Teaching How to Play: Elden Ring

Words: 4051 Approximate Reading Time: 30-35 minutes

Since the inception of this project, I’ve been eager to get to Elden Ring. I’ve written before about some interesting aspects of how the early game is devised to push you to explore, and I wanted to dig into that idea more. Because that bit of teaching is core to what I’ve been talking about this whole time: that when we as players think about being tutorialized, we need to think not just about the individual buttons that the game is telling us to press, but the more general approach to problem solving that the game wants us to engage in.

Elden Ring also serves as a fascinating case study in some ways because of some of its stumbles, and the way in which knowledge of the game’s predecessors and the “git gud” mentality affects gameplay. I’ve already mentioned on multiple occasions within these tutorialization essays how the underlying philosophy adopted by a significant chunk of the community revolves around just bashing your head against a particular wall until the wall breaks. I’ve also mentioned that this is, within the language of these games, the “incorrect” way to play. It of course still yields success (and sometimes does become necessary), but the games are trying to push you away from that mentality.

Elden Ring is arguably most clear about avoiding this approach, and yet a number of players can still get stuck in it. Likely not because they have refused to listen to what the game is telling them, but because they never heard it in the first place. Players – perhaps just about all of us – have had our minds poisoned to some degree by the idea that we must overcome this obstacle as we are. If we cannot, that is our failure as a player.

So I wanted to look at how Elden Ring is set up to try and drive players away from that mentality and towards an arguably healthier approach to challenge. An approach which still acknowledges that challenge exists and is difficult, but which gives us far more power to adjust that challenge than we might initially realize.

To stop and make sure that we cover the concept of the game’s needs, let’s revisit the list. As I’ve argued consistently across these essays, the job of any game is to teach you how to become a good player of that game. And being a good player requires a certain set of skills that the game therefore needs to help you cultivate over time. If we understand what those skills are for a given game, we can then lay out what it is that a game needs to do to help you reach that goal.

For Elden Ring as with other FromSoft games, it needs to prepare you for challenge and death. Since you’re going to be dying a lot, it needs you to not see that death as a frustration, but as a temporary bump in the road. If you get too tilted, you’ll abandon the game altogether. So getting you in the mindset that death is going to be pretty constant is a necessary lesson the game has to communicate.

The game also needs to teach you about exploration, and here’s where Elden Ring draws its major difference from its predecessors. I argued that this need was universal among the other FromSoft games, but Elden Ring is an open world game. That means players will often be exploring in a non-linear fashion, finding different mini-dungeons and landmarks at different points in their playthroughs. And since Elden Ring does not provide the player with markers on their map to designate where those dungeons are – except after they’ve been located – the game also needs to teach players how to search for and find those dungeons. If players simply follow the main path or don’t know how to explore effectively, they will run into one or both of two problems. One, they’ll be too weak in terms of level and equipment to continue, and will get frustrated. Two, they will struggle to find additional side paths which might contain useful loot, and will get frustrated.

The third thing is that the game needs to teach the player to think about their toolset and use it to their advantage. Part of this idea will go hand-in-hand with the idea of exploration. Sometimes the best approach to a problem is to come back later. But there are also a variety of tools that the game very clearly tells the player to make use of. Among these are two that stick out. One is the basic throwables and buff items that you can craft. Finding tons of materials out in the open world and then using them to make grenades or an item that raises your defense temporarily means that the game wants you to make use of these items, and liberally. The other is summoning. Fairly early into the game you’ll get access to a special bell which can be used to summon a variety of helpful creatures – animals, or constructs, or (non-player) humans. These summons are pretty much invaluable in boss fights, since they draw aggression away from you and serve as an extra source of damage. Making use of these tools is important, and the game needs to teach you to use them.

So we know what the game needs to teach, but how well does it do so?

Elden Ring and Learning

We’re going to stick with our old rule of choosing the first option the game gives us for character creation. While there is a difference in the presentation, we’re not going to dig into that difference here.

The game then starts us off in a chapel with a message to read. This gives us an indication of what to be on the lookout for when we want tips – a common aspect of these games that an expert would be well-versed in. Outside the chapel, there’s not much to do but just follow the fairly linear path into a clearing where we face a boss. The Grafted Scion is a grotesque creature with numerous limbs in which it wields a number of swords. It hits hard and has a rather wild move set that will almost certainly kill you.

And indeed, you learn you were supposed to die. You’re not going to get sent back to try again, but treated to a cutscene where you are revived. This process then gives you access to your recovery item: a flask for restoring your health and a flask for restoring your magic power.

Where you wake up is a cave which gives you two options. Well, kind of.

Digression: Directing and Misdirecting

What lurks here is a choice between two paths. If we follow the sightline that the camera shows us, we see a set of stairs leading up to a door. This is progress, and brings us to the wider world.

Meanwhile, over to our right is a hole we can jump into to be taken through a proper tutorial. The kind that will tell us the basic buttons and make sure we know what we’re doing, as well as introducing us to the more specific mechanical workings of Elden Ring.

However, the layout of this section is a pretty egregious mistake. One that FromSoft had to fix soon after the game’s release. A number of articles were written about players straight up missing this tutorial because, as I said, the camera points you as a player toward “progress,” and doesn’t really direct you to the tutorial. If you’re looking around, then you will probably see the hole and decide to jump down. But the game hasn’t really taught you to look around. All it’s really done is kill you.

And for something so important, it’s impressive how much this bit was bungled.

And it communicates a valuable lesson about the ability for giving players the opportunity to skip the tutorial, and how you want to implement it. Because there’s value in giving players that choice: if they feel comfortable with the game, or have played before, they can just get to the meat of the game. But by the same token, when you allow players to skip a tutorial, you give players the ability to accidentally skip the tutorial. And that can cause as much of a problem – maybe an even bigger problem – as forcing experienced players to sit through that tutorial.

And so the mistake FromSoft made here was the layout. The option for skipping the tutorial is the one that is the most clear and obvious: door at the top of a set of stairs bathed in light. There’s even a cool looking tree you might want to check out right next to those stairs. Meanwhile, the tutorial itself is off-camera, literally hidden from you unless you choose to stop and look around.

FromSoft eventually addressed this by adding a little pop-up window informing the player that there was a tutorial. It’s a very subtle change, and yet it allows new players (or even FromSoft veterans) to get a handle on this game and learn some valuable aspects of playing the game.

And the misstep and fix helps us see how direction is so important to all of this. The way in which the game is laid out and introduces concepts is part of how you teach players. How you teach them where to go, what to do, and so on. And it’s just as possible to give them poor direction as it is to give them good direction.

The Wide Open World

I’m going to gloss over the tutorial itself. It does what a tutorial does: it tells you the mechanics, introducing everything and giving you opportunities to practice those new techniques, complete with a boss at the end. In a sense, this tutorial also introduces you to the sense of accomplishment that comes with victory. After your very first enemy being a boss that absolutely wrecked you, these fairly simple victories get you back up to speed and let you know that you can win. Even if it takes a few tries.

But let’s head out. Admittedly, we’re introduced to a weird fog wall that we can’t go through, with a gargoyle statue nearby. We may not know what to do with this, but the fact that we can interact with the statue and see that there’s something beyond the wall probably means it’s worthwhile to visit here later. Let’s make a note of it.

We take an elevator up and get treated to the world proper. An NPC waits for us just a little bit ahead, and out in the distance we can see a broken-down church. And between us and that church is a big guy in golden armor on a horse.

Our interaction with the “Site of Grace” – the rest points that restore our health and recovery items – tells us about the “guidance” system. When we look at most of those rest points a thin stream of gold will emanate from them pointing us towards our next “goal.” We can thus follow them in a line from point to point to figure out where to go next. And indeed, this one points toward the church. So maybe we should check that out.

And of course, the straight line takes us up to the guy on the horse, who proves to be a boss. And a tough one at that. In fact, too tough. He is likely to wreck us much like the Grafted Scion did, sending us right back to the Site of Grace. We can try a few times, but we might arrive at the conclusion that it’s not worth banging our head against the wall. We can just go around and make note of him for later.

This reaction is one that both new players and veterans alike might reach, and it’s a conclusion that we are supposed to reach. In fact, it’s a lesson that is perhaps most valuable to veterans. For many people facing an obstacle, especially those who have been weaned on the various Souls games, the response is to keep attacking that obstacle until it is overcome. Just fight the boss over and over again until you win. And in Elden Ring, you’re not supposed to do that. If you find something to be a bit much for you, don’t “learn the fight” and “git gud.” Just go somewhere else. Come back later. There’s a whole world to explore with all sorts of other things, and that boss will still be there when you want to try again.

So let’s run around this dude on a horse and head to the church, where we encounter a merchant and an anvil. The merchant will have some valuable supplies for us, including that kit I mentioned for crafting items, which we hopefully buy immediately. He will also have some recipe books that we’ll need to expand the number of things we can craft, as well as some key items we’ll need for that crafting process. Meanwhile, the anvil introduces us to upgrading items and also keys us in to what we’ll need, providing a smithing stone (though only one, so we don’t have enough to actually upgrade our weapon). So this place will be worth revisiting in the near future. Both since we probably don’t have enough currency to purchase all of those items, and since this is the place to go when we find another smithing stone.

Exploration and Good Direction

If we follow the guiding light from the church Site of Grace, we find ourselves on a path through a slightly forested area. And here is an example of good direction. As we walk down that path, we will see on our left a crashed wagon. Nearby is an enemy leaning over a corpse and an item on that corpse. As we go to get the item and kill the enemy, our eye can be drawn to the debris dotting the land in front of us and leading to the mouth of a cave. That’s something interesting to explore!

And this is the opposite side of the coin of the direction error I pointed out earlier. One of the things a game can do to help you understand how to explore and move around a game is subtly direct your eye to certain objectives. The famous line that people know comes from the development of Half-Life, regarding light sources: if you want a player to go somewhere, light it up.

Having something just off the path that leads to a new cave to explore gives us an intuitive lesson about roaming the world of Elden Ring. Just following the path isn’t enough. There’s all sorts of stuff just waiting around. Indeed, the cave is going to be our introduction to the “dungeons” of the game – mostly linear areas that end with a boss fight and a special reward of some kind. Sometimes the rewards may be useful to our character, and sometimes not, and admittedly that does mean we may need to check everything to be sure we aren’t missing anything. But in turn, that exploration means that we kill enemies and get the currency to increase our levels (eventually, as we don’t currently have access to that function). So while the direct reward of a dungeon may not be valuable, the continual process gets us prepared for tougher fights.

After we clear out the cave and return to the overworld, we can continue on our path. Which takes us to a set of crumbled ruins filled with enemies. This area is important for a handful of reasons, as it not only provides a Site of Grace where we will unlock the ability to level up and a mount to ride around the world, but plenty of little goodies that can teach us how to explore further.

For one, the ruins themselves will contain a set of stairs leading down into a little basement, which contains a chest. This element of these ruins is universal, so that whenever you see these ruins you know there’s some kind of goodie to be found.

Similarly, we will see several large wagons, and by investigating them closely we will find a couple of them have chests that we can open up to get more equipment. Since we’ll likely run into more of these throughout the game, we will want to keep an eye out for them and remember what they’re for.

And finally we will see a stone marker in the ground with an item on it, which we can pick up to acquire a map of the region.

Speaking of the map, the game will try to use the map to push us to explore more by giving us little markers to check out. One thing we might notice is that on the blank parts of the map there are still roads, with some kind of mark along the way. And if we are curious enough to go check one of those out, we’ll find that those map markers correspond to the stone markers where we find more region maps. So if we enter a new zone, we can prioritize finding maps, and know how to do so.

But even on the completed maps, we find some interesting things to check out. Various structures – albeit small ones – provide us with potential ruins or dungeons to explore. And in particular is an orange ring which should stand out. If we go investigate that, we find ourselves in a special dungeon that is a mine for smithing stones – the items we use to upgrade our weapons. We can gather up a bunch of stones to upgrade our starting equipment, and the dungeon itself will even help teach us some of the basic mechanics for exploring dungeons thoroughly. These will include platforming and extra branches that exist off of elevators.

And with some more upgrade materials, we can head back to the anvil, where we will be greeted by another NPC who provides us with an important item called the summoning bell, along with a set of summoning ashes. These ashes are used to bring additional creatures into a fight (usually boss fights) that can do extra damage and also distract an enemy for us. These summons are incredibly important for managing boss fights effectively, so the item is all but necessary for getting through the game.

Now there’s a lot that could be talked about in this early game, because with an open world players can go in all sorts of directions. You could take the advice of the game and just explore. You could seek out and find more dungeons. You could prioritize finding new zones and getting maps. Whatever you want, it all serves the same basic purpose.

But let’s imagine that you want to follow the literal path being provided by the game. You’re still getting those little guidance lights, so you follow them from grace to grace until you find yourself at a boss fight: Margit the Fell Omen. Margit serves as a wall, and an important one. Although technically optional (there is a way around this boss fight), most players are going to focus on fighting him until they win. But when those fights take place is important.

Like with that dude on a horse from earlier, Margit is an opportunity for the game to push you to explore. Getting other equipment, upgrading your weapons, gaining more levels, and so on. Push yourself to a point where you feel comfortable fighting this boss. Don’t just bang your head against the wall until you finally win. The game gives you this hard boss not so that you can spend hours learning and being frustrated, but so that you can spend hours playing the rest of the game and having fun.

And indeed, there are further rewards for exploration. One dungeon in particular provides you with a merchant (a recurring character from the FromSoft games that veterans will be familiar with) who sells a special item that can be used to temporarily stun Margit. If you put off exploration until later, you may not find this item until it’s too late and worthless to you in the fight. But if you do as the game urges and explore, you increase your odds of getting that item, which in turn directly helps you with the fight.

Concluding Remarks

There is so much to talk about with the “early” game of Elden Ring, and yet in a way a lot of it will eventually boil down to the same basic lesson: explore. The game provides this beautiful and expansive world for you to run around in and try different things and figure out what works for you, so you may as well do it. If you find a boss that gives you trouble, just go somewhere else. The boss will still be there.

And so many of the details of how the game is set up showcases how the game is both trying to encourage you to explore, and how to explore. It is a lesson as valuable for new players as for veterans.

So let’s see how it measures up.

The game definitely prepares you for death and challenge. Dying is a fact within this game, and you are introduced to that fact early and often. The first enemy you encounter being a boss that is almost certainly too tough for you could conceivably be enough. But then the first enemy you encounter once stepping foot into the world proper also being a boss that is almost certainly too tough for you cements that lesson. There are going to be tough enemies and bosses, they will absolutely destroy you, so you need to get used to that and figure out what you want to do next.

As for exploration, as I mentioned the game really tries to push you to roam the vast world and find extra stuff to do. Of course, it being an open world, you have an opportunity to just find a place or an encounter that is too much. Indeed, an early game trap could easily put you in one of those places. But outside of those few cases, you will have the opportunity to leave and return later. Hence the importance of making note of obstacles that you can’t access or overcome at the time. An important function of the map is to let you place little stamps that you can use to remind yourself of something for later. Encountered a boss that’s too tough? Put a little skull marker on it and come back once you’ve gained some more levels and try again.

And that goes hand-in-hand with the sense of rethinking your approach to challenge. And here we get to see the big guy on a horse pulling double duty. He not only teaches you about the difficulty of the game, but also serves as a tutorial for avoiding the “git gud” mentality. You are supposed to say “okay, this is too much” and then wander off. The same is true of Margit later. Or the dragon in the lake near where you start. And so many other points of interest in the early game and later on. Sometimes the game will just hand you a challenge with the idea that you should stop and ask if you really want to do it now.

A potential – though not necessary – corollary to that lesson is giving players the opportunity to try out different strategies without worry. Maybe you could beat this boss if you used up some of your items. If those items were limited by how many you could find, then you would be more hesitant to try out those alternative strategies. But since so many of those items are infinite – even if it means spending a bit of time gathering the materials – you can rest safe knowing that you’re never “wasting” them.

Although the game goes through a major stumble early on, it still does some pretty amazing things in trying to teach players how to play through fairly subtle design. And even from those mistakes we can learn something valuable about how those problems can be avoided.