Elden Ring PC players are having their save files ruined by invaders

Elden Ring
(Image credit: Bandai Namco)

Caution ahead, Tarnished: some Elden Ring players on PC are having their saves corrupted by third-party invaders. 

Much like a similar exploit several years back in Dark Souls 3, it appears as though invaders are crashing the host's game. After rebooting, however, some players are finding their save files changed and their Tarnished trapped in a falling deathloop.

"There's an exploit going around on PC where hackers will corrupt your save file while you're invaded," warns a tweet from the @EldenRingUpdate Twitter account. 

"First they will crash your game, and when you open it back up, your character will be constantly falling to their death…"

Until there's been a formal fix of the problem, some Elden Ring players are opting-out of invading – or turning off online play completely – until the issue has been resolved. PC players are also advised to take back-ups of their save files as often as possible.

Some potential fixes have been shared on Reddit, although OP u/Draiganedig admits it "will undoubtedly take many tries and a lot of frustration to get it right". Their suggested solution is as follows: 

infinite_falling_death_loop_hacked from r/Eldenring

It's a shame players can't simply avoid invaders in the same way this Tarnished carried on the Souls' tradition of avoiding Elden Ring invaders by pretending to be an NPC.

Elden Ring is now the best-selling game of 2022 in the US to date. According to the NPD Group, a market research company that frequently publishes game-related research, FromSoftware's latest title now doubles as February's best-selling title of the month and the best-selling game of 2022 so far.

Did you know that a huge hidden colosseum discovered in Elden Ring has fans speculating that competitive multiplayer may be coming to the game as future DLC? Whilst your Tarnished may have found the exterior yourself by this point, no one's been able to see what's hiding inside... well, until now anyway. Take a peek!

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Vikki Blake
Weekend Reporter, GamesRadar+

Vikki Blake is GamesRadar+'s Weekend Reporter. Vikki works tirelessly to ensure that you have something to read on the days of the week beginning with 'S', and can also be found contributing to outlets including the BBC, Eurogamer, and GameIndustry.biz. Vikki also runs a weekly games column at NME, and can be frequently found talking about Destiny 2 and Silent Hill on Twitter.