My Box Disguise Disaster: How I Tried to Be Elden Ring’s Solid Snake and Failed Miserably

It was March 2022, and the Lands Between had just opened their treacherous gates. I still remember the moment I stumbled upon a Reddit clip that made me laugh so hard I almost dropped my controller. A fellow Tarnished, u/mrgreenthumb, had attempted the most Metal Gear Solid move I’d ever seen in a FromSoftware game: turning into a box with the Mimic’s Veil and slowly creeping toward a Crucible Knight in Nokron, Eternal City. The result was about as disastrous as you’d expect — after a minute of painfully cautious shuffling, the Knight spotted the slightly out-of-place crate, swatted it with a greatsword, and sent the would-be Solid Snake back to the Site of Grace. I knew right then I had to try it myself.

I had just acquired the Mimic’s Veil from the Stormveil Castle basement, and I was itching for a cinematic stealth moment. The Crucible Knight in Nokron seemed like the perfect victim. So I equipped the Veil, activated it, and watched my character poof into a random environmental object. This time, it was a battered wooden crate — not exactly high-tech, but good enough. I began my slow march, channeling every bit of patience I’d learned from sneaking through Shadow Moses.

The Mimic’s Veil is a reusable key item that camouflages the user by transforming them into a prop that matches the nearby scenery. It reduces the detection radius of enemy NPCs and hides your character’s health bar and name from invaders. The catch? Any aggressive action, item use, or even breaking into a sprint instantly nullifies the disguise. For a stealth enthusiast like me, it sounded perfect — a way to recapture the tension of hiding from genome soldiers in a cardboard box. But the reality in PvE was far less glorious.

I crept forward, stopping dead whenever the Crucible Knight’s helm turned my way. My heart pounded as I closed the distance. I could almost hear Snake’s voice in my head: “Just a box. Nothing suspicious here.” After what felt like an eternity, I was barely ten feet away. Then, without warning, the Knight stared directly at my crate and lunged. One horizontal slash later, my disguise shattered, and my character crumpled to the ground. The whole experiment had been a spectacular failure, but it taught me a valuable lesson: the Mimic’s Veil is more of a nostalgic novelty than a viable PvE tactic.

FromSoftware has a long history of including playful stealth tools. Dark Souls had the Chameleon spell and the Young White Branch, which also turned players into objects like barrels or statues. Bloodborne offered the Messenger’s Gift, letting you pose as a wandering specter. Sekiro leaned heavily into actual crouching and tall grass. In Elden Ring, the Mimic’s Veil is the spiritual successor, but it feels weaker. You can’t backstab or even use a Flask while disguised — doing anything breaks the illusion. Spending 6 Focus Points for a short-lived buff that leaves you helpless if spotted just isn’t worth it against tough enemies. I’d have been better off gulping a Flask of Wondrous Physick and charging in with a colossal blade.

Where the Veil truly shines, ironically, is in the game’s PvP component. As an invasion survivor, I’ve learned that popping the Mimic’s Veil can turn a frustrating gank into a hilarious mind game. When you’re the host and an invader is hunting you, turning into a statue or a crate near a corner lets you physically remove yourself from the equation — your character’s tag and health bar disappear from their screen. I’ve sat as an innocent-looking chair while an invader ran past me three times, cursing in confusion. The patience game is intense. Once, I waited a full four minutes before the invader severed out, convinced I had disconnected. On the flip side, as an invader, I’ve used the Veil to ambush hosts. Sneaking up as a glowing red box that suddenly explodes into a jump attack never gets old.

However, veterans know the Mimic’s Veil has severe limitations in PvP too. Smart players will randomly strike suspicious objects, and some environments just don’t have props that blend well. I once tried to hide as a small shrub in a volcanic area — the invaders caught on immediately and roasted me with Frenzied Flame spells. Still, the item captures the spirit of classic Metal Gear Solid mischief, and I appreciate that FromSoftware let it return.

Looking back from 2026, Elden Ring has only grown in legend, and the Mimic’s Veil remains a beloved tool for content creators and meme lords. Even after the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion dropped, the simple joy of becoming a box and getting unceremoniously flattened by a Crucible Knight hasn’t faded. I still have the clip saved on my console — a reminder that sometimes the best games are the ones that let you fail in the most spectacularly funny ways. So if you’re ever in Nokron and see a suspiciously placed piece of furniture, give it a whack. You might just find a Tarnished like me, living out a cardboard box fantasy that was doomed from the start.