Elden Ring was one of the most anticipated games of 2022, and it appears to have been warmly received by many gamers around the world. Countless players are already exploring the Lands Between, picking fights with towering bosses, and scouring the game's open-world for secrets. One Elden Ring player recently found a series of bloodstains that chronicle the ridiculous way another player died.
Bloodstains in Elden Ring are a sign of danger in a given area--like in previous Soulsborne games, they show the location of other players' deaths. However, Elden Ring expands on this returning mechanic by allowing players to touch a bloodstain in order to see a vision of the victim's last moments. This can be a useful way to avoid common pitfalls, but it can also lead to some surprisingly hilarious scenes.
Redditor Shinokijorainokage shared a short video where they encounter a series of bloodstains left by other players who all died in the same ridiculous way. According to Hidetaka Miyazaki, he went out of his way to try and make death enjoyable in Elden Ring. This might help explain why Shinokijorainokage goes through four different bloodstains and watches all four players leap off the same balcony for no apparent reason. The video's accompanying text openly questions why the other players would do such an odd thing.
Death is a constant in Elden Ring and many other From Software games--in fact, it's such an omnipresent factor that this style of grueling action game has become an entire genre. Soulslike games challenge the player to memorize complex attack patterns, overcome merciless challenges, and accomplish things they never thought they could do. But this high difficulty, high reward style of gaming also comes with its share of downsides. One downside is that sometimes players can be trapped in a situation they can't escape from, forcing them to kill their character in order to reset or progress. However, it's unclear why, exactly, these players decided to jump off the same balcony.
Some users replied to the post with possible theories explaining why these gamers killed themselves. One of the players appears to have opened a chest before taking the fateful jump that killed them with fall damage, leading users to theorize that they discovered something man was not meant to know in the style of Bloodborne. Another user guessed that the offending players heard that Elden Ring had reduced the impact of fall damage and assumed they could survive the drop.
Elden Ring is available now for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X|S.