The pen is mightier than the sword, but a good cardio workout turns out to be superior to both - as proven by Infected Durian, who beat Dragon's Dogma 2 with just his bare hands, a crew of elite nudist supporters, and an endurance run.

"I'm going to do something a little different today, I'm going to do a fist-only, armor-free speed run of Dragon's Dogma 2," declared streamer Infected Durian before embarking on a shockingly short, pants-only journey through Burnworth and the land beyond out (thank you, GamesRadar).

There are several reasons why he is able to pull this off. First, "Dragon's Dogma 2" has an NG+ system, but monsters do not scale with level. Despite the fact that there is no way to protect yourself from windstorms and axes, the physics of DD2 turn out to be stat-driven: if you get stabbed to death, it's just because you didn't have enough of that grind set.

I say "almost" because even a slight breeze would stagger a naked adventurer. Pawns can be chosen based on the character's level, so the infected Dorian will be protected by the summoned adventurers as he participates in the world's strangest presidential protection game.

The final reason this works is that, as I discovered while playing, the charm of "DD2" is not in the lengthy main quest, but in being distracted by the neat little caves and monster attacks. Or in my case, a harpy or griffin throws you off a useless butterflies ski lift - which is what happens to him around 1:14:00 on the VOD. See, I'm not the only one! I now feel very justified.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is structured like a pseudo-Breath of the Wild, with most of the game (aside from a few main story quests) being about running from place to place. Because of the aforementioned lack of scaling, NG+ is particularly vulnerable to a good old marathon, whether naked or armed.

Since I'm a stickler for technicalities, his character is clothed several times, once in a flashback sequence and once when he is asked to attend a coronation. To be fair, this is mandatory for the main quest. (Spoiler alert: it doesn't take place before the pawn gets a headache and takes a lift-issued sick day at the worst possible time. [But no matter, at about the 58-minute mark, an infected Dorian Alicen clings to the troll's face and bludgeons him to death with her bare hands. I don't see anything, go on.

The infected Dorian finished playing at 1 hour, 42 minutes, and 32 seconds, but used the wak stone 22 times. I play in Dragon's Dogma 2 armor and have died more than that.