Elden Ring Exploit Puts Players in Infinite Death Loops
Elden Ring players appear to have another threat to contend with in-game now that an exploit has been discovered which results in infinite death loops and ruined save files. A number of players by now have shared evidence of their characters falling infinitely with little recourse for action beyond some quick fast traveling which doesn't even seem to be a working fix for everyone. The exploit deals solely with invaders, so playing offline is one workaround, but backing up your saves is still advised until the problem is more thoroughly addressed.
The Twitter account for Elden Ring news aptly named EldenRingUpdate shared the video below that showed someone's experience with the exploit. Shortly after an invader appeared, the whole game crashed and sent the player back to their Steam app. Upon being loaded into the game, you're placed somewhere outside the boundaries of the map and fall to your death. The same happens over and over again upon respawning which effectively means there's no way out of the situation.
⚠️Elden Ring PSA for PC players⚠️
— Mordecai (@EldenRingUpdate) March 18, 2022
There's an exploit going around on PC where hackers will corrupt your save file while you're invaded.
First they will crash your game, and when you open it back up, your character will be constantly falling to their death... pic.twitter.com/8et3bl8T1I
No way out, that is, unless you're quick with your menu navigations. One post on the Elden Ring subreddit proposes a solution for this problem that involves hitting Alt + F4 as quickly as possible right before you die in order to gain a bit more time to work through the menu whenever you next respawn. If you open the map next time you load in and quickly hit the button that opens up the list of Sites of Grace, you can potentially have time to mash the confirm button and fast travel away.
While the exploit appears to be getting more attention now, there are posts over on the game's subreddit dating back several days now that detail this happening in one form or another. The details differ sometimes depending on which post you're reading, but the common denominator seems to be the infinite falls players are finding themselves stuck in.
Aside from trying the workaround mentioned previously, you can avoid this entirely by playing offline since invaders are the root of the issue. That shuts you off from potential invades of your own not to mention the help of co-op friends, so that's not really an ideal solution. If nothing else, you can simply back up your save file and continue playing online like normal so that you have something to fall back on should you ever get put in this situation.