The Soulsborne games are notoriously difficult for a number of reasons–one of which is that you cannot pause them. If you set your controller down, you run the risk of being invaded by another player or being attacked by a gigantic creature. That remains the same in Elden Ring, sadly, but there are a few things you can do to mitigate being taken out if you have to step away for a moment.
In short, you can’t pause in Elden Ring, at least not in the traditional sense. Going into the menu simply places an interface on the screen while everything in the world remains constant. You can actually continue to control your character while the menu is up, which is nifty. However, if you’re playing in offline mode, you can put your PS5 system into suspend mode, and it will effectively “pause” the game. As soon as you jump back in, you’ll be able to pick up right where you left off. We haven’t tested this on Xbox, but it presumably works the same way.
If you happen to be playing online at the time, and need to pause, your best bet is to simply quit out of the game. Thankfully, you’ll be able to load back in pretty much exactly where you last were, so it’s only slightly less convenient to do it this way.
