Elden Ring players furious as hacker softbans hundreds from online play

An infamous Dark Souls griefer has hacked Elden Ring and is now wreaking havoc in the Lands Between. The hacker has been softbanning other players from online play with a major exploit. 

While the Soulsborne series has produced some of the most critically acclaimed games of the last decade, the FromSoftware titles have also been plagued by hackers and cheaters looking to break each release.

Notorious Dark Souls hacker ‘Malcolm Reynolds‘ has returned with the launch of Elden Ring and is already causing mayhem in the open-world RPG. According to the user, they hope they get caught so FromSoftware fixes the major exploits.

Elden Ring hacker is banning other players

The infamous hacker unveiled their Elden Ring ‘Hardscoping Tutorial’ cheat in a March 2022 upload on YouTube. In the video, Malcolm Reynolds creates a montage of them invading hundreds of other players and obliterating them with a broken fire spell that targets them across the map.

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During the clip, the hacker also reveals that their hack includes an option to softban other players. In an interview with Kotaku Reynolds, he explained that he is injecting a debug item called ‘pavel’ into other players’ inventory.

Because the item isn’t technically in Elden Ring’s final build, the game detects the player as being a cheater and softbans their profile. The hacker also told the outlet that they want to get caught. “I’m necessary evil. You might be asking if getting caught is part of the plan, and yes it is. If I pull it off will the game die? I don’t think so, but maybe Bandai will fix it,” Reynolds said.

Many players reacted to the viral hacking video in anger such as one user who wrote, “This is just disgusting. I get wanting to make a point to the game creators about their terrible anti-cheat, but punishing other players for the point is a bit much. Play offline from now on boys and gales.”

Another commentator agreed and exclaimed, “This is utterly revolting. It’s one thing to cheat and instantly kill someone, but there is no justifying getting them banned.”

Some critics even claimed the hacking turned them off from purchasing the game. “Was interested in Elden Ring, but I don’t need childish griefters. Sorry, FromSoftware,” a comment read.

Not every player was angry at the hacker, however. Those critical of FromSoftware’s anti-cheat actually praised the griefer for bringing awareness to the RPGs.

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According to Reynolds, Elden Ring’s anti-cheat software is very exploitable. At the time of writing, neither the developer of Bandai Namco has responded to the situation.