Elden Ring has spawned enough surrounding work that the ordering question comes up constantly.

Short answer

Treat it as supplementary. Enjoyable on its own, and richer if you have played first.

Licensed soundtracks are the most likely part to be missing from a re-release. Official art books contain material that never appears in the game itself. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you.

Whether it is worth your time

Fan work is frequently better than official work and is not the same thing. Release order and chronological order are different, and both have their advocates. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why. Canon status is decided by the developers rather than by the adaptation's writers.

Adaptations take liberties, and the interesting ones take them deliberately. If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over. Assets circulated online are often ripped rather than released, which affects what you can legally do with them.

Where to find it legitimately

A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds. Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters.

  • Play first if you mind spoilers — adaptations rarely respect them.
  • Buy from the publisher's own store where one exists.
  • If a menu path does not exist for you, your build is older or newer than the one described.
  • Look for an official assets page before downloading anything.
  • Credit fan artists if you reuse their work.
  • Stop and reassess after two failed attempts rather than repeating the third.

What is fan-made

If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first. Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep.

What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it. It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different. The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time.

Where it fits with the game

If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on. Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see. None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of.

Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration. Elden Ring is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look. Everything below is framed around the current state of Elden Ring rather than a launch-week impression.

What exists officially

The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice. Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional. Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work.

Where people go wrong

  • Assuming a guide from an older season still describes the current version.
  • Trusting a video thumbnail that promises a result the video never actually shows.
  • Grinding a method that was patched months ago because a thread still ranks well.

Elden Ring FAQ

Why do other guides describe this differently?

Most were written for an earlier version and never revisited. Compare the steps against what your build actually shows.

Does this work the same on console and PC?

The logic is identical. Menu paths and button prompts differ, and any real difference is flagged above.

Do I need any mods or third-party tools for this?

No. Everything described here works with the base game on any supported platform.

Is this still accurate after the latest Elden Ring update?

The method is; individual numbers may not be. If a value on your screen differs, trust the screen and keep the sequence.

Come back to the caveats list if it does not work first time — the answer is almost always in there.