Look, I'll admit it. In the first 30 seconds in Elden Ring, I leapt off a cliff just because somebody left a message on the ledge that said, "Something beautiful ahead." As "You Died" flashed across my screen, I got a hint at what future messages in Elden Ring would offer. Kind of hilarious, kind of infuriating, and an all-around good time. Once resurrected, I went back to the top of the cliff and appraised, an action similar to "up-voting," the message.

　　These messages add levity to an otherwise absolutely brutal gameplay fit for only the most masochistic of us, and I wanted to interview Elden Ring players who contributed to leaving messages or if they were an observer--what they thought about it all.

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　　Now Playing: Elden Ring - Everything To Know

　　Some very kind Elden Ring players--strangers, but basically found family since we're all playing this damn game--shared info about what messages they left, what were their favorite ones, and which memorable sentences stopped them in their tracks.

　　N, an Elden Ring player who'd prefer to remain anonymous, liked the extremely useless messages the most. "To be fair, I think I have more of a favorite genre of message than outright absolute favorite message. It's the ones that are so meaningless that it becomes funny," he said. "An example would be seeing some small vines growing on a wall and the message next to it is just 'grass' or next to a non-interactable door that just says 'door.'"

　　When N put it that way, I better understood more why those label-the-thing messages were so prevalent in-game and the humor behind them. The message system is supposed to provide helpful info, but when it's used in such a neutral, not even shit-posting or trolling way (like getting people to jump off cliffs), it is indeed absurdly funny. In that way, it lined up well with Elden Ring's whole deal: grimness flavored with hilarious absurdity.

　　Player MajiinBae chose a classic favorite message: "It's a dog" next to things that are absolutely not dogs, like tortoises, wolves, and fire-breathing dragons. He went on to recount another message, one which didn't necessarily help him, but did offer comfort. "The only other really memorable one for me was when I got trapped in the crystal mines and I found a message," MajiinBae commented. "Hoping that it would tell me how to get out, I clicked on it. Only for it to be someone saying that they were also stuck and wanted to go home."

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　　My personal favorite, if you couldn't tell by now, were all the "Leap off here" messages trying to lure players into certain death at the bottom of cliffs. It was funny how little convincing they had to do for me and, judging by the number of bloodstains, others to jump off.

　　Elden Ring player AmissaAmor helpfully told me, "I mean, sometimes there are items actually downwards but majority of them are jumping to your death ones… It’s mainly a case of getting right to the edge and seeing where the person is pointing to. Normally if it doesn’t have someone pointing it’s a lie." (Good to know.) For leaving messages, AmissaAmor chose the chaotic-neutral path and left both helpful and funny messages. "I’ve left ones all over the world, mainly in catacombs and dungeons warning people about ambushes or an actual hidden wall," the Elden Ring player said.

　　But AmissaAmor's most popular message definitely fell into the funny category. It read, “I want to go home…” and was accompanied by a curled-up emote in Caria Manor, an area not part of the main questline.

　　Larxa, a Twitch streamer and Sekiro speedrunner, also shared my enjoyment with misleading cliffs. "I love how a message will say 'hidden path' or something on a steep cliff followed by a message and bloodstain saying 'liar.' And then you can see the memory of the bloodstain with the person falling off the cliff," she said. The messages she wrote were more on the chaotic side. "I left 'fingers' behind an enemy bent over a railing, which is my most appraised one! And my most disliked one is 'secret ahead' but it's just a wall/dead end," Larxa said.

　　A more earnest Soulsborne fan, Jacob from the Pre-Order Bonus Podcast, said his favorite message was the helpful, 'First lever, then back to lift,'" Jacob said. "I love it because it reminded me that many times in Souls games lifts will go down when you least expect them. Took me to the mini-boss I couldn’t find. Great sense of community-building there."

　　Jacob also thought that the small, but helpful hints were the most memorable to him. "I love the small, helpful messages like 'try rolling' or 'ambush right,'" he commented. And while Jacob hasn't left a message yet, he'd like to pay it forward one day. "My goal is to leave an exceptionally helpful message for a rare item or route. Probably going to go back to Stormveil Castle to leave one in particular like 'drop down, ashes ahead,''' Jacob said.

　　N and Jacob are both longtime Soulsborne fans but shared contrasting opinions about the evolution of messages in-game from Dark Souls to Dark Souls 2 and now, Elden Ring.

　　Jacob thought not much had changed, other than perhaps the jokes were different. N said that the messages started taking on the current funny tone in DS3. "Dark Souls is kind of vanilla when it comes to messages, more often than not they're generally helpful or misleading at worst with a few here and there with some personality. And the most-common place for some of the most goofy ones was obviously in the room with the gigantic lady," N said. "In my experience Dark Souls 3 is where all of the sarcasm and funny combinations started to kick up, the 'finger but hole' and all that but still a lot were very helpful in finding secrets. I [also] feel like the remaster of DS1 had a lot of DS3 energy in it when it came to message tone."

　　All the players I talked to, unsurprisingly, said they enjoyed the message system, and that it created a sense of community and camaraderie. "It's amazing that something so small could bring so much more personality to a series. Some people might say it breaks immersion or whatever but reading a few words of encouragement or something funny after a difficult area can really brighten someone's experience," N commented. As a new Soulsborne player--I agree with N. The messages really surprised me, and shifted the vibe of the game. I had been warned about the difficulty level by, basically, the entire internet, but what I didn't expect were the sometimes helpful, oftentimes just funny comments that made dying again and again highly enjoyable. Death, it seems, is nothing to be afraid of.