A recently discovered Elden Ring trick to avoid falling to an untimely death turns out to be an anti-frustration feature that doesn't always work.
An Elden Ring player seemingly uncovered a handy trick to avoid falling to an untimely death by using a simple attack animation, but it doesn't actually work as described. In the tradition of past FromSoftware titles like Dark Souls and Bloodborne, Elden Ring is incredibly challenging, with plenty of powerful bosses and even seemingly harmless creatures like dung beetles that can and will cut down an inexperienced Tarnished in short order. While Elden Ring’s open-world setting can mitigate this intense difficulty by allowing players to skip over particularly tough arenas and enemies, aspiring Elden Lords should expect to see FromSoftware’s famous “You Died” text many times throughout their travels across the Lands Between.
However, as punishing as foes like Elden Ring’s Tree Sentinel and Godfrey, The First Elden Lord can be, the most dangerous and recurring foe in Elden Ring could very well be gravity itself. Characters can take fall damage in Elden Ring, resulting in many players inadvertently falling to their doom while rolling out of the way of an attack or waving hello to another player right at the edge of a castle wall. Some Elden Ring players have managed to turn this around on their enemies by tricking opponents into rolling off a cliff themselves, and there is even a special Longtail Cat Talisman that renders their characters immune to fall damage altogether. Still, some players have been trying to discover tricks to avoid losing their footing or taking damage when their Tarnished does slip off the high ground.
Enter Reddit user Aiseadai, who recently posted an interesting Elden Ring gameplay clip to r/Eldenring of a possible new trick they uncovered to avoid taking fall damage. By attacking on the edge of a cliff, the player can apparently check if the resulting fall will kill them by seeing if their Tarnished will fall during the attack animation - though GameRant later reported that this trick doesn't exactly work. According to Aiseadai's claims, the Tarnished will simply fall harmlessly off the edge to the ground below if the fall is non-lethal. However, if the fall in Elden Ring would result in damage or death, the Tarnished will supposedly remain on the edge as the attack animation plays out, seemingly locked behind an invisible force that is looking to prevent them from plummeting to their doom on the unforgiving rocks below. However, some Elden Ring players in the comment section have pointed out that this isn’t always consistent during actual combat, and that it might be more of an inherent feature of ledges rather than anything to do with fall damage.
Clips of Elden Ring players performing interesting tricks and showing off impressive mods have taken the gaming portions of the internet by storm in the weeks since the game first launched in March, with one particular Elden Ring Twitch livestream becoming the website’s third most-viewed feed in history mere days after Elden Ring’s release. Aside from avoiding a painful pitfall death, Elden Ring players have been caught getting rammed to death by a goat right after a difficult boss battle and defeating challenging enemies by just sitting back and letting their summoned spirits do the hard work.
In little over a month, Elden Ring has become one of the biggest video games of 2022, thanks in a large part to the sense of discovery that players can feel while journeying through its vast open-world setting and finding new tricks and hidden details. Aiseadai hasn't exactly uncovered a handy method to avoid falling to a sudden death off the cliffs of the Lands Between, so Elden Ring players would still be advised to refrain from a panic roll off a ledge during an intense boss battle all the same.
Source: Aiseadai/Reddit, GameRant
