Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Forbes
Forbes
Entertainment
Paul Tassi, Contributor

Ten Things I Wish I Knew When I Started ‘Elden Ring’

Elden Ring FromSoftware

Normally when I write my “beginner advice” articles, it’s after I’ve gotten a review copy of a game and am able to get a lot further than everyone else before release. With Elden Ring, I’m writing this two months after the game is out and I’m the one learning new things every day.

So why write it? My gut feeling is that Elden Ring is going to have a long tail of people who are getting into the game well after the fact, due to the incredible word-of-mouth it’s getting, plus its inevitable GOTY awards at the end of the year. I would absolutely recommend Elden Ring to anyone, even if you’ve never played or liked Dark Souls or Bloodborne, and as such, these are going to be some pretty basic tips.

Here are ten things I wish I knew when I started Elden Ring:

1. Sprinting – Okay look hear me out. I know I’m not the only person who didn’t immediately know about sprinting in Elden Ring because the only reason I discovered it was that someone on Twitter said they’d gone 40+ hours without it. Elden Ring does not have the usual “click the stick” to sprint controls, that’s crouch and sneak. Rather, sprint is mapped to the dodge button, B or O, and you have to hold it down to sprint. This is not a normal way to sprint in a video game! Whatever. Also, it works on your horse and going up and down ladders.

Elden Ring From

2. Horse Double Jump – Another thing you will probably discover by accident, but it’s necessary to reach a whole bunch of out of reach places. Your horse can double jump with some sort of magic boost if you just hit jump twice. That’s it. But it’s important.

3. Ash Summons – Again, something the game explains to you, but I’ve seen a lot of people ignore them for too long. Myself included. Have you seen the little white gate logo on your screen sometimes? That means you’re in an area you can summon ash companions. You get ash wolves near the start but eventually you will unlock lots of these. They are essential for diverting enemy and especially boss focus from being just on you. You slot them into your pouch or item rotation and you can summon them once per one of these areas for mana. This is different than summoning a human to help you with bosses, which is also possible, but this is more accessible. You can also upgrade ash summons after a short quest later in the early game, but that’s too long to fully map out here, just look it up.

Elden Ring From

4. Magic Really Is Easier – I know it’s a meme and I am not judging you for going down this path because it’s what I’m doing. Magic is just easier than melee in this game. Not that melee can’t wreck face, but if you’re worried you won’t like Elden Ring because you don’t like the timing of the block/parry/dodge system of meleeing from the other games, magic might be for you with its mostly long range spells and totally different type of gameplay. It makes the early game easier if you ask me, and late game can ramp up to insanity.

5. Remembrances – Had no idea what these were when I first got them. They do not have anything to do with re-fighting the boss. Rather, these are currency you turn into an Old Crone at the Tarnished home base where you can then get a choice between boss items. You can get Godrick’s axe or his dragon fist. You can get Rennala’s staff or her moon spell. There are also mausoleums on the map, giant walking buildings you will have to…stop from walking, where you can duplicate Remembrances so you can get both items. You can do this even after you’ve spent them.

6. You Aren’t Ready for How Big This Map Is – There are large open world maps, and there is Elden Ring. Without giving too much away, the map you see at the start is a tiny fraction of the whole, which also features vertical layers later. Just…prepare yourself. And if you wander into a too-high level zone, just know you’ll probably be circling back around later. And when you think you’ve unlocked the whole map, you’re probably only like 60% there.

Elden Ring From

7. Spell Expansion – As a magic user, this one was tricky, as I was stuck on two slots forever. Eventually the main story will get you some more slots, but the main thing were these towers that asked me to find “three wise beasts” to unlock them. This means you have to find three ghost turtles hidden around the map and kill them (just a single hit) in order to unlock the door. These towers contain a new spell slot each so you can expand your repertoire pretty quickly.

8. There’s No Shame In Farming – This is an RPG, you can farm XP if you want and level and even overlevel for stuff that’s otherwise too hard. This isn’t some grand list of the best farming spots in the game, but if you find a cluster of enemies (in Lingrave, I found a convoy of enemies and a cart pulled by giant monster that I could farm for 3K runes a session) you can go nuts there for a while until you get the levels you’re looking for.

Elden Ring From

9. Points Into Vigor – Pretty much no matter what build you’re going for, you are going to be wanting to sink a few dozen points into Vigor over the long term, lest you reach a point where you start getting one shot by every single enemy. Vigor is not just for melee tank builds and it’s been essential for my range sorcerer class as well. Yes, I’ve seen videos of level 1 bros soloing bosses with base level vitality, but if you’re reading this, that ain’t you. Put points into Vigor.

10. You Can Respec Eventually – If you’re not liking your current playstyle and build, you can start over, or you can just play until you hit the second major boss, Rennala, in the Academy of Raya Lucia. After beating her you will unlock the ability to respect your character relatively easily, so you don’t need to worry about messing up your points for the early part of the game.

So, those are my base level tips. I’ll probably do more later, but hopefully this is enough to get you started.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.