
Seanbaby: Like the rest of the world, Brockway and I are playing Elden Ring. And like the rest of the world, our experiences are wildly different. FromSoftware basically made a game the same size as our actual planet and let you go off in whatever direction you want without any explanation or backstory. Your characterâs statistics are Savvy, Gardening, Pep, Robustness, and Fingermancing, and none of them do or change anything. Each individual weapon requires 3 weeks of training to properly operate. The tutorial covers 1% of this, doesnât care if youâre listening, and is located in a cave youâll run past. The entire world agrees (and is right) when it says Elden Ring is the fucking best.
Brockway: Elden Ring is maybe the best game I have ever played. Itâs beautiful, terrifying, enormous, and every inch is dense with atmosphere. And thatâs coming from me.
This cannot be overstated: I donât just hate FromSoftware games, I think they indirectly ruined gaming for the last decade. If I were given one corporation-killing bullet and sent back in time to eradicate a game company from pre-existence, I would file as an S-Corp and blow my brains out. It is impossible to pick just one video game developer that deserves destruction. But FromSoftware would be on the list â not because they made edgelord no-compromise games full of hateful bullshit (they did), but because every single company saw Dark Souls and thought they could do it, too. They could not. I started this game personally angry at it, and now I love it so completely Iâm going to write one half of an article about how I donât understand it. Thatâs how fucking good it is. Iâd say Iâm about to eat crow but Iâve literally been eaten by a crow several times in Elden Ring so I think they anticipated this turnabout.
Seanbaby: Anyway, Iâm a bit further along than Brockway, so I decided to write him this walkthrough and explainer for the hit game Elden Ring. Hopefully it will be useful to you too.

Brockway: Holy hell, your character looks like that? Hereâs mine:

She looks like an anemic schoolgirl dressed as a lost sock for a Halloween party whose theme is Sad Things Youâve Forgotten. We are already not playing the same game.
Seanbaby: To start, letâs explore! Pick a point on your map that looks like it has something and head there. This is easy because every corner of every room or landmass has something. A crucial item, a hilarious sudden bear, at least once an entire lost continentâ the people who made this game are maniacs. There are more lootable remains and dungeons in this than in Steven Seagalâs Russian home. If youâre used to games like Grand Theft Auto that will render 6,000,000 square miles of woods to hold one health pack and a .0004% chance of Bigfoot, Elden Ring will feel like an hour long orgasm, or as itâs probably called in the gaming community, âmommi 5pr0inging.â
Okay, so once you find your destination, ride that way on your ghost horse. This wonât work since the landscape is a maze of impassable mountains and unsurvivable chasms.

Brockway: I pointed toward what looked like a lovely tree and I fell down a well into a city beyond time and now Iâm hiding from ghost cavemen. Is this normal? Is this the normal first level?
Seanbaby: No problem, just put a vague description of what youâre looking for into Google until you find a Reddit thread where someone is trying to get to the same place. Youâre almost one tenth there!
Brockway: I looked up âghost cavemenâ and I just get a Scooby Doo episode. Hereâs the thing: There are exhaustive guides for every part of this game because itâs the biggest thing in the world right now, and every single human being on Earth is currently putting 600 hours into it. But you will never find one cohesive place to reference that information, because thereâs too much missing. I would argue that is the gameplay loop of Elden Ring: You donât know shit, try to survive it.
Just read through all 40 pages of the IGN guide on the Poison Swamp? Too bad, you were actually looking for the Blighted Wetlands, which are behind the Poison Swamp â if you see the Rotten Delta, youâve gone too far. Check out Polygonâs guide on the Bog of the Unclean, but donât just rely on that or youâll miss the entrance to the hidden dungeon (an invisible wall beneath a dragonâs ass) containing the Grandsword of Fervent Sundering, a weapon which splits the world in two with every swing and is vital for beating the sub-tenth secret megaboss of the Udderdark. Sean, I am barely making this up. What the fuck am I supposed to be doing and please hurry, I just saw a spectral neanderthal squat by my bush and sniff.

Seanbaby: The place youâre looking for is named something like Hargothâs Fingerless Sorrow, and to get to it you need to have first ridden Majestaâs Carousel into The Moist. Youâre going to want to Google one of those next, but by now youâre going to run into a second problem. Because Elden Ring doesnât exactly have a story so much as a random series of very strange events happening in a different order for everyone, telling anyone about anything is a spoiler. For instance, I shouldnât have ruined your first hilarious sudden bear death, and Iâm sorry. The point is, if getting to a location involves riding past a pretty waterfall, smaller-than-normal man bat, or unexpected bear, people arenât going to want to tell you about it. Plus, you canât even get to The Moist until youâve taken the lesser pubic bone from Moff Torment the Key Pubis.
Brockway: Oh, is that what thatâs for? I accidentally stole it from those guys (heâs eight men fused together at the pelvis) after I missed a jump to a rooftop and fell into a whirlpool that did kill me â oh, how it killed me! â but in a way where I then woke up in a special realm of slughell that is only accessible by dying in that exact fashion.

Seanbaby: Okay, I know where that is. Search for âlavaslug +maze -scoobyâ and youâll find a map someone made. Not of that cave, but keep following the different wiki links outward, some of which will be empty placeholder pages by SEO clickbait sites, until you get to the second of eleven optional questlines leading there. You did the 13th, which is not recommended. Okay, youâre going to run into some trouble along the way, so let me talk you through Elden Ring combat.
Brockway: Jesus Christ, thank you. I thought I could take the ghost of this giant because he was chained up, but it turns out he just uses that chain in horrible ways and he punted half of me over a mountain. I still woke up in hell though, because you canât leave hell until all parts of you find the exit roughly at the same time. Gimme some tactics.
Seanbaby: No problem. When I come across a sounder or shrewdness of enemies, I use my small laser spell against them. I think itâs called Glintsparkle Fingerburst, but Sparkleblade Virginurge should work fine. Getting the drop on them is easy because Elden Ring creatures can only detect shapes four feet in front of them, and no noise at any range. Hereâs where you have to be careful, though. After the first guy dies, the others will carefully and slowly decide to ignore it, giving you barely enough time to kill any number of others.

Brockway: This looks familiar! I also use that and only that magical rock on literally everything I see. Itâs the most powerful spell in the game as far as I know. I actually saw a clip of it before I started and it made me giggle, so I made my character a magical girl from an anime, figuring Iâd find a little sailor outfit at some point. And I did find a little sailor outfit, but it was made from little sailors.
Hey check this out, I was really proud of the way I barely killed these hideous children who live in a shrub with my magic rocks.

Seanbaby: Oh, youâre doing it the hard way. You want to shoot all your star pebbles at them before they form a child tornado. If theyâre leaping around like this, run fifty yards away and wait a few seconds before they forget about you and take naps. At its core, Elden Ring is a stealth game. And by stealth, I mean flinging noisy laser frisbees from across a small room. You must be the unseen frisbee vengeance of The Shrub Child Woodlands. If thereâs an afterlife in this game, and thereâs definitely at least seventeen named things like Darkroost of the Forgotten, I sent 70,000 souls there and theyâre all wondering what killed them. Oh, but be careful! Not all enemies are normal-sized! If you come across a big enemy, switch to the big laser. I think I use Moontinkleâs Astral Lubricant, oh, but be careful again! Some of the enemies will get all the way turned around and give you a heartbreaking look before they die.

Brockway: âŠ
I donât have that laser. I have Magical Rock, and Three Magical Rocks (Worse). I can merc a whole camp of sleeping peasants doing their best, but if anything moves my Plan B is to find a safe place to die. Is there literally anything else you can teach me about combat?
Seanbaby: No, thatâs all you need to know for combat. Oh wait, sometimes youâll run into a fast boss who jumps out of your laser before itâs done melting him. When this happens, do a somersault and then laser again. Refer to this paragraph later if youâre having trouble with a boss.

Brockway: I found this really cool spell thatâs Three Rocks (Purple) and I tested it out on this fucked up moth and he showed me what rocks are really all about.

We are not playing the same game.
Seanbaby: Yeah, powering up is important in Elden Ring since your Glintfaith damage is determined by your Verve and Beekeeping.
Brockway: Fucking!! I specced fully into Platitude and split some points into Dogma for extra Principles Regeneration. How do I get more runes? Like, I save a good amount to level and then the Dread Children of Maura Tierney eat me from the knees up because I got off Femur Groverâs Hayride before the Bridge of Soft Regret.
Seanbaby: The fastest way to do this is at the Cliffside of Cranky Emu. Ride past the, spoilers ahead, awesome neon skeleton, to get on the ridge overlooking a swamp of fussy emus on the other side of a bottomless canyon. Equip one of your 70 bows, I like Prince Giggleâs Bonestinger, and drop an arrow onto the nearest birdâs head.
Brockway: I have one bow. It is called âa bow.â
Seanbaby: Search online for how to upgrade that to Har Danalâs Creamshot, but youâre going to have to really wrestle with the advanced search settings. Anyway, after youâve done that, hereâs how the plan works: these birds hate with a fury irrational even for birds, and they will charge you with no thought to the certain death between them and you. They will fluff and bluster right into the void and theyâre worth 11,000 experience points. Thatâs the Elden Ring equivalent of a three year community college program. And this game doesnât care if a bird died from your laser or its own stupidityâ all of those points go to you.
If thereâs an afterlife for birds in Elden Ring, and there probably is called Duskwindâs Eternal Aviary, I sent 2,000,000 emus there who will spend eternity agreeing that they are all just so goddamn fucking pissed.

Brockway: Okay, but how do you get past the Blood Ocean? Because I keep dying in the Blood Ocean. You see the Blood Ocean in your gif, right? Thatâs where I live. Thatâs my house. I opened a treasure chest and it moved all of my stuff into the Blood Ocean.
Seanbaby: You can leave, but it takes three tarnished on three cross-platforms to summon a Blood Raft, which reminds me: If youâre really having problems, you can try teaming up with other players. To do this, you canât invite them using a sensible interface. Instead, you use a Wet Finger item to draw your name on the floor. If the Elden Ring servers are online, which are only available between the hours of 25 and 7, this might work after several tries, depending on the number of fish in your inventory. Other players can then use a Grave Melon to witness your Fingershard and Maidencall you into their Tarnishrealm. Depending on the Poise of your armor load, this will tell a number of people, âUnable to summon golden collaboratorâ before you are pulled into a world with one boy who has abandoned his Playstation and another who wants you dead. To streamline this process, it only works in certain areas, and also doesnât work.

Brockway: You literally need to use all of these fingers in a nuanced and undocumented order just to play multiplayer. True story: I had to explain this process to my 74 year old father. We play games together and he wanted to check out Elden Ring. I think the design bible of FromSoftware should be updated with the mandate âyou must be able to explain this to your 74 year old father.â
Seanbaby: In Japan, they have a whole holiday based around explaining a sack of fingers to an elderly man. Itâs another tough thing to Google, but speaking of explaining, be sure to watch out for messages from other players! Notes can be placed anywhere, especially stupid spots, which means the world is graffitied with mean-spirited pranks, people tattling on the pranks, and Iâm done listing things. Every four inches of cliff has a note urging you to jump off, but in a high fantasy code. Because Elden Ring didnât give players the ability to type to each otherâ you have to MADlibs messages together from Game of Thrones speech templates and Narnia keywords. So a cliff might sayâŠ

⊠when what it really means is:

Brockway: I get what youâre saying, but three of the times I committed a trust-fall suicide, it turned out to be the only way to open a portal to a secret cabinet full of Agony Ghasts who, once defeated, gave me a four-handed axe that apparently casts something called The Hungering Hurricane every time you swing it (I canât use axes).

Seanbaby: Yes! Some people will wallglitch back up from the depths of The Ghast Wardrobe just to help other players find the hidden entrance. Itâs madness, and you never know when something is a helpful hint or The Dire Sanctum of Yargâs most pointless prank. Every single dead end has a note that says âtry attackingâ right in front of one that says âliar aheadâ right ahead of one that says âplump but hole.â You have no reason to believe anyone, so you have to hit every wall. Plus, I wasnât kidding earlier when I said those lunatics hid a secret hidden in every place. Thereâs no such thing as a hallway that ends without an item or an invisible door in Elden Ring. Besides, whatâs the harm in telling you to punch a wall? Youâre poking around for extra skeleton chunks in a spider caveâ those three seconds werenât precious to you. But hereâs the thingâ while I was writing this, a video went around of a secret door you have to hit like 50 times to open. Thatâs a nightmare. Think of the chaos that level designer put into the world by telling nerds, âOh, some of these walls only open if you hit them for a half hour. Enjoy your new life. LET ALL JOY DIE HERE IN THE INFINITELY POINTLESS STABS OF YOUR SISTERMILF KATANA +7.â
Brockway: Oh I have that, but I donât have the Perspicacity to wield it. I dumped too many points into Sobriquet thinking it would let me use whips, but it turns out thereâs only one whip and itâs a joke reference to a Japanese folklore character that appeared in a spin-off Souls rhythm game that didnât see western release. It took me several hours of research to get that joke, but itâs pretty funny. First you have to understand that desire resides in the butthole and anti-desire, which also resides in the butthole, are paired concepts that-
Seanbaby: Iâm not sure whatâs going on or why weâre killing so many emus, which isnât unusual for me since Iâm a cutscene skipper, but the only cutscenes Elden Ring shows me is when a boss pulls a part of himself off to reveal more tentacled version of himself. Wait, sorry, spoilersâ every guy in this has half a Resident Evil octopus living inside him, and you donât have a maiden which seems both very important and not something that has any effect on anything you do. There are some people you can talk to, but most of them are sad ghosts and donât seem to care whether youâre paying attention.

Brockway: And yet, and Iâm dead serious here â I love it. Hardly anybody talks about anything and they make no sense when they do, because all dialogue is just for atmosphere. The actual storytelling seems to be done just by exploring an area.
Hereâs my favorite example: I wandered up a hill and then went completely insane and died.
âHuh,â I thought, âthat was weird. I donât remember eating a bunch of insanity. I wonder what happened.â
Three madness deaths later and I had it figured out: There was a tower on a distant mountain flaring an intermittent insanity star. By dodging and rolling between cover so I never looked at the crazy sun, I circled around and climbed atop the tower. There were fifteen starving maniacs and the burning star of lunacy flared with the rhythm of their screams. I managed to slaughter them all in between bouts of explosive sky mania, and broke the curse of the random hilltop!

That picture isnât me, itâs somebody competent enough to use a melee weapon â I canât go back and take a screengrab because I fucking beat it! Thatâs the best sidequest I ever played, nobody gave it to me, nobody said a word, and nothing was ever explained. Later, I killed a village of starving maniacs (who had not synced up into a choir and therefore manifested no lunacy star), and found a note that was like âthe king of madness lives at the bottom of some city.â I donât know what that means or where it is, but I do know Iâm suiciding off of every ledge until I find his cabinet â me and that motherfucker maybe have some unfinished business, I guess?
Seanbaby: Anyway, let me know when you hit the guy who has the unbound star axolotl inside him and Iâll tell you the best laser to use against him.
Brockway: Okay Iâm at that guy, and I hope this makes sense, but now Iâm him? Like I think Iâve become him and it is definitely a punishment. I canât save until I betray something dear to me and oh â oh no. Somebodyâs somersaulting into the room. Seanbaby, you didnât use The Fingerous of Tarnation did you? That was not my Realmsign! Sean, Iâm so sorry, I feel the revulsion growing inside me and it tastes like Axolotl â you cannot dodge my Glitterstar Vomitblast! The Swampwitch lied! Charge your Virginous Nightlaser!
âŠ
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12 replies on âTeamworking Day: Elden Ring đâ
I finally want to play this game after reading this.
This is the single greatest video game review Iâve ever read. Iâm pretty sure Mr. Baby and Brockway are only making up like half of the names.
âSudden bears.â
That is the perfect description. No notes.
No doubt. I still donât know what causes those⊠I figured they were a âdrop bearâ goof.
Hey, for readers who arenât in the Discord, set your Elden Ring group password to 1900HTDG to share buffs with the community!
If I understand correctly, a lot of the lore in Souls games is in the item descriptions. Which is why 90% of players will never see any of it
I feel like this article is telling me that I shouldâve bought Eldin Ring instead of Horizon Forbidden West but I canât be positive
My character is level 22, Iâve spent like a dozen hours running around throwing fireballs at everyone and everything that doesnât talk to me first, just recreating the opening to Lethal Weapon 4 across several square miles of open country, and it turns out I missed an NPC directly north of the starting area who unlocks the basic gameplay features of summoning combat assist spirits and the entire crafting system. I cleared an entire optional dungeon and boss which rewards a new summon spirit, tucked it into my bag which is full of what must be a reeking, putrid mass of herbs and flowers and bones and bloody chunks of meat for crafting, figured âhuh, maybe Iâll be able to use all that sometime after hour twentyâ, and galloped across the greensward looking for more foot soldiers to roast alive.
I found a man who had been magically trapped inside one of hundreds of trees dotting the vast landscape before I found how to use a major new game mechanic developed for this title.
Tell me about it. It took me until hour 80 to realize you can actually rob the chests off those unreasonably large carriages, since I tried it a couple times and couldnât because they were moving. So halfway into the game I was wielding the in-joke giant chainsaw and the sword made out of 500 other swords but still couldnât figure out where everyone was finding regular flails.
I finally found the Cliffside of Cranky Emu earlier this year after 200+ hours of gameplay. I had been assuming it was an exploit which got patched.
Listen Brockway, I can understand not liking the Souls games, but threatening to destroy FromSoftware means threatening to remove Metal Wolf Chaos from existence and that just isnât cool man. The world is a dark enough place as it is.
Holy shit they made Metal Wolf Chaos! The finest George W. Bush simulator ever created!