'Elden Ring' Players Are Being Banned For Picking Up A Cursed Item

Multiple Elden Ring players are reporting that they're now facing lengthy bans from the game for picking up a pair of forbidden underwear.

FromSoftware's excellent open-world RPG has plenty of great multiplayer features. Players can drop into other worlds to help or hinder fellow gamers, and can even leave the occasional gift in the name of jolly cooperation.

Take a look at what happens when you mod Elden Ring a little too much below:

The gifts you can leave players range from a handy piece of equipment to powerful weapons. For a particularly wild time, certain players were leaving a pair of knickers on the ground for explorers to pick up.

Those undergarments are none other than the Deathbed Smalls, a pair a cursed underwear belonging to the NPC Fia. While the item exists in Elden Ring's files, FromSoftware evidently opted not to include them. Presumably because running around with a woman's pants as some kind of trophy is a bit weird.

Of course, it didn't take hackers long to coax the pants out and into the game proper, and now FromSoftware has decided that anyone found to be in possession of the taboo drawers is hit with the ol' ban hammer.

Not all players know that this particular item is illegal, either, which means plenty of innocent players have been picking up the pants left by other Tarnished and being immediately banned.

The Elden Ring sub-Reddit (thanks, Vice) is currently awash with downed players warning others to stay away from the underwear of doom.

“After 220 hours, I pick up some underwear and it’s all over,” one player wrote, claiming they were forced to choose between deleting all their progress or taking an 180-day ban.

Elden Ring being the kind of game it is, wiping all progress isn't a decision that would be made lightly. Fortunately it seems the ban isn't quite as harsh as it could be. Banned players can still play single-player, obviously, and can even enjoy multiplayer with other banned players. You just have to live with the knowledge that you're adventuring through The Lands Between with a bunch of panty-raiding weirdos.