Elden Ring messages are going nowhere but you can turn them off – here’s how

To meme or not to meme…

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

Elden Ringplayers who are getting increasingly irked by the messaging system are just going to have to lump it. FromSoftware says it doesn’t have plans to offer an option to disable it. But there is a workaround.

Thanks toElden Ring’s surge in popularity, longtime players are seemingly finding the messages more bothersome than previous FromSoftware titles. The game hassold 12M units worldwideas of March 16. By comparison, the Dark Souls series as a whole hassold 27M unitsat last count (2020), so there’s been a massive influx of new players.

Messages in Elden Ring let you leave helpful tips and warnings using a combo of preset words and phrases. You’ll find missives about enemies and environmental hazards, and, unsurprisingly, outright trolling. So veterans have become accustomed to not trusting everything they read. People will often try to lure each other to their deaths with false information, but it’s all part of the fun!

But now that the game has found a larger audience, all of those ‘try finger, but hole’ messages next to NPCs have lost their luster. And the lighthearted trolling has arguably turned into griefing. Messages can be left so close to interactable objects that reading them supersedes the performing actions. Escaping up a ladder, for example, can be thwarted by someone looking to mess with other players.

The tradition of trolling and memeing with in-game messages has become a tradition with FromSoftware’s games. I reached out to the devs to ask if there would be an update to let frustrated players turn off messages and the response was that there are “no specific plans to change things for now.” I asked if the studio was looking into ways to prevent this ‘abuse’ of the system, given how integral a part of the game it is, and the reply to that question was exactly the same.

If you’re among the contingent of players who’s come to resent the messaging system, thereisa workaround… but it has pros and cons.

How to turn off Elden Ring messages

I’ll just put this out there straight away – you can’t turn off messages in Elden Ring. Sorry (not sorry). If other people discovering the joys of the game and being silly is getting to you, there is something you can do about it: go offline.

Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.

Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.

Yep, you read that right. That means no summons, no bloodstains, no invaders – and no messages! So if you’re happy playing on your lonesome with a purely single-player experience, here’s what to do.

You can now enjoy the offline Elden Ring experience! Which isn’t half as fun, let’s be honest. But it’s the only solution out there for now, if the message system is making you lose the will to live.

Shabana has been writing about games for almost a decade now, as well as covering tech, politics, food, and other random tidbits at Gizmodo UK. She’s stepped outside of news every now and then to write game guides, and always appreciates a DM if she’s helped get you out of a pickle. During her time freelancing, you may have spotted her words at VG24/7, GamesRadar, and IGN. She’s also held the position of news editor at Gizmodo UK, T3, and The Sun Online.

The PS5 Pro’s PSSR upscaling gives multiple games a huge visual upgrade – can it compete with Nvidia’s DLSS 3 successor?

I’m a Nintendo Switch expert, here are the best early Black Friday deals right now

Quordle today – hints and answers for Saturday, November 9 (game #1020)