Who would have thought that there’s a new Elden Ring game again, this time a proper, new title right after last year’s excellent expansion DLC. I honestly was hoping for Armored Core VI’s turn for an expansion treatment, but we’re getting Elden Ring Nightreign.
On the surface, this multiplayer-focused entry sounds like the designers at FromSoftware looked around the market, played all the current trending multiplayer games, and just jam as many mechanics as they could into an Elden Ring-shaped hole. It’s a roguelike, also a roguelite with some perma-unlocks, and a hero-based game with predefined characters and kits. But also a PVE-only battle royale with its style of looting? And the concept of laning, split-pushing and jungling applies?
Two Nights, Three Days At Limveld
I participated in the Elden Ring Nightreign Network Test last weekend, and as newfound soulsliker, I am highly impressed with what I’ve played. It’s a soulslike unlike any other, in a weird way. While others follow in FromSoft’s footsteps as pioneers in this RPG subgenre, meandering a bit here and there by bringing new elements to the core gameplay loop, Nightreign steers back into the mainstream path of multiplayer live service games. And miraculously, it all works.
So what’s the gameplay loop of Elden Ring Nightreign looks like? You load into the Roundtable Hold, which is same-same-but-different from Elden Ring’s hub world of the same name. Here you can swap characters (four were available during the test), practice your moveset against dummies and one marionette soldier, equip different weapons that you may encounter (and that’s more or less all of the different armaments you can find across Elden Ring and Shadow Of The Erdtree which is a lot) and there’s a relic system where you can slot in relics for different passives, which drops every run.
Once ready, you can queue up either via random matchmaking or using passwords (there’s no party invite system like any conventional multiplayer games, so we have to make do with FromSoft’s solution of private lobbies with passwords) and fly off to the map.
Where We’re Droppin’ Boys?
The map itself, supposedly the new lands of Limveld, feels like a compilation of Elden Ring’s best locales, packaged into denser hotspots. There are enemy camps, derelict ruins, castles and keeps, mines and more. All of them sported some semblances of familiar places you encounter in Elden Ring proper. In other words, this is some good asset reuse. The enemies you encounter should be something fans of the original game be familiar with as well.
Together as a trio, you need to survive three days, where each night marks an inevitable boss fight. You can die and respawn normally during the day (at the cost losing one level of your character), but a whole wipe at night means that’s the run.
So you have to prepare sufficiently before night falls. And that means you have to smack those goons, grab those runes, and get level up pronto. Time is of the essence and not just that, the area you can explore will gradually shrink as a flaming circle, a ring if you will, will give you damage-over-time if you’re not within the play area.
We’re Looking For Jungle, I’m Afraid
There are many fantastic design changes that makes the idea of playing a co-op soulslike with elements ranging from MOBAs to battle royales palatable. For one, you just fricking go. You move bloody fast when sprinting. It’s unreal.
Also, there’s no fall damage anymore, which facilitates the map’s design of having tons of verticality. Being able to just spam jump on a wall with the appropriate markers to climb a steep cliff, or just do a mega jump so high that they remove those slow floor elevators entirely, is a blast.
But having no fall damage will likely ruin my gaming instincts should I go back to regular Elden Ring.
You don’t need a Torrent. You have all of the horse mount’s moveset by default.
You don’t immediately die in Elden Ring Nightreign. But if you’re in the down-but-not-out state, allies don’t need to hold a button to revive. Instead, just hit them with a weapon or spell. Which is simpler, and also something you can use tactically. Have someone die at the face of a boss, and then have a teammate come get them by doing their attack in that it also hits the boss. Two birds, one stone.
Another design choice they made I appreciate a lot is how levelling works. You don’t get to see other player’s level, which should alleviate any potential toxicity from seeing a less skilled player cannot keep up. And any player can still get runes from another player’s kill, even if they’re nowhere near to the encounter. While I spent most of my time killing mobs together as a group, you can theoretically have a player just go solo and do their thing, and that can still benefit the team. The concept of split-pushing in MOBAs apparently works here. Or is that jungling?
And on that note, there are optional boss fights where you can earn a lot of runes for levelling up as long as you can find the key to enter it. The Evegaol fights I’ve faced are no Roshan, but the fact that it reminded me of a game I barely play and refuse to, is impressive.
Still, the having to clearing outposts, which will include either one boss (shoutout to the Crucible Knight for being as tough as I remembered), or a shared health bar where you must clear a certain amount of those mobs (those bloody wormfaces and their Death Blights) is fun, as doing so gets you a pick-one-of-three random thing, which could be a weapon, a stat buff or a passive. These pick-one-of-three upgrades and the random drops you can find from treasure chests and breakable boxes gives Nightreign that roguelike (and battle royale) flavour. They’are all random. They can influence you in a trying a new build or playstyle. And these loot drops are not instances. So be kind and share.
But also, I need to remind you that almost all of the weapons and items in Elden Ring and its expansion can drop. There’s no question of a stale pool of drops, it might even be too much.
Elden Ring Legends
I have so many things to say about Nightreign and I haven’t mentioned about the playable characters still. The four available during the test are smartly designed for different player archetypes.
For the vanilla Elden Ring experience, you have Wylder, who also happens to have a grappling hook that gets him close to an enemy real quick, and his ultimate being a pilebunker attack, something Armored Core fans would love.
Guardian is for players who wishes to have more armour, be more unflinching so that you can land those long and meaty attacks. The stalwart has an area-of-effect attack and what’s essentially a Dragoon drop that also gives nearby allies a defensive buff.
Meanwhile, if you prefer a light build, Duchess can dodge for days where she can continuously having i-frames from her non-stop dodges (as long as she has the stamina for them). The spectral thing she does seems to do… something, but being able to go invisible is handy for those backstabs, or desperate times where you need to go revive someone.
Recluse is for those who love magic builds, with the ability to replenish FP from smart play so she can cast spells all the time.
Essentially, every character has a different playstyle to start with. But you can always evolve them in weird ways during the runs. Nothing stops you from being a spellcasting Guardian or a Duchess that swings a colossal weapon. And who knows, if you get the right buffs, it might actually work. I look forward to seeing a character dedicated to bows and incantations. There has to be one that specialised in either.
Closing Thoughts
All in all, Elden Ring Nightreign is a fantastic amalgamation of the latest design trends in multiplayer games grafted onto an already deep and complex soulslike. It doesn’t play the same as regular Elden Ring as a result, but it also plays unlike any other soulslike. It’s a fascinating concoction of ideas that, for now, seems to be smartly executed.
I walked away from the test being really excited with what other weird surprises the game has to offer. There was one time where out of nowhere we got ganked by an unexpected boss fight in the middle of the day, seemingly unprompted. I joked that a Five Nights At Freddy’s mechanic might trigger and apparently it happened.
Truly one of the games of the year to look forward to.
Played on PS5. Beta code provided by the publisher.