Cheating is far too common in gaming these days. Gone are the glory days of GTA cheats letting you enjoy a stylish single-player rampage, now the most common cheating takes place in online games.
But with a primarily single-player game like Elden Ring, cheating surely isn’t an issue, right? As it turns out, cheaters aren’t happy with just boosting their own experience, they want to go out of their way to ruin yours.
You can see the exploit in action in a video posted by Elden Ring Update on Twitter. A hacker will invade your game and use a specific ability that forces Elden Ring to crash. When you reload your save, your character will repeatedly fall to their death. Elden Ring is a big game, and some players have reported losing as much as 100 hours of gameplay in this way.
FromSoftware and Bandai Namco have yet to comment on the exploit. We’ll update this article when they say something on the matter. In the meantime, your best bet is to play offline. Failing that, you’ll want to regularly backup your save in case someone uses the exploit on one of your characters. In the worst-case scenario, it’s possible to salvage a save, but the process isn’t easy. You need to press Alt F4 before your character dies, and then quickly fast travel to a Site of Grace when you reload the game.
Elden Ring Invaders Are Crashing Games & Corrupting Save Files
Invading other players’ worlds is a core part of the Elden Ring, and indeed the Souls franchise, experience. But now, invaders are seemingly able to not only crash your game but also corrupt your save file.
When reloading their save file upon rebooting, players then find themselves in an infinite loop of falling to their death.
How to Fix Infinite Falling Glitch in Elden Ring
If you find yourself targeted by a malicious player, don’t worry. There’s a new DIY fix to help you out before FromSoftware gets around to patching the exploit.
According to some affected players, it is possible to open your map and fast travel to another location before you die – but it’s not an ideal situation.
Reddit user Draiganedig provides the following solution for those struggling to escape the infinite falling issue.
Every time your game loads, you’ll get a split second before your “death”, and you must use it to press Alt + F4. This closes the game and allows you more time when you re-log back in to open your map.
When you re-login, open your map using whatever key it’s bound to (It’s the touchpad on the PS5), press the button that opens the list of available Sites of Grace (Triangle on PS5, Y on Xbox) and spam your confirm button (X on PS5, A on Xbox).
You could take advantage of Elden Ring’s secret pause function to give yourself more time to think, if you need.
For the moment, we’d recommend all Elden Ring players to stay offline for now, particularly those on PC. However, if you don’t want to miss out on the online elements of the Souls game, be sure to back up your saves regularly!
At least invaders can’t find their way into your world unless you either summon them yourself, use a Taunter’s Tongue, or summon a co-operative player in Elden Ring. It may be best to avoid all multiplayer items for the time being.
