's Voice" award while Sonic Frontiers lost their lead in the category due to excessive posts bragging about their presumed victory, TGA had its highest viewership in history while flaws in their security were made visible in a harmless manner, absolutely amazing trailers for more stunning games coming next year, and most of all irreplaceable memories of some of the most absurd statements you could ever hear live.

I was more than satisfied with TGA and can say it was worth staying up all night to watch it. The last event that was as impactful to me personally was E3 2018 where Devil May Cry V was announced. 

On Elden Ring, The game recently released a PvP colosseum update and more is coming in the future. Currently the base game has an average completion time of Elden Ring can vary between 60h and 140h depending on how much of the game you may wish to play. For me, It was 250h to play the whole game and new game+ since I wanted to collect all the unique weapons and spells in the game. 

If you need more still, the modding scene is booming as well with many amazing mods being out already for both gameplay and cosmetic purposes. On the other hand, The Colosseum Update has brought a second wind for Elden Ring's dying multiplayer scene (since there has been very few balance patches since launch) and you can find many new players online right now! You might even want to try playing as Mr. 42nd President 

In-game screenshot of Bill Clinton modded into Elden Ring