FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Controversy erupted in the Souls community this week after longtime FromSoft gamer Andy O’Reilly was caught on the jumbotron at a Coldplay concert playing Sekiro on his Steam Deck with cheat mods.
“This is a betrayal of the highest order,” wrote frequent forum contributor Marcus Strong. “Andy was a stalwart of this community. Not only was he always responding to others requests for help with sage advice like ‘git good’ and ‘skill issue’, but he was also one of our fiercest gatekeepers. No scrub could get past him. Any newcomer who even thought about easing into this genre with assists and accessibility settings were quickly swatted away by Andy. He cheated not just the game, but himself.”
The viral moment saw O’Reilly quickly duck out of view when he realized the camera was on leading Coldplay frontman Chris Martin to quip “he’s either using cheat mods, or he’s very shy”. It wasn’t long before the FromSoft community online figured out O’Reilly’s identity.
“As FromSoft die-hards we spend half our time online harassing people who don’t play the way we deem acceptable so it wasn’t hard to figure out that it was Andy,” wrote r/Soulsborne mod Ronald Cole. “Once we knew it was him we made sure to just pile on the harassment. He’s become a meme in the community but he deserves it. I mean he brought it upon himself, what kind of idiot cheats in such a public place? If you’re gonna cheat at a Souls game you gotta do it in secret, not at a Coldplay concert.”
The incident has become such a hot topic within the Souls community that even popular content creators like “Maidenless” Mike Schwartz have weighed in.
“Look, it’s not our business. What other players do in their private lives is between them and God but cheaters deserve to be outed and humiliated. There is no greater kind of scum than a cheater. It goes against everything these games and this community stands for. If the thought of cheating even pops into your mind the only right thing to do is be honest with yourself and just go play something else. This is a FromSoft game so it needs to be given respect, it’s not some easily disposable commodity like a woman.”
At press time, O’Reilly has tendered his resignation from the Souls community and stated his intentions to become a League of Legends gamer in hopes of joining a more accepting community.
