Elden Ring PSA: If someone drops panties in your game, don't pick them up

pcgamer.com:

Quick heads-up: If someone pops into your Elden Ring game, drops a pair of skimpy skivvies on the ground, and then dips, do not—repeat, do not—pick them up. Multiple people are reporting in the Elden Ring subreddit that they have been banned from regular online play after claiming the discarded tighty-whities as their own.

The temptation to try the piece on is understandable. The underwear (technically, leg armor) is called Deathbed Smalls, an absolutely immediately intriguing name that I think would make a great gamer handle. It's also a very basic, tiny piece of kit, the sort of thing worn by legitimate Elden Ring badasses who want the world to know that armor is for cowards. (Let Me Solo Her, the first legendary Elden Ring player, is a perfect example of this.)

The trouble is that the Deathbed Smalls aren't supposed to be in Elden Ring at all. As Polygon reported last month, they're part of an armor set that was cut from the game before release. But they can be brought back through the magic of Cheat Engine: Download it, go offline, give yourself item 1930300, and you're off.

Because the item isn't supposed to be in the game, it appears to be triggering an anti-cheat response that's leaving players «quarantined,» meaning they can only play with other quarantined players. That's not necessarily a big deal, unless you want to summon another player—one redditor who reported the issue, JeSuisLePamplemous, said the much smaller number of players in the quarantined queue means there are no summon signs available.

Courtesy of redditor BugzBunnnie, this is the anti-panty message received:

Some of the people reporting the problem are uncertain about what's happening, because they haven't intentionally cheated and aren't