Elden Ring Vagabond and Hero classes revealed ahead of launch

What you need to know

• Elden Ring developer FromSoftware has revealed its Vagabond and Hero classes ahead of the game's launch.
• The Vagabond is an exiled knight with a greatsword, while the Hero is a descendant of a badlands chieftain with a battleaxe.
• Right now, we know about seven classes that are expected to appear in Elden Ring, though the expected addition of a Deprived class raises that number to eight.
• Elden Ring is slated to release on Feb. 25, 2022.

Ahead of the game's launch on Feb. 25, 2022, FromSoftware has revealed two more of Elden Ring's classes: the Vagabond and the Hero. The former is described as an exiled knight with a "solid, armor-clad origin," and they appear to wield a greatsword, indicating that they likely have high base Strength. The latter is a lightly-armored warrior equipped with a battleaxe, and is said to be "descended from a badlands chieftain." We expect that the Hero will have a fair amount of Strength as well since they use a battleaxe, but they likely have some Dexterity as well.

With the addition of the Vagabond and Hero, Elden Ring now appears to have seven classes — the others being the Bloody Wolf, Champion, Prophet, Enchanted Knight, and Warrior — that players can start with when creating a new character.

It's likely that Elden Ring will also feature a Deprived class like previous FromSoftware games did, which would raise the total number of classes to eight. This class is known for starting out with little to no armor and a simple club, and also usually has the lowest starting level and a completely even stat distribution. Deprived is generally the hardest class to start out as, but Deprived characters are easy to eventually mold into whatever type of character you'd like since they start at a lower level and don't start out with any "spiky" stat distribution.

It's also important to note that some or all of the five classes that were available during the Elden Ring Network Test could be replaced with other classes in the full version of the game. There may also be some classes that we won't learn about until the game launches, meaning that there may be more than eight classes to choose from. Ultimately, we won't know until Elden Ring releases on Feb. 25, 2022. Elden Ring preorders are available now if you'd like to purchase your copy of the game before it arrives.