5 (mostly) spoiler-free tips to help start you on your quest for the Elden Ring
The Lands Between can be daunting, so here's some advice to help you get your bearings in From Software’s massive new game
Games Features Elden Ring
Every Friday, A.V. Club staffers kick off our weekly open thread for the discussion of gaming plans and recent gaming glories. But of course, the real action is down in the comments, where we invite you to answer our eternal question: What Are You Playing This Weekend?
Elden Ring is out this weekend, presenting players with a huge, beautiful, mysterious world to get lost in, and then die. As my (largely glowing) review of the game notes, much of the wonder and joy of From Software’s latest adventure is in the mysteries it hides within its various dungeons, caves, and war-torn landscapes.
That being said, starting out in Elden Ring can be a daunting prospect, and not just because there’s a bastard riding around right outside the tutorial dungeon with a spear twice the size of your player character. (Free bonus tip: Go around that guy! You’re welcome.)
To help alleviate that early stress, I’ve jotted down a few things I would have been happy to know when I was first starting my 50-hours-and-counting with the game. With the exception of number 4, which is a bit specific, these are all fairly spoiler free—although if you want a purely fresh experience when you boot up the game, by all means, skip down to the conversation in the comments, instead.
(And, yes, I know we ran one of these last week for Horizon Forbidden West. Don’t blame us; blame the video-game-industrial-complex that produced two of these massive, obtuse open world games within the span of like a week.)
1. Find the maps
It can be bewildering, when first embarking in The Lands Between, to know where the hell you’re supposed to go. Sure, that Site of Grace is pointing you towards its next glowing cousin, but there’s often a horde of skeletons or wolves or those goddamn bat things lurking in the way, if not an actual, no-fooling mountain obstructing your path.
Luckily, the game provides players with maps of each region—provided you can find them, which should probably be your first priority when entering a new region. (They’re generally in distinctive obelisks situated on the main byways of an area.) The maps of Elden Ring are things of beauty, both in the literal sense—giving the appearance of gorgeous hand-drawn art—and in their sparsity. Rather than filling themselves with the wreckage of a million picked-over icons, the game’s maps demand your attention in order to discern the locations of useful ruins or likely sites for treasure. (Don’t forget to drop a marker on the map, too, if you find something particularly interesting; Elden Ring puts most of the burden of note-taking on the player.)
2. Go with gods
The gods and demigods of The Lands Between may be dead, insane, assholes, or some grim combination of all three, but houses of worship are still worth seeking out for the fledgling Tarnished. If you find yourself lost in a new area, it’s never a bad idea to pull up your shiny new map (see point 1), look for the church-est thing you can find, and then point your ghost-horse godward.
There’s a few reasons for this. First, churches in Elden Ring tend to be handy hubs for non-player characters; it’s not uncommon to stumble onto a new friend, quest participant, or potential future murderer lurking among the eaves. Second, most churches tend to have a Sacred Tear on their altar—the item that increases the healing power of that Flask Of Crimson Tears you’ve been gulping down to keep yourself alive all game.
Church: It’s where it’s at! (“It” in the previous sentence meaning items, plot tidbits, and occasionally these really gnarly bug wizards who’ll try to kill you dead.)
3. Follow the Stones
It can be extremely difficult, even with the above guidance, to know where the hell you’re supposed to go, and especially what order you’re supposed to go there, when first getting your footing in Elden Ring. The general rule of thumb is “Go anywhere you don’t immediately die for poking your head into”—one of the game’s many pleasures is in racing your magic horse deep into dangerous territory, watching the environment get sicker and sicker with every step, and then, oh shit, is that a dragon that just came crashing down from that mountain? And why is everything bleeding?
But if you need a quick, cheap rule for progression, one thing you can do is look to the Smithing Stones. These are the items you use to upgrade your weaponry at a blacksmith—by the way, pick a weapon and upgrade it whenever you can, later swords won’t be better, just different, and you’ll get a lot of your damage output from a properly upgraded main weapon—and they follow a very simple naming convention, starting with Smithing Stone [1] and ascending from there. As a rule, you’re in roughly the right area, power-wise, if the stones you’re finding in the environment are the ones you can actually use to buff your best weapon; if you’re getting a bunch of [2]s when you need [4]s, you’re probably over-powered for the level, and if you keep getting [7]s when you’re still working to upgrade your staff to a [5], you might be just seconds from getting one-shotted by a measly undead soldier working with a late-game power boost.
4. Rats drop Rune Arcs
Most of the tips in this little primer are meant to be general guidelines, applicable to anyone starting out in The Lands Between. This one is a little different, both because it’s very specific, and because it won’t mean anything to Elden Ring players for their first 10 or so hours with the game—that is, until they’ve acquired, and then empowered, their first Great Rune.
The Great Runes, befitting their role in the game’s cosmology, are genuinely, immensely powerful; the first one you’re likely to get raises all of your stats by 5, the equivalent to dumping 40 free levels into a build. But you can only reap these benefits through the use of a Rune Arc, a rare and pricey item whose buff expires any time you die. (And unlike the runes that similarly get lost when you beef it, there’s no recovering an Arc after death.) That can make them feel too precious to use, especially when you’re doing the kinds of exploratory pushes where a burst of power might serve you best.
Hence this one semi-spoiler, intended to allow you to spend more time having fun with these big, shiny toys: Rats drop Rune Arcs. Puny, regular rats. With fairly generous frequency, to boot.
Now, is it fun to find a rat spawning nest and grind it a few times in order to build up a supply? Not especially. But it’s massively preferable to hoarding your precious Rune Arcs in your inventory where they can’t do any good, just because the shop skeletons only sell 3 of the damn things, total, and they all cost 5,000 runes a pop. Hunt the rats; they’re the new raccoons.
5. There’s no wrong way to fight
One of the things that makes answering a key question about Elden Ring hard—i.e., is the game just too damn difficult?—is that it’s a largely self-directed experience. If an area is too tough for you at the moment, you’re right by default; give or take some classic From Software fan bloodymindedness (something that I am, personally, regrettably prone to—y’all should have seen some of my Sekiro death spirals), there’s almost nothing stopping you from backing away from a nasty situation and heading somewhere else to push at some other edge of the map.
One thing that’s not immediately obvious about Elden Ring, or the Souls games it derives from, is that there’s very rarely a “right” way to play them. That’s true at the macro, where you can design your character to focus on slow and heavy melee attacks, or quick bleed-inducing strikes, or a whole array of magical abilities. But it’s also true in the micro, with the focus on the customizability of the combat experience, something Elden Ring has doubled down on with its new summoning mechanics. If you don’t want to fight that cheap bastard Margit The Fell Omen alone, you really don’t have to. (Seriously: I have a whole, ranting screed prepared on the combos that guy pulls out of his malformed ass once you get his life down by half; happily, he’s the worst offender I’ve encountered in my time with the game, by far.)
The point is that there are no cheap shots in a Souls game, because survival is never cheap. If that means running away, you run; if that means finding a shortcut through a level, you take it; if that means beating a demigod down with ghost jellyfish, then fire up the jelly guns, Aurelia. The first step to learning to love Souls combat is in adjusting yourself to its methodical pace. The second is in breaking it to pieces to suit your own comfort and needs, whatever that might mean.
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I had the same experience with Soulsbournering games that I did with Elder Scrolls games: I gave both Dark Souls 1 and Oblivion incredibly deep dives, devoting most of my free time into them for a few weeks, pretty much did 100% of everything there was to do (at least as dictated by the achievement lists), and then said, “Yeah, that was enough of the series for a lifetime,” and abandoned the series forever, with a lasting positive impression. I have faith that Skyrim and Bloodbourne and Elden Ring are good games, and that I would enjoy them, but I also feel like I am completely done with them, for life. But in a good way! And I’ll be watching Elden Ring Twitch streams and love seeing other people have fun with them. I am stoked that games are coming out that people are excited about, but, man, I am just done. Looking forward to the inevitable Elden Ring GDQ run. I will never play it.My last few sessions of Final Fantasy XIII were a fucking rollercoaster. I crossed all the accessories off my checklist, decimated dozens of adamantoises, sometimes went half an hour without getting any drops, sometimes got 5 platinum ingots in a row. Sold shit, bought shit, crafted shit, somehow a very satisfying loop in spite of the repetitiveness. Got a lucky trapezohedron drop, sold all my extra weapons and accessories to purchase my last one, crafted my last ultimate weapon, booked it across the map to the “Congrats, you did it!” NPC, and…… I did not do it. Again. 102 hours, probably don’t even want to know how many hours I put into my Xbox 360 save for the same result. I did not do it. The game beat me twice. No 100% satisfaction for me. But after comparing a pre-selloff save’s inventory against my checklist, I found two accessories I’d somehow missed upgrading, and those did the trick. Ten years later after my first failure at this, I finally did it. 100%. Does any of this matter? Of course not. Life is futility and pain, and a few days after this accomplishment, I’m forced to accept that we’re probably on the brink of a world war, a morsel of bad news that somehow eclipsed Texas’s war on trans kids. But I will at least never feel tempted to play Final Fantasy XIII again. Yaaaaaaay!And within 24 hours, I fired up Final Fantasy XIII-2. It’s already so much better. The pacing, the color palette, the open environments, the sidequests, the less linear structure, the quality of life features, the complete lack of any achievements that require you to keep a spreadsheet. It feels like I should need more of a break before jumping from 13 to its sequel, but damn, jumping back into this game is a relief.Also a relief: after going 2 full months without a board game session, we’ve got another Pandemic Legacy: Season 0 session scheduled right after work. It took like twice as long as usual to play one game last week since we took the time to read out all the possible character actions out loud before we started the game, and we slowed way the fuck down so we could remember the abilities we’d invested victory points into and stand a chance at winning. And then we won! Big! It was really satisfying! And with everybody free for another Friday night, I’m ready to actually crack the cellophane on the second half of the campaign after work, watch the intrigue unfold, struggle with even more complex mechanics… and win again!
FF13 was sloggy at times, but one of my favourite gaming moments ever was nailing #62. It’s an incredible feeling to come up against a nigh-impenetrable defence… and then break it through sheer force of will.
I like that fight in concept, especially with how the enemies’ defenses absolutely fall apart once you’ve killed one of them, but it’s one of the ones where, unless you put the time into grinding out crystarium levels and/or equipment upgrades, whether you succeeded or failed depended on whether the enemies decided to team up on your party leader and instantly end the battle. If they’d just given my other party members 10 seconds to cast Raise on the party leader, I’d have liked the fight a lot more.I appreciate that they addressed the battle system issues in 13-2, both by letting you swap characters to take over for whoever’s actions need more direct control, and by just forcing a swap to another character when your party leader dies instead of just calling it a game over.
I’ve been making a lot of headway in Paradise Killer- made it to the actual crime scene and as a result have… something resembling a theory of the crime, there’s a lot that still doesn’t make sense but I like that I’m free to piece it together. Also the feel of the game is great and the soundtrack is incredible. In Metroid Dread I was getting frustrated, looked something up, apparently there was one hidden path I’d failed to get, so I found that and made some real progress. I’m finally able to do some significant backtracking! The movement in this game is very good indeed, it’s very satisfying, and the animation’s good too. Slowly moving forward.And in Final Fantasy XIV I’ve dealt with what I guess is more of Heavensward? Fought some big dragons and there’s big changes to the setting and now I can finally take an airship to and from Ishgard. I’ve been speeding through a lot of content in any case. Even went through the whole A Relic Reborn chain though by this point the weapon’s behind what I already have (though not by a whole bunch.)
I was planning to wait until there was a slim PS5 out before picking up this game, but it’s getting harder and harder to resist. Maybe I’ll nab it in the summer when I’ve got some leave on my hands.This weekend is for banging my head on Bloodborne’s Cursed Amygdala boss. Soulsborne games are at their worst for me when stuff can one- or two-shot me, which is making this fight – where max health is halved – something of a nightmare.I’m also midway through Powerslave: Exhumed, since I’ve had little opportunity in the past week to dive back in.
There’s an easy, safe Amygdala strategy that involves getting behind it to bait it into a jump. If you stand still when it jumps it won’t hit you. Charge your R2 attack when it jumps and you should hit it’s head when it lands. Get back behind it and repeat the process until it rips it’s arm off, then it jumps away from you so you’re gonna have to run up and attack it instead of charging R2.
Thanks, will try that
There’s videos online that do a better job detailing the strat than I can. But it’s what I used and I platinum’d the game, the only SoulsBourne game I’ve done that for. It’s totally doable. You’ve got this.
It’s gonna be Horizon Zero West for my foreseeable future. I’m really digging the game, but I in general suck at video game archery, so it always takes a bit for me to get the hang of it, but once I do, it’s smooth sailing.
If I somehow beat the game this weekend (unlikely), I’ll probably go back to playing Cyberpunk 2077. After the next gen patch, I found the game to be much more playable on my Series S, so I expect that will carry me for a long while.
If they put Elden Ring on Gamepass, will I give it a try? Sure, but I’m not spending full price on a game I’m pretty sure I would give up on pretty quick. I’m just not a Souls-type gaming person, I like an easy mode, and playing for fun, not a challenge.
Tip 6 – Don’t play on PC because it runs like shit
I feel I gotta wait on this one, because I don’t have a current-gen console or a particularly good PC, and while it’s being released for PS4 (apparently) I’ve not heard anything on how it runs or if any important features are missing.
I’m playing it on PS4. It runs smoothly, and is missing no features as far as I can tell. From what I understand some of the textures aren’t as detailed as the next gen version, which, ask me if I care.
Good to know, thanks.
I’m on hardware that’s 5-8 years old (depending on the part) and it runs flawlessly.My hot tip is: To unlock leveling up, you have to actively choose Rest at as many ‘bonfires’ (whatevers of Grace) as possible. Why they’ve done this nobody knows, as choosing to rest is otherwise largely counterproductive and I can’t think why you would – just dying achieves the same thing, but with fringe benefits. Except for unlocking the “Level Up” option, which as far as I could tell you’re never told about.
I’m playing on PC. Besides a few overworld stutters when passing from one area to another I haven’t had any issues.
Alas, I won’t be getting to Elden Ring for a while. Against my better judgement, I’m playing Horizon and Cyberpunk concurrently, so it’ll be a few months. To my surprise, I’m having fun with Cyberpunk. Horizon is an easy 10 for me, but Cyberpunk turns out to be a solid 7, and that’s just dandy.
I’m enjoying Earthbound right now, as I never got the chance to play it to any great extent previously. Inventory management is a huge pain in the ass (especially since I know I’m about to lose [Redacted]’s 14 slots for a while), but combat and exploration are still fun.
I’ve fallen deep into Horizon: Forbidden West. Deep to the point where I’m keeping track of calculations on how long it will take me to 100% the game (currently I’m at 45.51% done at 62:01.01, so projected 136:18.25).
And it’s been worth it, I’m absolutley loving exploring in this game. I’ve run across fields of treasure and random NPCs. The data points are doing a good job of fully fleshing out the world of the past. The swimming is AMAZING. It’s just so fun to run around, take down a Rollerback, liberate a camp, and just look at the night sky when you get a chance. The game does a great job of enveloping you with the world, making it a place you want to look around in. Sure, there are a ton of markers on the map, but you can turn a lot of those off if they get too overbearing.
And I have to really compliment the interactions with NPCs. I think every NPC I’ve been associated with when it comes to a quest has some sort of follow-up conversation/scene when you come back an visit them. It’s a nice touch that Guerrilla didn’t need to add, but they did. I feel like this game has a lot of little touches like this that make the world feel more complete.
Also, a random question about Elden Ring: is there a max level in the game? I sort of feel like I want to try it by just levelling up as much as I can at the start and trying some insane rush of bosses when I feel very strong. I want to try this because I tried Bloodborne a while ago and basically ran around and faced bosses when found and the game started feeling more like work than a game. However, I generally find grinding for levels relatively easy and strangely enjoyable for me (even if it takes for ever), so perhaps that might make the game an enjoyable(?) experience for me. Or maybe it’s just a game to skip for me, which is okay as well. I imagine Horizon is not going anywhere for awhile.
Bloodborne isn’t too bad for level-grinding. A short way into the game you can unlock randomly generated side-dungeons, as well as a coupla lucrative farming spots.It gets tougher at higher levels, when you hit decreasing returns on your stats; but by that point you’ll be way overleveled for everything bar some of the side content.
Oh, I’m not going back into Bloodborne. Once was enough, it was just too much in the way of diminishing returns in relation to defeating bosses. I just didn’t care after I did. It just felt like I was building or working towards nothing. I know there is lore that could propel me towards wanting to fight more (and I know there are a font of resources available if I ever did want to delve into it), but the way it was presented and offered in game wasn’t attractive to me.
I fear Elden Ring might end up being the same thing if I ever jump into it, but I feel like I might be able to circumvent it via a bigger area to find lesser mobs to grind against before going into bosses. The vast area to explore makes it more attractive, if it makes sense. I doubt I will, but this game does that have that going for it.
Apparently, 7 or 8 bosses in Bloodborne was not far enough to get those RNG dungeons, but thanks for letting me know about them. Always good to learn more about things.
Fair.Theoretically you only need to beat two bosses to unlock Chalice dungeons, but one of them is Gascoigne 😛
He is one of the ones I defeated, basically by completing a circiut of drawing him up to the top, parrying an attack, running off the building and then back upstairs, and repeating over and over.
He is the one boss where I did get the rush from defeating, since it took me many mant tries. It was all downhill from there 😀
Grinding is a lot easier and more fun than in other Soulslike games, since open world lets you explore all the other directions if one feels too difficult for you, and there’s tons ot things to find in the world.
Why do all the article and videos with starting tips assume you’ve made it past the first tutorial boss?
The tutorial boss is literally just a regular ass dude. And also optional.
FFXIV. Still looking for a non-pub/DF endgame group, which is harder than you can imagine on the Crystal datacenter since it seems to be the dumping ground for casual players and AFKers.
Paradise Killer is so wonderful.
Also, don’t hesitate to use the spirit summons in a bossfight if it feels too hard, otherwise. I recommend the jellyfish spirit that poisons your enemies and the skeleton militia that keeps coming back after death. You get the spirit summoning bell from an NPC by resting at the Church of Elleh until nighttime, or teleporting there when it’s night and looking around a bit. You can also upgrade your spirit summons but that’s a bit more complex endeavor. You have to talk to the lady at the Stormpeak Shack, go to the castle, defeat or sneak past the Grafted Scion to find an item from a heap of corpses and bring it back to her. Then talk to her and the blacksmith at the Roundtable Hold a few times to get access to the spirit tuning.