Ahead of the Elden Ring Closed Network Test – or beta by any other name – we were lucky enough to get early access to the build for a few days. And let me tell you, it is a generous helping of early game Elden Ring.
It’s fair to say I played it a lot – for just short of 23 hours, in fact – and I think I’ve scoured pretty much every inch of West Limgrave, the starting area for the game. For the purposes of the demo, there are five character presets to choose from, though of course there’ll be an extensive character creator in the main game. Each of the beta’s five presets actually come with decent equipment, so there are no wrong choices – whichever one players accessing the network test this weekend decide to go for, it’s really about what preferred play style they’re keen to get a feel for.
Bloody Wolf is a great choice for those staunchly attached to their melee builds, but it’s worth saying that enchanted knight is an incredibly strong all-rounder, with a 100% physical damage reduction shield, beautiful armour and some unique spells. However, if you want to make full use of an amazingly ostentatious spell that you can learn by completing a few challenges, you’ll want to make sure you have a character with high faith stats. My best advice though would be, if you can, to try out a few different builds and see how they change your approach to Elden Ring. For my time with the game, I concentrated on and completed pretty much all of the content with three of the builds I’ve already mentioned – the Enchanted Knight, the Bloody Wolf, and the Prophet.
Elden Ring closed network test previewDeveloper: From SoftwarePublisher: Bandai NamcoPlatform: Played on PS5Availability: Closed beta running November 12th-15th. Release date is February 2th for PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X
When you start Elden Ring and make your way through the (optional) tutorial cave, you’ll hoist some heavy doors open and find yourself in the open world of Limgrave – and from here, you can go pretty much wherever you like. The first thing you’ll likely want to do though is visit a Site of Grace – Elden Ring’s equivalent of bonfires, which as per tradition you’ll want to activate whenever you can. Right from the start of the game, you can fast travel freely between most Sites of Grace out in the open world simply by selecting them from your map – because, in a first from a Soulslike game, Elden Ring has a map. Once you reach out and touch grace at three separate sites, and then rest at the third, you’ll be visited by Melina, who offers to play the part of a Finger Maiden – stop laughing back there – beings who serve the Two Fingers and offer guidance and aid to the Tarnished. This essentially means Melina is your level up lady, trading runes for stat improvements and filling you in on the lore of the world as you travel.
Melina will also gift you spectral Steed Whistle, which allows you to summon your horse/cow mount, whose name is Torrent. You’ll definitely want to unlock Torrent as quickly as possible, as they make getting about on the open world much faster and easier. You can also engage enemies whilst on horseback – Torrent can take damage and can technically die, but will become available again once you rest up at a Site of Grace. Alternatively, if you’re in urgent need of their assistance, you can sacrifice one of your health flasks to bring Torrent back into the fray immediately. Your trusty steed also has a double jump ability, which can be very handy when exploring – or escaping certain enemies.
Elden Ring New Gameplay! Everything You Need to Know About the Elden Ring PS5 Closed Network Test Watch on YouTube
Sites of grace do more than facilitate fast travel – from levelling up and redistributing your health and magic flasks, to setting your current spells and Ashes of War abilities – more on those shortly. Early on in the game, you’re able to obtain a Wondrous Physick flask. This curious reusable resource allows you to combine items called tears to produce various effects when consumed. It’s a bit of a wild card – you can give yourself a stamina boost, or blow yourself up if you aren’t careful. You can reset the effects of the Wondrous Physick flask at Site of Grace, but to be honest I didn’t find much use for it this early in the game. However, it’ll be exciting to see what kind of bizarre concoctions we’ll be able to play around with later on…