Welcome back, Tarnished. Another month in the Lands Between means another collection of articles where we celebrated competitive chaos, mourned delays, hunted down precious resources, and questioned our life choices regarding which spirit summons deserve our FP.
October was packed. We kicked things off with Bingo Brawlers Season 5 bringing that beautiful 2v2 format back for another season of coordinated suffering. We tracked the rocky journey of Tarnished Edition from “wowie zowie, this is terrible” at Gamescom to its eventual (and honestly correct) delay into 2026. We mapped every single Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone location because some of you refuse to commit to a weapon until you’ve agonized over the decision for forty hours. We continued our reviews of questionable spirit summons with Depraved Perfumer Carmaan – the ally who treats “friendly fire” as a suggestion rather than a concern.
And because regular Elden Ring apparently wasn’t chaotic enough, we covered RandoCalypse, the tournament format that asks “what if every item pickup was a strategic gamble and also you might spawn in Caelid?”
A New Season Begins: Bingo Brawlers S5 Launches Oct 3rd
We broke down everything you need to know about this year’s tournament format, and spoiler alert: it’s the 2v2 chaos that proved so successful during the Exhibition Weekend. Picture this – one teammate tackling base game objectives while their partner suffers through Shadow of the Erdtree content, all while racing against another duo on a randomized 5×5 bingo board. Once a square gets claimed, it’s gone. No take-backs, no mercy, just pure strategic panic.
The Bingo Brawlers Weapon Randomizer keeps things spicy by scrambling weapon drops, shop inventories, and starting class stats. Will you get blessed with bleed weapons or cursed with throwing pots? That’s half the fun, right? (It’s not. We all know RNG is a cruel mistress.)
We covered the full lineup of six teams featuring returning veterans and fresh blood, explained the lockout format that rewards both individual skill and coordinated teamwork, and laid out the round-robin schedule leading to the semi-finals. Throughout the season, we tracked all the match results, bracket progression, and those absolutely clutch moments where victory came down to literal seconds.
Whether you’re into competitive Elden Ring or just love watching skilled players navigate FromSoft’s beautiful nightmare, this article has you covered.
ER Tarnished Edition Will Be Showcased at gamescom asia 2025
Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition was getting the full showcase treatment at gamescom asia x Thailand Game Show 2025, and we covered everything you need to know about this definitive edition.
Here’s the pitch: new starting classes, fresh armor sets, additional runes for your build-crafting obsession, and – brace yourself – three new Torrent skins. Because nothing says “I’ve conquered every demigod” quite like a fancy horse cosmetic, right? More importantly, this marks Elden Ring’s debut on Nintendo Switch 2, meaning you can now experience getting destroyed by Malenia while commuting. What a time to be alive.
But here’s where it gets interesting. We tracked the performance journey from “really bad” at Gamescom Cologne (Bandai wouldn’t even let people record footage – yikes) to “significantly improved” at PAX West, all the way to Lance McDonald’s PAX Australia hands-on where he reported stable 1080p/30fps with PS4 Pro-level visuals in handheld mode. That’s actually impressive for portable play.
Three years post-launch and Elden Ring still refuses to let us rest. Not that we’re complaining.
Full Guide to Ancient Dragon Smithing Stones in Elden Ring
You’ve finally got that perfect weapon build figured out. You’ve committed to your bonk stick or your pokey sword or whatever instrument of death speaks to your Tarnished soul. Now you just need to max it out, right? Well, buckle up, because we just dropped the ultimate treasure map for every single Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone in the game.
Here’s the reality check: there are only 13 regular Ancient Dragon Smithing Stones and 8 Somber ones in the base game. That’s it. No farming, no grinding, just careful exploration and quest completion. Choose your weapon upgrades wisely, or enjoy explaining to yourself why you wasted a stone on that cool-looking sword you used for exactly one boss fight.
We broke down every single location – from quest rewards (looking at you, Nepheli and Sellen) to the dragon-infested nightmare that is Crumbling Farum Azula, the frozen hellscape of Consecrated Snowfield, and the absolute nightmare elevator that is Miquella’s Haligtree. Remember fighting those two Night’s Cavalry at once for that stone? Yeah, we covered that trauma too.
The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC adds another 8 Ancient and 6 Somber stones to the mix, scattered across new areas like Jagged Peak and Enir-Ilim. We mapped out every Ghostflame Dragon, every hidden forge, and every “why is this stone in such an annoying spot” location.
Once they’re gone, they’re gone until New Game Plus. No pressure though – just make sure every upgrade counts!
The Mostly Reliable Guide: Depraved Perfumer Carmaan
Ever wondered what happens when you give a deranged nobleman access to explosives and call it “support”? Welcome to Depraved Perfumer Carmaan, the spirit summon that treats combat like a chemistry experiment gone beautifully, catastrophically wrong.
This fashionably unhinged ally costs 124 FP to summon (a number that feels both arbitrary and personally offensive), throws bottles with the precision of a drunk juggler, and occasionally stops mid-battle to admire their handiwork. It’s like hiring a pharmacist who moonlights as an arsonist, except you’re paying them in Focus Points instead of actual currency.
The pros? Carmaan can heal themselves twice, has surprising health, and creates excellent area denial through sheer chaos. The cons? Their targeting system believes “close enough” is a precise measurement, they won’t heal you (self-care only, apparently), and there’s a non-zero chance you’ll get set on fire by your own ally. We’re calling that a “feature.”
We broke down the optimal usage scenarios (wide-open spaces where their erratic throwing arm can’t hit you as easily), noted their particular effectiveness against enemies confused by colorful chemical clouds, and strongly recommended fire-resistant equipment. Not because you don’t trust Carmaan, but because you absolutely shouldn’t trust Carmaan.
Rating: 7.4/10 on the “Chaotic Neutral Enthusiast” scale. Deploy responsibly, and maybe keep a safe distance.
Quality Over Speed: Tarnished Edition Delayed to 2026
FromSoftware just pushed Tarnished Edition to 2026 for “performance adjustments,” and honestly? It’s the right call, even if it stings.
We walked through the entire performance saga from Gamescom disaster (15 FPS, no recording allowed, comparisons to N64-era Ocarina of Time) to PAX West redemption arc (noticeably improved, actual confidence to let people film it). The trajectory was genuinely positive – so why delay when things were clearly improving?
Because “better” isn’t the same as “good enough.” In a game where you need frame-perfect dodge rolls to survive Margit, let alone Malenia, “occasional stutters” isn’t acceptable. FromSoftware knows this, and they’re choosing quality over hitting a 2025 release date. That’s actually refreshing in an industry that usually ships broken and patches later.
We covered what Tarnished Edition actually includes (two new starting classes, fresh armor, Torrent cosmetics, all DLC content), the surprisingly positive community reaction despite the disappointment, and what this delay says about FromSoftware’s priorities. Turns out fans would rather wait for excellence than settle for a compromised port of a game that’s sold 30+ million copies.
The silver lining? That extra dev time might mean even more surprises than they’re currently announcing. Plus, the new content is coming to all platforms in 2026 anyway, so whether you’re waiting for portable or diving back in on your main rig, we’re all getting something worth the wait.
RandoCalypse: An Elden Ring Tournament of Deliberate Chaos
Think you’ve mastered Elden Ring? Congratulations, none of that matters now. Welcome to RandoCalypse, the tournament that looks at your hundreds of hours of routing practice and says “lol, nope.”
We broke down this beautifully sadistic competition that combines randomizer chaos with auto-equip mechanics, creating a format where every item pickup is a strategic gamble. Found a helmet? You’re wearing it. Picked up a dagger when you’re built for strength? Too bad, that’s your weapon now. It’s like playing Russian roulette with your build, except the gun is loaded with fashion disasters and stat mismatches.
The tournament runs in three phases: Qualifiers (seven randomized seeds, one hour each, one attempt only), a 32-player single-elimination bracket, and Grand Finals where things get truly spicy. Here’s where it gets mean – death penalties escalate from -1 point in qualifiers to -3 points in finals. One careless death in the championship? That’s three boss kills you just threw away. Hope you weren’t attached to that lead.
We covered the random spawn lottery (anywhere from Limgrave to DLC zones), the scoring system that punishes deaths as much as it rewards boss kills, and why you absolutely cannot farm easy bosses from lower-level areas. The format strips away memorization and muscle memory, replacing them with pure adaptation and split-second risk assessment.
Can you handle auto-equipping random gear while fighting randomized bosses in unknown locations? The chaos awaits, Tarnished. Stream it or it didn’t happen.
That’s October, Tarnished
And there you have it – another month of dying to bosses, optimizing builds we’ll abandon in three days, and watching competitive players do things with this game that make us question our own competence. You know, the usual.
Looking ahead, November promises even more action. Bingo Brawlers Season 5 is heading into the semi-finals and Grand Finals, which means we’ll get to watch the best teams in the world coordinate across base game and DLC simultaneously while the rest of us can barely coordinate our flask usage. RandoCalypse will be moving from qualifiers into the bracket stage, where the chaos intensifies and death penalties get even more punishing.
Whether you’re grinding out those last few smithing stones, practicing your dodges for the hundredth time, or just trying to figure out which spirit summon won’t actively betray you mid-fight, we’ll be here documenting the madness.
Stay strong, Tarnished. May your rolls be perfect and your summons only occasionally treacherous.
See you next month.
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