Malcolm Reynolds is a name Dark Souls fans will surely recognize, as he once devastated the community by hacking the game’s code to get players banned by giving them invalid items and status. It was an especially big problem for Dark Souls 3 and Demon’s Souls Remastered.
Now it has moved to Elden Ring to cause similar problems, although he argues that it is a “necessary evil” to get Bandai to fix their anti-cheat system. Reynolds has uploaded a video titled “SOFTBANNING IN ELDEN RING”, in which he is seen running around killing players with incredibly powerful magic mods and causing his victims to be kicked out of the game.
Reynolds manages to ban players by using a debug item called a pavel, which was left in the game’s code since development testing, but isn’t actually in the game. He then uses the spells to put the item into other players’ inventories, which the game will recognize as an invalid item once the player has died, triggering the anti-cheat system and sometimes banning the player entirely.
When asked why he was hacking the game, Reynolds said: “I am a necessary evil. You may wonder if getting caught is part of the plan, and yes, it is. If I get it, will the game die? I don’t think so, but maybe Bandai will fix itUnsurprisingly, Reynolds’ actions have caused controversy again among the community.