Every once in a long while, a game arrives that genuinely shifts the landscape of its medium, one that forces the rest of the industry to sit up, take notes, and quietly reconsider what they thought they knew. Elden Ring, released in February 2022 by FromSoftware and published by Bandai Namco, is emphatically one of those games. The collaboration between director Hidetaka Miyazaki, the creator of the Dark Souls series, and George R. R. Martin, the author of A Song of Ice and Fire, sounds on paper like the sort of pitch a marketing department dreams up at 2am. And yet the resulting game is so assured, so vast and so wickedly crafted that it earned a near-perfect critical reception and became one of the best-selling games of its generation. Tarnished, the Lands Between awaits.

The premise drops you into a sprawling, broken fantasy realm called the Lands Between, tasked with tracking down the shards of the shattered Elden Ring and claiming the title of Elden Lord. If that sounds vague, that is entirely by design. FromSoftware’s lore has always been dispensed in dribs and drabs through item descriptions, cryptic NPC conversations and environmental storytelling, and Elden Ring continues this proud tradition of making you feel profoundly confused in the most compelling way imaginable. What it offers in return is a world of staggering scope and artistry, from the golden fields of Limgrave in the early game to the nightmarish rot-blasted wastes of Caelid, all of it presided over by the colossal, luminous Erdtree. It is, without question, one of the most beautifully realised open worlds in the history of the medium.

What sets Elden Ring apart from its Soulsborne predecessors is the transition to a fully open world, and FromSoftware handles this with a confidence that puts many long-established open-world franchises to shame. There are no quest markers cluttering your map, no hand-holding waypoints steering you towards the next objective. Instead, the game trusts you to explore, to get lost, to stumble upon a legacy dungeon you weren’t expecting or a boss encounter that sends you sprinting back the other direction at considerable speed. The combat, meanwhile, is the lock-on-focused, stamina-managed brawling that FromSoftware popularised, refined and expanded with an enormous range of build options spanning sorceries, incantations, bladed weapons, bows, great shields and everything in between. Death will come often, and it will occasionally feel unfair. It rarely actually is.

The game is not without its rough edges. The back third leans heavily on reusing boss encounters, and some players will find the late-game difficulty curve a touch punishing, particularly if they have been neglecting to level up their Vigor stat. NPC questlines, a franchise highlight, can be fiendishly difficult to progress naturally given the sheer scale of the world. On the PS5 specifically, the game launched with some frame rate inconsistencies in performance mode, though subsequent patches improved stability considerably. None of this meaningfully diminishes the achievement on display. Push Square called it the definitive FromSoftware game, setting a new benchmark for open-world design, and it is very difficult to argue otherwise. The orchestral soundtrack alone is worth the price of admission.

Elden Ring is a game that rewards patience, curiosity and a willingness to be humbled repeatedly before triumphing spectacularly. It is enormous, secrets-dense, and endlessly surprising even dozens of hours into a playthrough. For those who have never ventured into a FromSoftware title before, it is arguably the best entry point the studio has ever produced, offering more freedom and flexibility than its predecessors. For veterans, it is a masterclass in everything they already love, expanded to a scale that still feels remarkable. A substantial range of hints, tips, secrets and essential strategies to help you survive and thrive in the Lands Between can be found below.

Elden Ring: Hints, Tips & Secrets

Essential Beginner Tips

• Meet Melina before you do anything else. Resist the urge to charge off into the open world immediately. Follow the guiding light between Sites of Grace until you have rested at three of them, at which point Melina will appear. She grants you the ability to level up using runes and hands you the Spectral Steed Whistle to summon your mount, Torrent. Without her, any runes you collect cannot be spent, meaning every death is pure loss.
• Collect the Spirit Calling Bell from Renna. After meeting Melina and obtaining Torrent, fast travel back to the Church of Elleh at night. A witch named Renna will be perched on the ruins nearby. Speak to her honestly and she will gift you the Spirit Calling Bell and the Lone Wolf Ashes, allowing you to summon spirit allies to assist in boss fights. This is one of the most useful items in the game and is entirely missable if you don’t return at night.
• Invest heavily in Vigor. New players frequently pour their rune upgrades into damage-dealing stats and find themselves dying in a single hit come the mid-game. Aim to bring Vigor to at least 40 before investing heavily elsewhere. The survivability increase is substantial and will save you considerable frustration.
• Spend your runes before risky encounters. Runes dropped upon death can only be recovered if you reach the spot where you died without dying again. If you are carrying a large amount and are about to tackle a boss or a dangerous new area, fast travel to a Site of Grace and spend them on levels or items first.
• Smash glowing skulls with Torrent. Scattered throughout the Lands Between are skulls with lit-up eyes. Ride over them with your horse to shatter them, and they will always drop a small sum of runes. It is a quick, combat-free way to top up your rune count as you explore.
• Upgrade your Flask of Crimson Tears. Your healing flask can be improved in two ways: increasing how many charges it holds (via Golden Seeds found near glowing Erdtree saplings) and increasing how much each charge restores (via Sacred Tears found in churches across the world). Both upgrades are invaluable and should be prioritised throughout the game.
• You can skip Margit the Fell Omen. The first major boss guarding Stormveil Castle does not have to be fought head-on. A cliffside path to the right of the castle gate allows you to bypass Margit entirely and reach Stormveil’s interior. If you do want to fight him, buy Margit’s Shackle from the merchant Patches for 5,000 runes. Using it during the fight temporarily pins him to the ground, giving you free hits.
• Map Fragments are not automatic. The overworld map begins greyed out. To reveal each region, you need to find its Map Fragment, indicated by small orange icons on the hidden map. In the world itself, look for upright stone pillars with glowing inscriptions. Collecting them fills in that area of your map.

Secrets & Hidden Areas

• The teleporter chest in Dragon-Burnt Ruins is a trap. In early-game Limgrave, the Dragon-Burnt Ruins contain a chest in an underground cellar. Opening it teleports you directly to the Sellia Crystal Tunnel in Caelid, a mid-to-late-game area where enemies can kill you in a single strike. If you find yourself there unexpectedly, do not fight anything. Sprint to the nearest Site of Grace to unlock fast travel and escape.
• Nokron, Eternal City is a hidden underground region. This entire area does not exist on your map until you defeat Starscourge Radahn at Redmane Castle in Caelid. Upon his defeat, a meteor crashes near Fort Haight in Mistwood, creating a crater with a path down into the city. Nokron contains some of the game’s finest rewards, including the Mimic Tear Spirit Ash.
• The Mimic Tear boss has a notorious exploit. Before entering the fog gate to fight the Mimic Tear boss in Nokron, unequip all of your weapons, armour and spells. The boss copies your loadout at the moment of summoning, meaning it will spawn completely unarmed. Quickly re-equip your gear once inside and defeat your bewildered, defenceless double with ease.
• The Mimic Tear Spirit Ash is the most powerful summon in the game. Found in a chest behind a fog gate in Nokron’s Night’s Sacred Ground area (requiring one Stonesword Key to enter), this Spirit Ash summons a copy of your own character, complete with your weapons, armour and abilities. Upgrade it using Ghost Gloveworts at Roderika in Roundtable Hold. A fully upgraded Mimic Tear can solo many of the game’s bosses.
• Illusory walls can be struck to reveal hidden passages. Throughout the game’s dungeons and legacy areas, certain walls appear solid but dissolve when attacked. Some of the game’s best-hidden secrets, including entire additional rooms and shortcuts, are concealed behind these invisible barriers. If an area feels like it should continue but doesn’t, try hitting the walls.
• The Flask of Wondrous Physick can be customised. Found at the Third Church of Marika in Limgrave, this special flask is separate from your standard healing flasks and can hold two Crystal Tear effects, mixed at any Site of Grace. Minor Erdtrees around the world drop these tears when their bosses are defeated. Combining effects such as the Cerulean Hidden Tear (removes FP costs for fifteen seconds) with a damage-boosting tear can enable devastating combinations before major boss encounters.
• Rune Arcs amplify your equipped Great Rune. After defeating a major boss such as Godrick the Grafted, you can activate their Great Rune at the corresponding Divine Tower. Equipping the rune does nothing on its own, but consuming a Rune Arc activates it, providing significant stat boosts that last until your next death. Godrick’s Great Rune, one of the first available, adds five points to all stats and is particularly valuable early on.
• Patches is hiding in Murkwater Cave. The fan-favourite FromSoftware NPC Patches can be found in Murkwater Cave, located along a narrow gorge in Agheel Lake in Limgrave. He invades you partway through the cave, but if you defeat him and then spare his life when prompted, he becomes a merchant selling useful items throughout your playthrough. Do not kill him.

Build & Progression Tips

• You can respec your character after defeating Rennala. Once you beat Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon in the Academy of Raya Lucaria, you can speak to her to reassign all your stat points using a Larval Tear. These are limited per playthrough, so do not discard them. This means early build decisions are not permanent, so experiment freely.
• The Samurai class starts with one of the best weapons in the game. The Uchigatana has innate bleed buildup and excellent damage scaling for Dexterity builds. If you are unsure which class to pick and want an edge in the early game, the Samurai is an outstanding choice.
• Ashes of War let you customise weapon skills. These can be applied to most weapons at any Site of Grace using a Whetstone Knife (found at Gatefront Ruins). They change the weapon’s special attack, activated with L2, and can also alter the stat scaling of the weapon itself. Experimenting with different Ashes of War is one of the most rewarding parts of build-crafting in Elden Ring.

Video Walkthroughs

For players new to the Souls genre, this comprehensive beginner-focused tips and tricks video is an excellent starting point before diving into the Lands Between:

ULTIMATE Elden Ring Beginner Guide — Tips and Tricks

For a full step-by-step walkthrough of the entire game, the IGN Elden Ring Walkthrough playlist is one of the most thorough available:

Elden Ring Full Walkthrough Playlist — IGN

Good luck!

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There is a particular kind of magic that only the very best platform games possess — the sort that makes you forget you’re holding a controller and convinces you that you’re genuinely along for the ride. Team Asobi’s Astro Bot, released exclusively on PS5 in September 2024, belongs firmly in that rarefied company. PlayStation’s diminutive mascot has quietly been building up to this moment through a VR outing and the console’s pack-in tech demo, Astro’s Playroom, but this is the game that truly announces him as an all-timer. If Nintendo has Mario, PlayStation now has Astro, and on the evidence here, they needn’t feel the slightest bit embarrassed about that comparison.

The premise is cheerfully daft and all the better for it. Astro and 300 of his fellow robots are cruising through the cosmos aboard a spaceship that bears a remarkable resemblance to a PS5 console (subtle, Team Asobi, very subtle), when a googly-eyed alien swoops in, strips the ship for parts, and scatters the crew across five galaxies. Off you trot, then, to rescue your pals and piece the mothership back together. The story is wafer-thin by design, but the moment-to-moment joy of actually playing the thing more than fills the gap. Each of the game’s 80-odd levels is a self-contained burst of invention, rarely lasting more than ten minutes but crammed with ideas that most developers would be delighted to build an entire game around.

What makes Astro Bot so consistently thrilling is how it refuses to coast. At the start of almost every level, Astro dons a new suit or backpack that grants a fresh ability, and the game’s designers wring every last drop of potential from each one before quietly retiring it. Spring-powered boxing gloves, a rocket-boosting robo-dog, a time-freezing gadget, an armoured ball suit — the ideas arrive at a pace that would feel exhausting if they weren’t executed so brilliantly. The DualSense controller is also put to exceptional use throughout, with haptic feedback, adaptive triggers and gyro controls woven into the gameplay in ways that feel genuinely purposeful rather than gimmicky. It is, without question, the finest showcase the PS5’s controller has ever received.

The game is also a lavish love letter to PlayStation’s history, and this is where it earns a special place in the hearts of long-time fans. Across the Crash Site hub world and the game’s many levels, you’ll encounter robots styled after iconic characters spanning thirty years of PlayStation heritage, from Crash Bandicoot and Ratchet to Solid Snake and Kratos. One gloriously daft level, Bot of War, has Astro tooling around as a chibi Kratos, Leviathan Axe and all, while another, Dude Raiding, casts him as Nathan Drake. These are not cynical cameos bolted on for applause; they are lovingly crafted, interactive and funny, and they speak to a development team that clearly has enormous affection for the library they’re celebrating. At its best, it feels like Nintendo’s “look at all our wonderful toys” approach, translated into PlayStation terms with considerable charm.

Visually and aurally, the game is a treat from start to finish. It runs at a smooth 60 frames per second without so much as a stutter, renders its colourful worlds with a vibrancy that puts many supposedly more “serious” titles to shame, and boasts a soundtrack so infectiously catchy that you will very likely find yourself humming it at inopportune moments for weeks afterwards. The runtime of around 10 to 15 hours might leave some players wanting more, but it is paced to near perfection, and there is ample reason to return for completionists chasing down every hidden bot, puzzle piece and secret level exit. Astro Bot is a masterpiece of the platforming genre and arguably the best game currently available on PS5. A range of hints, tips, Easter eggs and secrets to help you on your way can be found below.

Astro Bot: Hints, Tips & Easter Eggs

General Tips

• Check your collectible totals before entering a level. Press the Square button when hovering over a world on the map to see exactly how many bots, puzzle pieces and secret exits it contains. This helps you spot gaps early and plan revisits accordingly.
• You don’t need to finish a level to keep a collectible. If you revisit a level to grab a missed bot or puzzle piece, you can quit back to the galaxy map as soon as you’ve collected it. You won’t lose your find, and you won’t have to replay boss encounters.
• Save your coins for the Gacha Lab, not the bird guide. After beating a level, you can pay 200 coins at the start to summon a bird that marks all missed collectibles. This is handy in a pinch, but if you’re aiming for Platinum you’ll need around 15,000 coins for the Gacha Lab. Prioritise the Gacha, and use the bird only when you’re genuinely stuck.
• Explore the galaxy overworld maps thoroughly. Each galaxy’s map is not just a menu screen. Fly your DualSense spaceship around and you’ll find comets to ram, roaming ships with puzzle pieces in their tractor beams, and other hidden events. Each galaxy also has one puzzle piece floating freely on its overworld map that isn’t tied to any level.
• Secret level exits unlock the Lost Galaxy. There are ten hidden exits scattered across the five main nebulas. Finding each one opens a special level in the Lost Galaxy, and completing all ten unlocks an eleventh bonus level. These exits can be tricky to spot, so explore off the beaten path.
• Slow down and interact with everything. Many of the game’s funniest and most rewarding moments come from experimenting with the environment. Punch walls, pull on dangling cables, blow into the DualSense microphone when prompted, and generally be curious. The game rewards players who poke at the world.

Easter Eggs & Secrets

• The PS5 parts sing at the Crash Site. As you rescue the various components of the mothership and bots build scaffolding around the PS5 wreckage, head to the shorter scaffold and climb to the top. The repaired parts of the console will open up and sing along with the Crash Site’s music, using vocal tracks pulled directly from Astro’s Playroom.
• Whack the VIP bots for hidden interactions. Many of the rescued PlayStation character bots at the Crash Site have secret animations when you punch them. Hitting Ratchet sends Bolts flying everywhere. Hitting Rivet shoots her through a rift before dropping her back. Hitting Kazuma Kiryu from Yakuza causes all manner of random objects to spill out of him, including RC cars and improvised weapons — a lovely nod to his series’ signature brawling chaos.
• Bot of War hides eight ravens. The God of War tribute level contains eight green ravens — Odin’s Eyes of the All-Father — to track down and destroy. One is visible as you fly into the level on the Dual Speeder, destroyed using gyro controls. The rest are hidden throughout the stage. Finding and destroying all eight earns you a PSN trophy. There is also a mural elsewhere in the level that tracks how many you’ve found.
• Summon Jormungandr in Bot of War. In the Bot of War level, find the pool of icy water and break the block of ice to reveal cables. Pull them to uncover a horn, then blow into the DualSense microphone to summon Jormungandr the World Serpent. Climb onto its back to reach a hidden Thor bot.
• Unlock Crash Bandicoot’s special interaction via the Gacha Lab. Crash is one of the first VIP bots you rescue, but his secret interaction only becomes available once you’ve obtained his companion item, Aku Aku, from the Gacha Lab. Once you have it, head back to Crash’s spot at the Crash Site to trigger the surprise.
• Dude Raider’s hidden egg artefacts. The Nathan Drake tribute level, Dude Raiding, contains three hidden egg artefacts to find and collect by hitting them. Locating all three is required for a specific PSN trophy, so keep your eyes peeled as you play through the level.

Platinum Trophy Tips

• For the Platinum, you will need all 300 bots, all 120 puzzle pieces, all 10 Lost Galaxy secret exits, and 150 items from the Gacha Lab (at 100 coins each, that’s a minimum of 15,000 coins). Playing through the full game while collecting everything as you go should yield close to the required coin total naturally.
• Once you have all 120 puzzle pieces, the Golden Statue is unlocked at the Crash Site. With all 300 bots in hand, you can run up the wall of bots to access the Great Master Challenge — a final platforming gauntlet that rewards you with the Special Master Bot upon completion.
• After completing the main game, the Stellar Speedway DLC galaxy becomes available. This contains speedrun levels with their own Special Bots to collect.

Video Walkthrough

For a comprehensive video guide covering the full game with all bots, puzzle pieces, secret exits and Platinum trophy requirements, check out the following 100% walkthrough on YouTube:

ASTRO BOT — Full Game 100% Walkthrough (PS5)

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