What You're Actually Looking For When You Search for an Elden Ring Completionist Guide
Most people searching for an Elden Ring Completionist Guide aren't actually after a list of every item in the game. They want to know which choices matter and which ones don't, because there are roughly 4000+ collectibles, achievements, side quests, and NG+ mechanics that can easily consume 150 to 200 hours if you try to do everything at once. The real value in any completion run isn't the exhaustive checklist. It's knowing the order and timing of certain actions so you don't lock yourself out of content. I spent about 60 hours on my first full completion attempt and burned another 40 reorganizing everything I had learned the hard way. The core problem everyone runs into is that several key items and Spirit Ashes get consumed or permanently locked behind choices made before you even realize those choices exist. The most common example is how the Jar-bairn Spirit Ash works. You find Jar-Shaik in Liurnia during the main story. She asks you to bring her a Golden Jar Shard from the nearby jar lake. If you give it to her, you get the Jar-Shield and a piece of lore. If you skip it, nothing catastrophic happens to your main progression. But then you reach Mohgwyn Palace later, meet the other Jar-bairn NPC, and learn that this same jar shard is required for the full Jar-bairn Spirit Ash questline. Without it, you only get one of three possible Spirit Ash rewards from that entire chain. I missed this on my first playthrough and had to restart because I was already past the point of no return for that particular quest line. The workaround is simple: pick up the Golden Jar Shard from the lake near the Church of Inhibition in Liurnia before you speak to Jar-Shaik, but don't give it to her yet. Take a screenshot or just leave it in your inventory and revisit when you reach Mohgwyn Palace. The NPCs in that late-game area will trigger differently and you can complete the full quest.
This kind of timing issue shows up constantly throughout the game. There are roughly 22 different Spirit Ashes you can acquire, but 4 of them require you to not have triggered certain story events too early. The game doesn't warn you about this. It just assumes you'll figure it out through trial and error or external resources.
NG+ and What It Actually Changes for Completionists
Many players think New Game Plus resets everything you need to chase for 100% completion. It does not. Here is what actually carries over: your character level, equipment, most spell incantations and sorceries, map progress in certain categories, and several quest flags that determine NPC placement. What resets: boss health and damage output (enemies get roughly 15 to 20 percent more health and damage per NG+ cycle), dungeon layouts for optional areas, and some enemy placements in late-game zones. The counter-intuitive part is that doing certain quests in NG+1 is actually easier than in the base game because of how the enemy scaling interacts with your upgraded gear. I found this out when chasing the full version of the Millicent questline. The initial fight against Malenia's blade requires very specific handling, but in NG+2 the increased damage you deal with your late-game builds lets you whittle her down much faster while she still hits hard enough to be a meaningful challenge. Running this quest in NG+1 alone feels tedious. In NG+3 and beyond it becomes straightforward enough that I would recommend saving this particular quest for your third or fourth playthrough rather than trying to force it in NG+1. There are 9 different endings in Elden Ring depending on which choice paths you trigger and whether you complete specific quest chains. A single playthrough will almost never expose more than 3 or 4 of them unless you deliberately sequence-break through certain areas. My recommendation is to map out which endings require which quest lines before you start each new cycle. The two most commonly missed endings are the Age of Duskborn and the Lord of Frenzied Flame ending, and both require you to not have defeated Rennala until after certain other story flags are set. If you defeat Rennala too early, these endings become permanently unavailable in that save file.
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Collectibles That People consistently Miss
Beyond the spirit ashes and ending-related items, there are several weapon upgrade materials and crafting materials that are easy to miss because they require backtracking through areas you have already cleared. The primary example is the Somber Smithing Stone drops from certain chest locations that only become accessible after specific story milestones trigger new paths in the map. I lost about 6 hours on my second playthrough retracing the Consecrated Snowfield because I had already collected all the standard Smithing Stones in that zone but missed the somber variants that appeared after the Haligtree main quest line was completed. The somber stones are in the exact same locations but in different chests. The game does not visually differentiate between normal and somber chests. They look identical until you open them. Other frequently missed collectibles include the 12 Talisman Pouch upgrades (which require killing specific demigods in a particular order and also involve a few NPC quest lines), the full set of 54 talismans across the world, and several craft sites that require finding hidden entrances behind destructible walls in areas like the Altus Plateau and the Mountaintops of the Giants. One particularly frustrating case is the Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone you only get from one location per playthrough. There are 4 of them total across the map, but 3 of them are locked behind optional boss fights that many players skip entirely. The one from the Divine Tower of Caelid is the easiest to get because the boss fight against Radahn is part of the main story path. The other three are in the Divine Towers of East Altus, Leyndell, and the Mountaintops. Missing any of these means you cannot fully upgrade any weapon to the highest tier in that cycle.
Timing Your Playthroughs for Maximum Efficiency
If you want to complete the game without wasting time, the order in which you tackle each area matters significantly. The general sequence I use is: Libera to Mohgwyn to the Mountaintops to the Haligtree to the Consecrated Snowfield. This minimizes backtracking because each area unlocks progressively more fast travel points and NPC availability. There are roughly 75 fast travel sites across the map and you unlock them at a rate of about 20 per major story beat. Missing the optimal unlock order can add 2 to 3 hours to your total playtime purely from unnecessary traversal. One final note about the completionist approach: not everything is grindable in a single playthrough. Certain quest lines require you to die to specific bosses and replay sections to access them. The game does not have a save-scum feature built in. You need to manually use the "Return to Site of Grace" option and then reload a previous save file if you want to retry a specific encounter. This adds friction to completion runs but is necessary for getting the full set of achievements and unlocks. If you prefer not to deal with this, consider using a second playthrough specifically for the missed content rather than trying to optimize every angle in your first run.
