Elden Ring, the latest action-RPG by From Software and George R.R. Martin, has been out for a couple of weeks now, and most newcomers have discovered that the game (as with most From Software titles) doesn’t have any official pause button. However, a clever workaround has now been discovered.

As found by YouTuber Iron Pineapple, pausing in Elden Ring is a simple process. After bringing up your inventory, by accessing “menu explanation” it essentially pauses the game. Of course, this can only be done while in offline mode as the game continues in online regardless of this workaround.

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Accessing the “menu explanation” halts the gameplay and all sounds in-game. Instead of being killed by whatever you’re fighting on-screen (as Iron Pineapple demonstrates), enemies will just freeze in position until you leave the menu explanation and inventory entirely.

This is especially useful for players who prefer playing offline, since this feat cannot be done while online as it’s naturally impossible to “pause” your game in the middle of a player invasion.

The Dark Souls trilogy and Bloodborne didn’t have a pause function either, but didn’t have any workarounds to mention. This was done due to players often being invaded by other players online, but rather frustratingly, it still didn’t have a pause button even while playing offline. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, which is a single-player only game and doesn’t feature any multiplayer, has a pause button by simply bringing up the menu.

Elden Ring‘s lack of a pause button is certainly baffling newcomers to From Software’s games, but this unofficial workaround is the best we’ll get for now until the developers catch wind of it and probably patch it out.

Elden Ring is now available for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

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Source: Iron Pineapple