Elden Ring shuts down the trick that handed out the Tarnished Pack to players who never bought it

FromSoftware has released update 1.17.1 for Elden Ring, a patch that is small in size but has a very specific goal: to close a hole in the multiplayer mode that was undermining the sales model of the Tarnished Pack. According to Vandal, the bug allowed a player who owned the DLC to join the session of another who did not, drop the pack's items, and let them pick everything up without paying a single cent.

This goes beyond a simple inventory bug. What was at stake was the very point of a paid piece of content that arrived on the other platforms alongside the launch of Elden Ring Tarnished Edition on Switch 2 at the end of August. If anyone can get the extras for free with a bit of cooperation, the purchase loses all meaning, and that is something no publisher is going to tolerate for long.

What you need to know

• Patch 1.17.1: the update fixes a multiplayer issue that, under specific conditions, allowed Tarnished Pack content to be shared.
• The trick: the DLC owner joined the session of someone without the pack, dropped the items, and the other player picked them up.
• Actual duplication: the items did not disappear from the inventory of the player dropping them, so they were cloned and circulated through the community without limit.
• Where the pack comes from: the Tarnished Pack bundles the extras from the Switch 2 Tarnished Edition and is sold separately on the other platforms.
• Source: the underlying information comes from Vandal, which reports on FromSoftware's official patch notes.

What exactly the bug was and who it affected

Elden Ring has always allowed players to drop items for others in co-op; it is part of the philosophy of mutual aid that FromSoftware has cultivated since the earliest Souls games. The problem is that the Tarnished Pack items, instead of behaving like a normal consumable that changes hands, stayed in the inventory of the player who dropped them while also appearing in the recipient's. The result: a single buyer could supply their entire friends list, and those friends could in turn supply theirs.

Vandal notes that many players obtained the DLC content this way without paying. We are not talking about an exploit that requires external tools or file modifications, but something done with the game's normal features, which explains how quickly it spread through the community and why the studio had no choice but to step in.

The context: a DLC of extras, not of content

It is worth remembering what the Tarnished Pack is. It is not an expansion in the vein of Shadow of the Erdtree, but rather a port to the established platforms of the add-ons that come with the Switch 2 Tarnished Edition. In other words, a bundle of extras designed so that anyone who already owned the game would not miss out on those items just for not buying Nintendo's console.

That makes the debate more uncomfortable than usual. When content is perceived as small or cosmetic, the community tends to justify giving it away more easily. But for the publisher and for FromSoftware, it is still a product with a price tag, and the duplication was rendering it worthless. Patch 1.17.1 adds nothing new: it just closes the door.

Our take

Here at the Underworld Lordz editorial team, we are clear on this: the bug had to be closed, and the sooner the better. It may seem charming for the community to help each other skip a payment, but an ecosystem where DLC gets handed out through bugs is one where publishers end up locking down multiplayer with more restrictions, and we all pay for that: those who compete, those who make co-op content, and those who simply want to play with friends without hassle.

That said, we are not going to applaud without reservation. The fact that a pack of extras launched with a trading system that allowed it to be duplicated suggests that someone did not test the multiplayer enough before putting it on sale. FromSoftware has a track record of quick patches, yes, but also of duplication holes that keep showing up game after game. For a studio of this caliber, with a title that remains a benchmark years after its release, we expect more quality control and less firefighting.

And for those who create content in our community, a practical piece of advice: if you have recorded videos or guides showing off the trick, that material became obsolete overnight. Better to invest your time in showing what the Tarnished Pack actually offers and in building on what lasts, which is the community and the game, not an exploit with an expiry date.

What do you think?

Some argue that a pack of extras should be free for everyone who already bought the game, while others believe paid content should be respected, no excuses. We lean toward the latter, but we want to hear from you: do you think it is fair that FromSoftware patched the bug, or do you believe the Tarnished Pack should never have been sold separately? Let us know in the team chat or on our Discord.