Beginner’s guide with 12 tips and tricks to get started

With the launch of Elden Ring’s major DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, numerous newcomers are finding their way into the game. Before you can start with the expansion, however, you must first find your way through the main game. We at MeinMMO are giving you a beginner’s guide with 12 tips and tricks that can help you get started.

Update from June 9, 2024: The article has been updated and provided with new links.

Elden Ring is a complex action role-playing game with a huge open world. The developer is FromSoftware, who are responsible for games like Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Sekiro.

What all of these games have in common is their scope and mechanics, which are complex and not immediately understandable for newcomers. Added to this is a high level of difficulty, as the FromSoftware games want to challenge their players.

It can be quite frustrating if you haven’t played games like this before. That’s why we’re giving you a colorful mix of 12 tips and tricks for getting started in Elden Ring, so that you can immerse yourself in the world more easily and know what to look out for first.

If you haven’t bought Elden Ring yet, here are the 7 most important things you need to know before buying. You can find all the weapons in the tier list here:

You can also see what awaits you in Elden Ring:

Life and death in Elden Ring

What happens when you die? In Elden Ring you collect runes, your XP. You get these mainly by killing enemies or through redeemable runes that you find in the game world.

In addition to the Places of Mercy, Elden Ring now also has checkpoints, so-called Statues of Marika. If you die in an area around these statues, you can start again there, saving yourself the hassle of walking. These are often conveniently located just a few meters from a boss or enemy camp and are automatically activated when you are near them.

Here’s what else you need to consider: Since the difficulty level in Elden Ring is high, you will die a lot, especially at the beginning. First of all, you should know: If you die in Elden Ring, it is not a real failure.

It’s just another step in your journey to mastering the game and learning the mechanics, so dying shouldn’t be seen as a “fail” here, but as a training lesson.

Strengthen your potions and increase their number

How it works: When you start in Elden Ring, you will receive two different bottles for your health points (HP) and your skill points (SP).

However, you only have a limited number of bottle uses available. However, you can increase these as the game progresses and also improve the strength of your HP and FP regeneration.

For this you need two important items:

How to find Golden Seed: Look for small, golden and transparent glowing trees in the game world. There is always a golden seed underneath. While a single seed increases your quota at the beginning, more are needed later in the game (you need 30 in total to unlock 14 bottles). You don’t need to worry about missing a seed, because there are more in the game than you can redeem.

By the way: You can bag a Golden Seed as a souvenir at the beginning and thus take an extra sip with you right at the beginning.

How to find Holy Tears: You can find them in Marika’s churches, which are spread out across the game world. You can easily distinguish them from other places in the landscape and locate them that way.

Once you have the necessary upgrade items, you need to go to a place of grace and there you can make the respective upgrades under bottles. Also pay attention to how you distribute your bottle usage.

If you use a lot of spells, it is a good idea to have multiple FP uses with you. If you use a lot of skills like Ashes of War, you will also need FP reserves.

If you rely on brute force without any frills, you should give your HP potion as many uses as possible.