Elden Ring players are locked in an intense debate over pre-Colosseum battle gestures


Some Elden Ring players duelling in the Colosseum.

While they may not have any massive expansions to dig into quite yet, Elden Ring players are still keeping themselves busy, with the long-awaited Colosseum DLC providing a fresh challenge for many who now consider boss battles to be a walk in the park.

After all, if you don’t fancy upping the stakes to the level of trying to beat the Elden Beast on two screens at once, why not simply take on an endless supply of bloodthirsty fellow players?

That said, it seems that the fights taking place between some of the toughest Tarnished in The Lands Between are generating a bit of controversy, with Colosseum manners being the source of some disagreements.

Do you consider it bad manners to kill someone without bowing to them beforehand in Elden Ring?

The debate surrounding arena etiquette is the subject of a recent thread on the Elden Ring subreddit, which was kicked off by a post from user etrulzz, who shared a clip of them slaughtering a foe, captioning it: “Opponent does not gesture. Starts spamming magic. Got what he deserved.”

A few of their fellow Tarnished agreed with their response to the situation, with user Gnoml_ saying: “(You) kept it classy with the bow as well.” and Neko_Tyrant declaring: “Duel etiquette just makes PvP more enjoyable.”

On the other hand, a number of users didn’t think not gesturing at the beginning of a fight was too much of an issue, with Marshmallum musing: “They might not want to gesture and there are no rules saying they should. You showed up to the arena, where you seek to kill each other. As far as they know the duel started and you gave them an opening.”

Meanwhile, user SickleSun suggested that for some builds, the time it takes to do an emote that might not be reciprocated depending on who you’re fighting can be the difference between life and death, saying: “Honestly when doing (the) arena as a mage probably 50% (of people) charge at you right off the bat. Not excusing it but (as a) mage (being) in (an) emote (and) giving up a lot of ground kinda sucks.”

Regardless of whether you and your opponent share a bow before battering each others’ brains out, user Desperate_Tea7387 recommended not getting too worked up over things, declaring: “I just assume everyone is four years old and carry on.”

No matter whether you’re now trying to recover from the realisation that one of the players that’s beaten you in the Colosseum might have a single-digit age, make sure to follow us for coverage of some interesting streamers and guides to Elden Ring’s newest addition.

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