Elden Ring is an Open World Action RPG from From Software. As a Tarnished, it is your destiny to explore the Lands Between and become an Elden Lord. Elden Ring was released on February 24, 2022. This page covers the basic mechanics of Elden Ring, including creating your character, how combat and exploration works, how to level up, and more.

Other Helpful Pages:

• Essential Tips and Tricks
• Things To Do First
• Things Elden Ring Doesn’t Tell You
• Walkthrough Overviews For Regions and Legacy Dungeons
• Controls
• How To Guides

Elden Ring’s Story

Elden Ring’s backstory (some of which was built by writer George R. Martin), is intentionally shrouded in mystery and intrigue. A distant place known as the Lands Between was once ruled over by Queen Marika and her offspring, and they drew their powers from the mighty Erdtree and a golden order known as the Elden Ring.

However, things quickly came to ruin as a secret plot was enacted, and mysterious agents stole the Rune of Death, and killed one of Marika’s children - Godwyn the Golden. These events caused Queen Marika to disappear, and in her absence the demigod children waged war upon one another, but no victor emerged, causing the Lands Between to crumble under never-ending conflict, and the Elden Ring and the golden order it upheld to become shattered.

Though the details remain elusive, it will be up to you to hunt them down as one of the Tarnished - a people long since driven from the Lands Between. Only you can stop the demigods, retrieve the Great Runes they carry, and reunite them to become an Elden Lord. How you decide to go about this, and which alliances you may forge or break along the way.

Much of Elden Ring’s lore won’t be told to you outright, and you’ll have to piece together clues from items, characters you meet, places you discover, and bosses you defeat.

Creating Your Character - Choosing Your Class

Video - Which Class is Best For You?

Upon creating a new character in Elden Ring, you’ll be given a wide range of cosmetic options to choose from in how your character looks. None of these cosmetic options - age, body type, physique, and voice - will affect the gameplay, and you can choose from presets, add facial features, hair styles, and tattoos - even eyepatches.

Note that you will have the opportunity later in the game to completely change how your character looks, free of charge.

This screen will also allow you to choose your character’s starting class. You can think of this as a base origin for your character - an archetype to guide you in a particular playstyle or direction, but it is by no means set in stone. Each starting class excels in a single attribute - or a better spread, and can help you define what kind of Tarnished you want to be: a tried and true heavily armored fighter, a focused sorcerer, or one who is at home swinging swords and invoking faith incantations alike. The full list includes:

• The Vagabond - "A knight exiled from their homeland to wander. A solid, armor-clad origin.” Excels at high starting health, and armed with a halberd and sword
• The Warrior - "A twinblade-wielding warrior from a nomadic tribe. An origin of exceptional technique.” Excels at high dextrous ability alongside formidable stamina, and armed with twin scimitars.
• The Hero - "A stalwart hero, at home with a battleaxe, descended from a badlands chieftain.” Excels at a high starting strength, and armed with a powerful axe.
• The Bandit - "A dangerous bandit who strikes for weak points. Excels at ranged combat with bows.” Excels at a high Arcane for luck and discovery, alongside their strong dexterity, and is armed with a knife and buckler for easy parrying.
• The Astrologer - "A scholar who rates fate in the stars. Heir to the school of glintstone sorcery." Excels at high intelligence and near equally high mind for a strong pool of FP, and is armed with a staff and basic sword.
• The Prophet - "A seer ostracized for inauspicious prophecies. Well-versed in healing incantations." Excels at high faith alongside excellent mind to compliment their magic pool, and is armed with a short spear.
• The Samurai - "A capable fighter from the distant Land of Reeds. Handy with katana and longbows." Excels at extremely high dexterity, and is armed with a longbow and uchigatana that inflicts bleed.
• The Prisoner - "A prisoner bound in an iron mask. Studied in glintstone sorcery, having lived among the elite prior to sentencing." Balances high dexterity and intelligence for casting spells and swinging their rapier.
• The Confessor - "A church spy adept at covert operations. Equally adept with a sword as they are with their incantations." Enjoys a near equal spread of faith, mind, dexterity, and strength to bolster melee combat with holy incantations.
• The Wretch - "A poor, purposeless sod, naked as they day they were born. A nice club is all they have." Excels at nothing, with the potential to be good at anything as they start with a clean spread of attributes, but only starts with a basic club.

Be sure to view a more detailed breakdown of every starting class here with our guide.

Gameplay Basics - Combat and Exploration

Like the Dark Souls series before it, Elden Ring is focused on pitting you against challenging encounters, and you’ll need to approach every fight carefully - whether it’s a group of hungry wolves or one very imposing knight. There’s no easy way around this, and you should expect to spend a fair amount of time dying to your opponents - but as long as you learn from these fights, and start to anticipate their attack patterns and traps, you can eventually emerge victorious.

If you feel like you're hitting a wall, you’re also encouraged to keep exploring elsewhere in the Lands Between. Certain encounters are more difficult than others, meaning there’s always somewhere else to go to hone your skills, find new items, and level up until you feel ready for another round. Exploration is just as important as combat in Elden Ring, because you’ll often find items everywhere you look that can be helpful.

Melee Combat

For those new to the series, it’s highly recommended to enter the optional tutorial dungeon at the start of the game, as it will give you an excellent primer on how different attack styles work:

• Light attacks will be your bread and butter if you choose to engage in melee, and each weapon has its own style and chain attacks - and this includes jumping and dashing attacks as well.
• Strong attacks use up much more stamina, but can devastate enemies or knock them off their guard - even more so when used as a jumping strong attack.
• Dodging is crucial to avoiding incoming attacks - even huge crushing blows from giants - due to the limited invulnerability you receive during the dodge animation. Lighter armor means faster and farther rolls, while having your equipment load over a certain threshold will make your rolls slower and less effective - passing 100% you’ll be unable to roll entirely.
• Shield parries can instantly open up an attacker to become vulnerable to a critical strike - but not all enemies are susceptible, and the window is very slim, making it hard to land on unpredictable opponents
• Guard Counters are a safer option to retaliate against a strike, allowing you to soak a blow with your shield and strike back with a strong attack that doesn’t rely on a short window of opportunity. When combined with a shield that absorbs 100% of incoming physical damage, you can brave many attacks and repay them with massive damage that can often break their stance - but you’ll need to ensure the incoming attack is not part of a chain, or you’ll become vulnerable when launching your counter.

Remember that every enemy - and your own character - has a “Super Armor” value that is similar to Sekiro’s posture system. In Elden Ring, the super armor isn’t displayed, but repeated attacks will slowly erode an opponent’s armor. Fighters will begin to regenerate their super armor if the offensive is not kept up, though enemies you face - especially bosses - regenerate at a much slower rate. Deal enough damage (even if it’s blocked), and you can eventually break the super armor to render them susceptible to a critical strike! Bigger weapons tend to deal more damage to super armor - as does jumping strong attacks and guard counters.

Spell Casting

If swords and spears aren’t your style, Elden Ring boasts a number of different spells to wield. You’ll have to “equip” a certain number of spells at a time when resting at a Site of Grace using memory slots, but spells can fulfill a wide variety of roles from offense to defense and buffs. Some spells can even summon magical weapons to strike down in place of physical ones, letting you enjoy the benefits of a melee fighter without having to invest in strength or dexterity. However, you must have a staff or catalyst equipped in your hand to cast spells - and you can freely slice with a weapon in one hand while prepping spells in the other.

In Elden Ring, certain spells can be charged by holding down the cast button to increase their effects - but the cost will stay the same. Other spells can be cast while moving, or used near-instantly after performing other actions for quick combo strikes. Some can even be chain-casted, allowing you to fire multiple salvos of magical attacks so long as you have the stamina to keep things rolling.

Ranged Combat

Aside from swords and spells, Elden Ring also allows you to utilize a variety of bows and crossbows to deal damage at range. Ammo can come in many forms, and can even be crafted to provide effects like bleed, fire, and sleep - and can be helpful for picking off targets before they get close enough to cause trouble.

Bows can be quickly swapped to be held in both hands, and you can either lock onto a target for rapid fire hits, or aim manually by holding down the left bumper, and choosing between two ammo types to snipe with. This can even be done on horseback, but you’ll need to orient Torrent towards your foes, or you’ll likely miss your mark.

Crossbows can also be wielded with less focus on dexterity than bows, and have the added bonus of being able to be wielded in one hand. To compensate, they have to be manually loaded before each shot, and don’t scale with your attributes - but they can prove very useful for dealing ranged damage in the heat of battle.

Exploration

Just as important as fighting is discovery, and Elden Ring has plenty of it. As you rest at the various Sites of Grace to replenish your health and recharge your flasks, you may spot the glimmering wisps of gold pointing off in the direction of your next big task. This usually comes in the form of the large Legacy Dungeons in which the demigods of Elden Ring reside, but that doesn’t mean you need to head right for them.

It’s often best to fully explore the region and find the various map fragments that comprise the area before trying to take on the main attraction of each region, as you’ll find countless points of interest worth checking out that can help you in the long run. This can include some of the following:

• Ruins and Encampments where various enemy soldiers are entrenched, and often guard chests of loot
• Mini Dungeons, some easily missed, others with clues to point the way - and each contains an assortment of enemies and its own mini-boss protecting valuable treasure
• Nomadic Merchants found in odd corners of the world resting by bonfires that can sell unique items and hints
• Gusting vortexes known as Spiritsprings that allow you to use Torrent to leap up huge cliffs in a single bound to bypass chokepoints and explore new areas
• Portals that lie forgotten in ruins that can transport you to unknown destinations - often one-way trips, to discover entirely new regions
• Roaming Field Bosses that can be found in every region, guarding special areas or appearing only in the dead of night to strike you down
• Mysterious little Teardrop Scarabs that scuttle away with balls of treasure you must race down and kill to claim their riches
• Enigmatic characters that may have questlines of their own that you can participate in or ignore, and can repeatedly show up in new regions as you help advance their story.
• Magical Keys, Cooking Recipes, and enhancements for your flasks that are hidden all over the place.

How to Level Up

When you first start your adventure in Elden Ring, you’ll gain Runes from defeating enemies, or even crushing glowing skulls on the ground to loot Golden Runes, but won’t have a way to spend them.

You’ll need to begin exploring the open world, and activate at least three Sites of Grace in Limgrave’s overworld and then rest before the mysterious Finger Maiden Melina will appear before you, offering an accord. At his point, she’ll let you exchange Runes to level up your attributes, and the more you level up, the more it will cost.

Just be wary - as dying will cause you to drop all your Runes where you fell, and if you die on the way to get them back, they’ll be lost forever. Luckily, the Golden Runes you can find on bodies or by crushing glowing skulls can be stockpiled until its time to purchase something from a merchant or level up, at which point you should use them.

Using Torrent

Torrent is your trusty steed that will be your main mode of transportation for your entire adventure. He can be summoned with a special item, and it's highly recommended to place this item in your pouch to quickly access Torrent by holding down Y and pressing a D-Pad button. You can also quickly dismount by pressing the crouch button, and doing so while riding will let you perform a leap which you can chain into an attack on unsuspecting enemies.

Torrent moves faster than your Tarnished does, and pressing the sprint button will give you a burst of speed in exchange for a bit of stamina (only in combat - when you're exploring your stamina won't be depleted). You can't exactly defend yourself on horseback, so you'll need to make use of Torrent's speed and agility to evade attacks - and his double jump ability.

With Torrent you'll be able to explore much more of the Lands Between, and even utilize large gusting tornadoes called Spiritsprings to rapidly ascend or descend vertical planes life cliffs and gorges.

Summoning Spirit Ashes

Once you've met Melina and gained your trusty spectral mount, you can fast travel back to the Church of Elleh and meet the Snow Witch, who will offer you spirit ashes and a Spirit-Calling Bell.

This this item, you can cast summonable spirits by finding their ashes to assist you in combat. They'll cost FP (or sometimes even HP) that will vary based on how strong the spirit is, how many of them appear, and what their moves are. Spirits generally mimic the enemies you'll face in the Lands Between, so you can use their tactics and abilities to your advantage to overwhelm and redirect the attention of your enemies.

Spirit Summons can only be cast when near specific sites - noted by the ghostly arch symbol that appears on the left side of the screen, which often shows up near boss fights, major enemy camps, and certain open areas in legacy dungeons. Unlike summoning another player or NPC, spirits won't make bosses stronger, so you can use them as an extension of your own abilities.

Mini Dungeons

As you explore the open world, be on the lookout for small caves and doors embedded into the rock walls and cliffs. These mini dungeons provide small challenging encounters that can comprise of anything from a few small rooms to winding catacombs or multi-level mines full of dangerous enemies and traps. These will all culminate with a miniboss that provides ample challenge, and allows you to summon friends or spirits to aid you in the fight.

Many of these dungeons are located off the beaten path, and many can easily be overlooked. Be sure to keep a lookout for statues you can interact with to point the way, or ghostly candelabras that summon spirits who walk towards these secret entrances.

Legacy Dungeons

As you follow the guidance of grace pointed out at the sites of grace you rest at, you may find them pointing to imposing looking castles and fortresses that tower over the landscape. These are the Legacy Dungeons that may be familiar to fans of the Dark Souls series, as they provide a more linear and harrowing experience compared to the wide open lands around them. These areas are extremely difficult, and feature some of the strongest bosses that include the demigods vying for control of this land.

In these areas, you'll need to advance cautiously between checkpoints, and search for different avenues to advance, overcome obstacles, and find treasure along the way. Spirit Summons will be limited in these places, and powerful enemies will be numerous, but certain shortcuts can make return trips easier.

You may also find that verticality plays a bigger role in these dungeons. Fall damage is greatly reduced in many areas, allowing you to drop down to low rooftops, hop across gaps, and discover new secrets and routes to bypass patrols.

Important How-Tos

As you spend your first few hours in Limgrave, you may have lots of questions or run into things that might not make sense. Be sure to get more info on these helpful how-tos to steer you in the right direction:

• How to Fast Travel
• How to Get the Flask of Wondrous Physick
• How to Access the Roundtable Hold
• How to Access Multiplayer (Co-op, Invasions)
• How to Wield Weapons in Two Hands
• How to Escape the Sellia Crystal Tunnel Trap