Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition - A Beginner's Guide to Surviving the Lands Between
New to the Lands Between on Switch 2? Here's how to build smart, pick your first weapon, and stop dying to the tutorial boss.
Elden Ring's arrival on Switch 2 as the Tarnished Edition means thousands of people are about to experience the Lands Between for the very first time — and if you're one of them, let's be honest with each other up front: this game is going to kill you, a lot, and it will not apologize for it. That's the point. But there's a persistent myth that FromSoftware games are unfair, and they aren't. They're demanding, which is a very different thing. The players who bounce off usually do so not because they lack skill but because they fight the game's rhythms instead of learning them. This guide won't hold your hand through the whole adventure, but it will front-load the handful of things that separate a smooth opening few hours from a frustrating wall of defeat. Get these fundamentals down and the Lands Between transforms from a brick wall into the best open world in modern gaming.
Choosing Your Starting Class
Your first real decision comes at character creation, and new players tend to agonize over it far more than they should. Here's the reassuring truth: your starting class sets your initial stats and gear, but it absolutely does not lock you into a playstyle for the rest of the game. That said, some starts are gentler than others. For a first-timer, the Vagabond is hard to beat — it opens with a healthy pool of health and solid defensive stats, which gives you the margin for error you're going to need while you're still learning how enemies telegraph their attacks. If the idea of trading blows up close makes you nervous, the Astrologer is the other great pick, letting you chip enemies down with ranged sorcery from a comfortable distance. Whichever you choose, don't spiral over it. You'll unlock the ability to respec later, and most players end their run playing something completely different from how they started.
Explore Before You Fight
If there's one habit that separates players who love Elden Ring from players who rage-quit it, this is it: resist the urge to sprint straight at the first big boss to prove something. The game is quietly begging you to wander instead, and it rewards that curiosity generously. Limgrave, the opening region, is stuffed with things that make you measurably stronger before you ever ring a boss's doorbell. Golden Seeds let you carry more healing flask charges, Sacred Tears make each of those charges heal for more, and Smithing Stones let you upgrade your weapon so your hits actually hurt. A boss that feels impossible on a fresh character often becomes entirely reasonable after an hour of poking around the map first. Exploration isn't a distraction from the challenge in this game — it's the intended way to overcome it.
Summon Spirit Ashes and Allies
Somewhere along the way, a strange bit of community pride convinced a lot of newcomers that using the game's help systems is 'cheating.' Ignore that noise completely — FromSoftware built these tools on purpose, and refusing to use them just makes your first playthrough needlessly miserable. Early on you'll get the Spirit Calling Bell, which lets you summon Spirit Ashes: AI allies who fight alongside you, split the boss's attention, and turn brutal one-on-one duels into manageable brawls. The Lone Wolf Ashes, available almost immediately, are a superb starter summon that punch well above their cost. On top of that, cooperative multiplayer lets you call in other real players or friendly NPCs for the truly nasty encounters. Every one of these is a legitimate tool the designers handed you. Use all of them without a shred of guilt.
Master the Basics of Combat
Once you're actually in a fight, the golden rule is patience, and it's the hardest lesson for players coming from faster action games to internalize. Elden Ring punishes greed ruthlessly. The instinct to mash the attack button the moment you see an opening will get you killed over and over; instead, your job is to watch, learn each enemy's attack patterns, and dodge-roll through their swings before answering with a hit or two of your own. Stamina management underpins all of it — empty your stamina bar at the wrong moment and you're left standing defenseless in the middle of a combo you can't escape. Beginners can lean on a shield to block while they build confidence reading attacks, and once that reading becomes second nature, the truly satisfying skill to graduate to is parrying, which lets you deflect blows and open enemies up for devastating critical hits. It looks intimidating from the outside, but it all clicks once the rhythm does.
Don't Be Afraid to Run
Finally, give yourself permission to walk away from fights, because the open structure of Elden Ring makes stubbornness a genuine trap. Unlike the studio's older, more linear games, you are almost never truly stuck here. If an enemy or an entire area is grinding you into paste, the correct move is often to whistle for Torrent — your spectral steed — and simply ride off to explore somewhere else entirely. Come back an hour later after a few levels, a weapon upgrade, and a new spell or two, and that same wall you couldn't climb frequently crumbles in a single attempt. This is the beating heart of how the game is meant to be played: progress in Elden Ring comes from persistence and preparation, from getting a little stronger and a little wiser, far more than it comes from throwing yourself at the same brute-force challenge until your patience runs out.
Maya Johnson
Gaming journalist and content creator with a passion for helping players succeed.
