With Elden Ring available now, gamers are using the message function to give other players hints, humor, and/or random statements. It is not unusual for players to leave helpful hints such as "Beware of left" when there is a monster waiting to ambush. It is also not unusual for players to leave funny deceptive lies such as "Try jumping," which just encourages players to fall to their deaths. In terms of humor and random statements, there are plenty, such as the "Dog" meme when referring to tortoises and other animals, as well as the self-explanatory "fort, night."
The most popular Elden Ring messages, however, are the dirty ones. While players are limited in words they can say, creativity and drive have evidently won the day. In all fairness, the game has provided a lot of words that are open to lewd interpretations, such as "pickle," "but," "hole," "rump," and "finger."
Elden Ring Messages - What Players Are Writing
"Try fingers, but hole" is the most popular statement to see in the world of Elden Ring. In fact, "fingers" is used a lot in messages, and the reason the word is accessible is that fingers are a sort of theme in the game's lore. Players use disembodied fingers to write messages, as well as characters known as "Finger Maidens," among other references. While the word "butt" is censored (a player named "Butter" will appear as "****er"), the other "but" is totally accessible and player imaginations can easily look past the spelling difference.
Another very suggestive word players have the ability to use is "seed," because Golden Seeds are rare and highly sought-after items in the game used to level up restorative flasks. While developers put the word there so that players can give each other hints as to where these items may be found, they are more widely used by Elden Ring players to make lewd statements. One popular message is, "Seek hole and then offer seed."
Other messages include "If only I had a giant but hole," "Offer rump," "Visions of horse but hole," and "try rear and thrust." These messages typically get a lot of Appraisals in the thousands, which encourages gamers, even more, to come up with these creative lewd messages. Every Appraisal awards them with a little healing in their game, which can be especially helpful during boss fights. Obviously, these messages were not the game developers' intent, but on the other hand, the whole situation is not surprising given the history of how players interact in video games and Dark Souls entries specifically.
How Players Make All Games A Little Dirty
Elden Ring is a Soulsborne game, and its message function is similar to the one used in Dark Souls. In Dark Souls, lewd messages with limited words were common. "Try thrusting" was very common to see in Dark Souls, especially whenever NPCs were on the premise, or even if a corpse is in a compromised position. Of course, these messages and dirty jokes of the players are not limited to just these kinds of games. Ever since video games existed, many a player has found it funny to try to name their characters dirty things, and video games have done the best to try to curb this, especially as online multiplayer has become ubiquitous.
Even far more innocent and colorful games like Splatoon are an example of this, with "Squid-bagging" and all sorts of suggestive doodle art that players can share. In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, players had chances to customize their own levels and, of course, this led to a waterfall of phallic designs. Of course, games like Halo were the originators of tea bagging in multiplayer.
It is all harmless jest for players of mature age, and a lot of what is done may go over the heads of younger players or even some adults. It is unlikely these trends will disappear, as part of the fun of games is player freedom. Those that dislike Elden Rings' messages, unfortunately, do not have a setting to remove them while playing online. At least they are never revealed unless clicked on by the player. For a lot of gamers though, the messages are a funny part of an otherwise dark game.
Elden Ring is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
