Elden Ring Player Encounters Near-Identical Version of Themselves

gamerant.com:

Elden Ring, like all of FromSoftware's Souls-like games, is ostensibly a single-player game. The game’s absence of multiplayer lobbies and matchmaking means players could easily play through the entirety of Elden Ring unaware of its popular multiplayer elements if they didn’t investigate certain in-game items. This does not mean players will go the whole game without encountering another person, however, as the ghostly images of others will occasionally break through into their game.

These ghostly visages are short clips of other players' actions, usually on around a 30-second delay. It works similarly to the game’s bloodstain mechanic which shows how other players were killed. This is another returning mechanic from games likeDark Souls and emphasizes the FromSoftware games' motif that all players, whether they be undead or tarnished, are all working through the same world towards the same goal.

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These in-game reminders that the player is not the only one playing the game can often have different effects depending on where they are encountered. In a dark cavern the player thought they had cleared out, a sudden player ghost passing through can be an unexpected jump-scare.Elden Ring players can also find themselves doing the same thing with hilarious results. Reddit user Mo3Q had an encounter that was a little more existential, however, as they encountered a player that appeared to be their exact duplicate.

The player was exploring one of the game's crystal mine dungeons, a location many Elden Ring players can find themselves trapped in after an early game teleport trap. The player is equipped with the rare combination of Blackflame Monk armor and the Grafted